Uber had a good strategy, but its crisis meant Lyft had new life and the strategy was no longer workable. Now the company is pursuing something new, even though it is more complicated.
With the Economy Uncertain, Tech ‘Unicorns’ Rush Toward I.P.O. (Published 2018)
Faced with a choppy stock market and fears of an economic downturn, Uber and Lyft are moving toward the public markets as other private tech companies also get ready.
Uber’s Path of Destruction - American Affairs Journal
Since it began operations in 2010, Uber has grown to the point where it now collects over $45 billion in gross passenger revenue, and it has seized a major share of the urban car service market. But the widespread belief that it is a highly innovative and successful company has no basis in economic reality. An examination of Uber’s economics suggests that it has no hope of ever earning sustainable urban car service profits in competitive markets...
Super pumped: the battle for Uber
"A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the hard-charging CEO of Uber, was ousted in a boardroom coup that capped a brutal year for the transportation giant. Uber had catapulted to the top of the tech world yet for many came to symbolize everything wrong with Silicon Valley. In the tradition of Brad Stone's Everything Store and John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, award-winning investigative reporter Mike Isaac's Super Pumped delivers a gripping account of Uber's rapid rise, its pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture and the bare-knuckle tactics it devised to overcome obstacles in its quest for dominance. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a page-turning story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history"--
The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought
Silicon Valley CEOs are supposed to be sacrosanct. So how did it all go wrong at Uber?
Uber’s New CEO
Uber has a new CEO, and the reason he is a great choice explain why the Uber job is still an attractive one.
Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash (Published 2018)
Company documents obtained by The New York Times show Uber was becoming more aggressive with its autonomous car research, even as the technology faltered.
Mr. Money Mustache, UBER Driver
About two years ago, I switched from taking my personal car to the airport, to hailing Ubers and Lyfts. The math of it was pretty simple: Uber was cheaper than paying for my driving and parking*. A…
Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You via @ConsumerReports
Consumer Reports found Uber and Lyft use algorithmic pricing to give different consumers very different prices for the same rides.
Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber — Susan Fowler
As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in
Uber’s CEO is out because of pressure, not some ethical epiphany from the board
It’s hard to predict exactly how much pressure is needed to affect change, but it’s clear to see when there is enough. And there was finally enough to flush out Uber’s CEO. But let’s not kid oursel…
Uber caps employee AI spending after blowing through budget in 4 months | TechCrunch
Uber's cutback has occurred after the company had reportedly encouraged staff to use AI as much as possible.
Trying Tailscale.
Like most folks working in infrastructure engineering in 2014, I really enjoyed Google’s BeyondCorp whitepaper. My foremost personal interest was grounded in the fact that Uber’s contemporaneous security implementation didn’t include a VPN, so it was interesting to see a well-thought description of fostering security without over-reliance on a hardened network for employee devices. I had a second, longer-term, personal interest as well, which was never again having to argue with a coworker about why they needed to log into the VPN before accessing a secure resource.
Break Up the Tech Giants? No, Just Level the Field
Facebook, Google and Uber should be held to the same rules as their older rivals.
Google Takes on Uber With New Ride-Share Service
Google is moving onto Uber’s turf with its own ride-sharing service in San Francisco that would help commuters carpool at far cheaper rates, according to a person familiar with the matter, jumping into a booming but fiercely competitive market.
Optimizing impact: why I will not start an Envoy platform company
The following are my own views, and not that of my employer, Lyft.
Uber Caps Usage of AI Tools Like Claude Code to Manage Costs
I wrote the other day about Uber blowing its 2026 AI budget in four months, and how that wasn't particularly surprising given they would have set that budget in 2025, …