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If Uber just focuses on ride-sharing, without innovation, it's unclear to me how they could survive.

They seem to scale in reverse. That is, an Uber that runs in the US and the UK will cost more to operate than an Uber that runs in just the US. An Uber that runs in one state will cost less than an Uber that runs in a whole country, and so on. The more diverse an area you serve, the more legislation and markets you have to deal with, more hours you'll have high customer support load, and the less well you will be able to analyze and react to trends in individual markets.

What stops me, then, in an era where Uber isn't fueled by investor money every trip, from being a competitor with Uber? Raise a few million dollars, get a simple app together with a few friends, and then convince drivers to try (take a lot of short Uber rides and pitch good drivers) and riders to ride. I'd have less staff, less overhead, and therefore less costs. The savings could be passed on equally to the drivers and riders. I could give discounts on nights when there was a big game, I could advertise in local areas, I could poach good drivers from Uber, etc.

It seems to me there is no way for Uber to be competitive if they aren't using investor to subsidize the price of rides. There is nothing, that I am aware of, that is impossible or expensive to replicate in their tech.

I don't think you understand their business. The code that supports the US market also supports the UK market, it needs changes for currency/regulations, but it's not being entirely rewritten. Providing the booking service for a ride can't cost more than a few cents, and they get paid a few dollars.

And Uber has hundreds of competitors, and it's crushing all of them because of brand. I have Uber on my phone. I will never have your app. Getting app installs is hugely expensive and they have a huge lead. Even if you pay for installs, people will delete your app as soon as they realize you don't have as many drivers.

They have a huge lead in a big market. They need to not lose that.

When I say that they need more people, I mean that they need customer service that can handle the new market, legal people for the new laws, finance people for the taxes, etc. I'm aware they can largely reuse the code that underlies their service.

People do switch their ride solution. For example, I used to use taxis when I needed to hire a ride. I switched to uber because it was easier and cheaper. If something was as easy and cheaper, I'd use that instead (For example, I use lyft whenever it has a better price and I have the time to check).

Building a competitor for a single city seems plausible. I don't think there is a technology related hurdle. All you need is the capital to build the brand and to be competitive on price.

I wonder if Uber should explore some type of franchise model. I don't think I've seen anything like this in tech but it would allow them to offload some of the local costs/complexities to a presumably more locally dialed in franchisee, while maintaining a focus on their core tech & brand marketing. Despite the spate of HR/PR disasters, the Uber brand is still extremely strong.

I think we need to make peace with the word innovation sometimes. Innovation should be realistic in the right timing. Surely autonomous car is a really interesting future, but Uber has plenty of organizational problems require urgent and decisive surgery.

Abandon the auto project and UberEats (I don't even know if UberEats is even profitable or how many people actually use it) will allow the company to focus on core problems. How can you clean your house if your kids constantly go around the house making a mess? Let's get the house cleaned first then we worry about how to correct the kids' behaviors. Basically, do one thing well enough before moving to another.

They really need to focus on growing in cities and countries where they face competitions but already have a strong root. I understand the awesomeness to be the bigges, but look at Uber China, Uber had to parnter with Di Di instead (Uber doesn't run its business in mainland China anymore). Uber also recently shut down its business in Marcu because the drivers were fined so much no one would work for Uber.

For what it's worth, my understanding is that Uber eats is more profitable than the core ride-sharing business.

You must mean less unprofitable.

Not really disagreeing with the rest of this comment, but a couple of points:

> given they'll be freely available for purchase from Tesla, GM, etc when created

Tesla has a built-in "feature" in their cars, to make OTA updates to the software running the car. One part of the vision of buying a Tesla, is supposed to be the day when customers let their autonomous car "work" for them while they are not using it.

I don't think it's a huge stretch of imagination for Tesla to come out with it's own version of the ride sharing parts of Uber when autonomous driving becomes a full reality with their cars. They could eat Uber at this point.

> Thats a plan that gives Uber a very long runway to achieve full profitability, even without an IPO.

Points 3, 4 & 5 of the plan are likely going to be very difficult! Why?

> 3) Focus everyone left on ride-sharing, improving the brand, and efficiently expanding internationally.

I'm fairly certain there are very smart, well-paid people already trying to do each of things at Uber, not sure how reducing headcount will magically improve the state of affairs here. Mythical man month like arguments come to mind.

> 4) Clean house in the HR department and of every remaining harasser.

If the company was built on a foundation of sexist and abrasive culture, rooting every one out will take a long time, not to mention disruptive as it involves disentangling the fiefdoms built by these people (who may even be doing a "good job", causing damage to raw business metrics in removing them). I'm not saying this shouldn't be done, I'm just saying "birds of a feather flock together", so if I may dare say, wholesale pest removal might unfortunately be low on the priority of any new exec. They would be more focussed on other matters and just treat the symptoms. Human nature.

> 5) Raise another round to ensure Uber's long term financial stability.

If Points 1 & 2 are followed, without the silver-talk of "constant innovation" and projections of "taking over global transportation with our technology" - raising private funds might get extremely challenging and may not have the expected results. At that point, an IPO might provide better success as public investors are interested in "business that execute" as well, as opposed to the private investment folks who look for returns in the Order(s) of Magnitude scale.

Let me address your points

1) It's possible Tesla could enter the ride-sharing market. And it's possible they could win. But I won't download a Tesla app until their service is as good a Ubers, and that's a huge barrier to overcome.

Uber's advantage is their massive lead in installed apps and available drivers. If they lose that, then they'll be at risk. Some autonomous company may pull it off, but the far more likely route is that Uber adds autonomous fast enough that none can catch them.

3) I'm not arguing to add headcount to ride-share, I'm arguing to add focus to it. Having a CEO 100% focused on ride-share instead of CEO 50% focused on ride-share and 50% focused on autonomous/uberEats/100 other side hustles will trickled down through exec staff, directors, etc.

4) Starting over in HR is your first start. You can't have a culture where people were allowed to hide problems or protect bad employees. It starts in HR.

5) An IPO is fine. It's all about financing the business over the long term, so the new CEO will pick the best possible financing path. And reducing burn rate might be enough alone to do it, since Uber should still have billions left in the bank.

Let's be fair, the $60B valuation was really dumb and won't be seen again for a long time if ever. You can't count on having investors as dumb as the Saudi's again.

I hope they don't do all of this. UberEATS is best in class. Seriously an order of magnitude better experience than all of the other food delivery apps.

Well put. I hope the new CEO reads this.