Uber Sets Valuation Record of $17B in New Funding
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Uber has serious revenue. They do more trips in San Francisco than taxis do. This isn't a pie-in-the-sky "there will be money there, I'm sure of it" thing. They bring in billions, and they're starting to win entire markets.
The on-demand-transportation market is enormous. I can literally see a future in which the majority of the taxi industry is now called "Uber." That's a big freaking deal.
What Uber can do doesn't even stop at "transportation." How many "Uber for X" startups have you seen? Uber could be all of them, and do all of that. They've nailed the difficult math behind the logistics issues - basically a scaled version of the traveling salesman problem. They do real math, and solve real problems.
I imagine a world where you can get anything on demand in minutes, and in that scenario Uber is the taxi, UPS, FedEx, etc. at the same time.
In a few years when self-driving cars become the norm (crossing my fingers), Uber will be even more valuable. I may be dreaming, but empty cars you can grab any time and take anywhere or request anything... it really is a beautiful thing.
This is so much bullshit it makes my eyes hurt. They "talk" about this a lot but it's not even related dude! Read some books.
I've chatted w/ some Uber engineers about this and the story I was told is that originally they were using Google Maps estimates. But the data is really important to capacity planning and giving travel time estimates within their app. And it was often very wrong. They even had a number -- something like "if you multiply google maps estimates by 1.5 they will actually be more accurate". So building a better version of this in-house, based on the millions of miles previously driven, was a very important and challenging problem.
I've taken hundreds of rides, and I don't think I've even once looked.
I find it to be a completely pointless part of the whole product - I already know roughly how far away something is, and how bad traffic may be. When I call an Uber, I simply look at the surrounding map and see where the cars are to get a decent estimate. The one they give is usually off by quite a bit, depending on who accepts the hail.
Given they are getting banned in entire markets, I think this evaluation is crazy.
UPS, Fedex, etc already have software just as advanced for planning their routes. Uber isn't going to magically beat them somehow. Heck, part of why they lean on the USPS is there is some economics in delivery outside of big cities that create a situation where it makes no sense for more than 1 delivery company to deliver for the entire area (and even then the USPS loses money on rural deliveries in some areas!).
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying this proves a bubble...I'm just saying Uber is overvalued given the fact they are going to get hit with regulations eventually that will squeeze their margins or be forced to retreat from numerous markets.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/uber-faces-rebukes-...
"Oh lets operate in Paris and not pay the licensing fee for a taxi service." Etc.
They've been completely and/or partially banned by more markets, larger markets than the entire country of Colombia at this point.
It is the same thing as AirBNB. You build the software service and then hire out contractors who don't comply with local laws and rake in the money.
I don't see that as a good, sustainable service at an evaluation larger than the entire US taxi market in the US. http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1951
They are going to hit like AirBNB was and have to play by the same rules as everyone else which will squeeze their margins. :/
Maybe this speaks to my bias against people who bend reasonable rules for profit.
Also, many of the people who were looking into investing agreed with that: "The bidding for Uber was so heated that some venture capital and private equity investors bailed out after the valuation soared beyond $10 billion, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the talks weren’t public."
Even if Uber manages to capture 25% of the market, it isn't going to hit $170B market cap.
I share the same "bias" (I would actually refer to it as "normal thinking", but hey…) and think it's a shame people in Silicon Valley have collectively decided it's fine to break the law as long as you can get away with it and get a high valuation out of it.
To take one example, AirBnB has clearly had a negative impact on many local rental markets via units being taken off the normal market and instead being turned into unlicensed hotel rooms, but their response has been basically complete and utter defiance to anyone to stop them, and this attitude gets applauded here on HN and elsewhere.
Well, I'm sure they will spend at least some of that $1.2b to bribe politicians into reversing those bans.
I'm pretty sure there will be no bribes. :P
I think part of my issue is alot of the rules that their contractors bend/break are reasonable.
It is like my issue with AirBnb. There is a good reason for many of the 'short term' rental laws.
We aren't talking about the bullshit Tesla bans here, after all.
("Urban transportation has looked the same for a long time—a really long time—thanks in large part to regulatory regimes that don't encourage innovation. We think it's time for change. Uber’s legal and public policy teams are helping facilitate that change around the world, and we’re looking for a hustler-wonk to help us develop that will change the world. This is no ordinary, run-of-the-mill gig -- seriously, have you read the news? We’re navigating some very interesting policy waters. Are you ready to dive in? This position is based in San Francisco or Washington, DC.")
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/03/tesla-motors-inc-tsla-now-b...
Uber, unlike Tesla, is costing the government money in the form of licensing fees. Its contractors are not paying for such licenses frequently. You can't simply "fight" the tax system like that.
Can they fight lobbying by the taxi companies? Yes. Can they convince the governments to go tax someone else instead? I doubt it. The taxi companies haven't managed that trick either.
isn't it the best confirmation of how big deal they are? Their value isn't in the "logistics math" or other hi-tech mumbo-jumbo. Their value is in the successful building of the momentum, a huge storm wave which can break through existing regulations which hasn't changed in a hundred years. An ability to change political things to be in your favor is one of the most important and lucrative business tools, pretty much an equivalent of Gold Finger. Uber hasn't won this game yet, but he is pretty promising contender...
Right now, the deep pockets want nothing to do with that business because the future is uncertain and there's a large liability risk. One of many probable ends for Uber and Lyft is being sued out of existence ala Napster. But if Uber succeeds in proving the market, competitors will follow. What does Uber have that's hard to match? Their technology can be replicated by those that know how to build software. Their drivers will bolt to any competitor that will pay them more. Their customers will bolt to any service that's cheaper. Without some sort of network effect, they'll either fail in their legal challenges or they'll find themselves in a race to the bottom and see their margins evaporate.
Worse yet, they could see themselves competing against companies that can bolt the Uber revenue source onto their current product. Facebook Transport, which leverages your network of friends for stuff like trusted reviews from people you know. Domino's ToGo...a ride home and a pizza. Amazon Local Lift...handle your grocery shopping on your way home. And that's not even considering if Google gets to self-driving cars first and decides to compete rather than license/sell the technology to Uber.
At the moment, Uber and Lyft feel like the penguins that gets pushed into the water to test whether there's a Shark or Whale nearby. They're either going to get eaten, or everyone else is going to follow them into the water.
The mistake, IMO, is assuming that they will be able to replicate that in other cities. In NYC you can get a taxi 90% of the time by holding your hand up in a street corner. At peak times that's more difficult, but that's also when Uber has surge pricing. They will hold their own and take over the premium market from various non-descript livery car companies - but only the premium market. They won't take over the taxi market as a whole. Much the same applies to London.
Also, much of their current success is based upon how heavily regulated and backwards taxi authorities are. For example, in NYC taxi drivers are not able to use phones or navigation aids, and hailing by smartphone is in its infancy. But that won't be the case forever.
So yes, they deserve a good valuation. But, to me, there are still a lot of questions about whether they will expand to fit this valuation.
Up until the beginning of the year, 90% of the time you'll be hailing a gypsy cab. The only time you'd get a yellow when leaving the BX was at shift change which is around 5pm/5am for a lot of them. Not that there's anything wrong with a gypsy cab, but you're not supposed to hail them, which ties into a lot of the problems Uber appears to be facing in NYC.
I will say a lot has changed with the introduction of the Boro cabs (green cabs). I don't remember exactly when they were introduced, but getting a cab is considerably easier now.
So, while I agree with what you are saying, I think it's a little Manhattan-centric.
Agreed - and that was sort of my point about Uber taking advantage of regulation, though I didn't phrase it well. The artificial scarcity of taxi medallions meant that demand outstripped supply outside of Manhattan. Now they're finally, slowly, fixing that.
Even cabs (green and yellow use the same fare structure) are priced way out of line with what the gypsy cabs were negotiating in many parts of the outer boros. UberX is another 30+% again on top of that.
It looks to me like uber's biggest market in NYC is not people who live in outer boros and would otherwise have hailed a green or gypsy cab but people who would otherwise have taken a pre-arranged black car because hailing a cab is for the proles. That market isn't nothing, but it's far from the whole thing.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/30/will-uber-kil...
The price of a London cab is regulated. Maybe that price is wrong. Uber can take advantage of it, but do you think the London taxi industry is really going to sit back and watch its market disappear without even trying to change price?
And the cab driver protests are more rooted in the fact that they had to spend a very long time learning 'The Knowledge' before being let out on the road, and that Uber has no such requirement. So, either it's necessary and they're letting Uber off the hook, or it isn't necessary and TfL has been lying to drivers.
So, I think it's more complex than just being "threatened by Uber".
Like many other things The Knowledge has been superseded by a computer.
Case in point:
https://twitter.com/newyorkcityliz/status/470010209403150336
Edit: Fixed my idiom. Thanks dragonwriter.
Uber needs to obey the regulatory rules of the industry. Either they don't have a pricing meter (and thus journey price is agreed before hand) or they do have a price meter and all Uber drivers are regulated like any other black cab driver.
They can't ignore laws just because those laws are inconvenient to them.
I completely agree with you, but at the same time, for whatever reason companies (Uber / Airbnb) have been able to completely ignore rules & laws to the tune of tens of billions of dollars (in valuations).
It's almost "might makes right": ignore rules and grow as fast as possible, with the hope that you'll grow faster than the legal system can take you down. By the time the legal system could do anything, you're big enough to change the rules.
But now Chesky is rich, so he gives away money and pretends that he's something other than an enormous fucking asshole.
But that's how you disrupt markets!
One reason is that a good part of their claimed novelty is being able to hail a cab via mobile-phone app (as well as get pricing and such), which is not actually novel in many markets. In much of Europe the existing taxi companies have that feature and it works just fine; it's not too hard to add it as an incremental improvement to the traditional radio taxi. I used the app from 'AAA Taxi' a bunch in Prague last week, and I don't see what Uber would offer above the existing functionality.
Both important to me, and I'd at least assume a few others. I absolutely hate the stress of having to deal with some angry cabbie and 5 minutes of BS because I dare use a credit card vs. pay cash.
People finding cabs on 5th avenue at 6pm know there are no cabs to be had. You can't just raise your hand. It could take 15 to 20 minutes to find a cab.
So suggesting that you can get a cab 90% in NYC is a statement of fact, but it's not actually true.
Facts: http://www.schallerconsult.com/taxi/taxifb.pdf
That's one of the many reasons Uber is also crushing it in NYC.
There really are no other workable solutions. The other solution is to get more taxis on the roads, but that would just mean that a lot of taxis would be idle at non-peak hours, and that -- instead of peak hour-taxis being expensive -- the price of taxis in general would rise, because each taxi isn't getting as many fares.
That's fine. But it means that it isn't going to dislodge yellow cabs any time soon because the price point is entirely different.
I would have to disagree. I work near the Empire State building and have taken cabs home after work (6pm) plenty of times and have never had to wait more than two red lights to get a cab (lights going N/S take about 45s so that's around 2-3 minutes).
The times you have to worry about is Friday/Saturday night if it is raining. You might have to wait a few minutes then if you want a yellow cab. Black cabs are almost always instantly available but they are a little pricier so I don't count them.
Maybe you mean s/NYC/Manhattan/?
This is not true in much of the outer boroughs (and also in much of uptown Manhattan). In fact, in an attempt to address the problem, NYC created an entirely new class of cab that can only pick people up outside Manhattan.
Now car2go, there's the future of cars on call. Especially in a city like Vancouver where you can nearly always find one within a couple of blocks.
I'd really be interested to see how their revenue breaks down between larger cities with urban cores (SF, Seattle) and other areas that are more spread out (LA, etc.)
If you are in select parts of manhattan below 150th st, you can get a taxi very easily.
If you're in any of the other boroughs, you usually can't count on being able to hail a taxi unless you live on a main route to one of the manhattan bridges.
i have this stuff here. it weighs this much, here's the shape. i want it over there by this time bound.
whether that motion is carried out by drivers in cars, drones, autonomous shipping vessels, nanobots, whatever. it's going to be huge.
And, with that, the feeling that Amazon.com will snap this company up for cash and stock is almost palpable. Forget drones, that's PR stuff for now. Uber is the real PTTH (product to the home) service.
Robo-Uber as I like to call it is all very exciting and transformative. And I have little doubt that it will happen someday. But we're talking decades according to many people who really know the topic. For example, John Leonard who was on the MIT DARPA Challenge team has said "I don’t expect to have truly driverless taxis in Manhattan in my lifetime." http://digitalcommunity.mit.edu/community/featured_content/b...
Next time you drive in a city, think about all the little decisions that you're making constantly. I'd love to have a service like this but it's not going to happen within a time horizon relevant to any current financial investments.
They're solving autonomous vehicles for known environments that are mapped down to extremely high resolution. Once you have that solid ground truth, adapting to changing conditions on top of it is far easier.
Which is why they've already logged 1.1 million kilometers of autonomous driving, including city streets with high complexity.
What the more traditional autonomous vehicle researchers didn't/don't appreciate is that it turns out to be easier to make the whole world[1] into a well-known environment than make a car than can handle unknown environments.
[1] more precisely, the parts of it that the average person would actually drive on, which is much smaller and simpler.
I fully agree. And it's the reason we could probably see fully autonomous operations on designated sections of limited access roads in the relatively near future. The unknowns in that environment--mostly other vehicles--are relatively well-defined.
The reason for the skepticism about more general self-driving without even a human backup available is that even if the roads are precisely mapped the environment in a city is still largely "unknown." (Although obviously some cities are more complex than others.)
"The University of Michigan, along with the local government and major automakers, is building a model town to test a system of self-driving "connected" cars.
.. It's laying the groundwork for the real-world system planned for 2021 in Ann Arbor."
They've since increased their commission back to 20%, added a $1 surcharge, integrated with google maps, and they've probably validated the same day package delivery business model in NY.
Valuation probably reflects crazy revenue growth they have in so many markets + future opportunities to dominate other verticals.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/04/leaked-uber-numbers-which-w... [dec 2013] <--note week-on-week increases too! and
Uber has made some impressive achievements, but ultimately their big success was in figuring out how to run a taxi-like service without paying for taxi medallions.
Yeah, but it's such an easy problem to solve. I already had a few car services on speed dial so this wasn't really a big problem to begin with. All they did was centralize and market it. I live in NYC which is probably the #1 taxi market in the world and have rarely heard someone having trouble calling for a cab.
I also spend a lot of time in Chicago, and there I do agree - the cab infrastructure works pretty well. I still use Uber, as it's far more convenient and reliable than calling a random cab company and waiting around for it to possibly show up (or waiting outside in the cold spending 30 seconds to 10 minutes flagging one down). Even in Chicago you get a 30% failure rate on radio dispatches.
It might be an easy problem to solve, but Uber is the first to realistically turn it into a useful service in many markets.
Not some company with a website.
The one thing that makes me skeptical about this, is historical data. From what I'm seeing, the entire US Taxi/Limo market is $11bn in value. So for them to achieve this, they'd need ~80%+ market share in the US, plus a high market share in both Europe and Asia. This is a valuation that smells similar to the WhatsApp deal, where the timeline to succeeding this valuation is 15-20 years out.
Is there some data I'm missing here that implies my data(from [1] for example) is flawed? Or that maybe this isn't such an out-there valuation, by way of possible growth from ridesharing, or other avenues Uber could explore without straying too far from their primary purpose?
The main Uber service depends on the existing market to some extent but I think it also has the potential to grow it.
There is a good reason for that, it's so much easier to own a car in these and is pretty much mandatory to get anything done. Cars + Gas are still relatively cheap in comparison to paying someone to come out and drive you around anytime you need to go somewhere, which is compounded in the suburbs by the distance and time involved and the area any taxi service would need to cover.
Sure, technology ala Uber helps here, but does this really change the fundamentals in theses areas? I don't think so, you still need to pay a driver and in areas where its easy and cheap to store a car it would make much more financial sense to just drive yourself around.
Driverless cars are really the fundamental shift that might change this, but let's be real that is still a risky venture, despite all the Google hype people are drooling over. This large of an evaluation only makes sense with that in mind.
Maybe you mean the market is $11bn/year in revenue (or even in profits)?
For comparison, Apple is currently worth around $565B, but its revenues were $176B in the last 12 months. Chipotle is worth $17B, but its revenues were $3.4B over the last 12 months.
A firm's revenue and its value are related, but usually not equal.
1) $11B is the estimate of the revenues of the US taxi & limo market. Uber aims to expand the size of that market, by drawing in people who otherwise would not have taken a taxi or limo.
2) Uber is global today, and can expand much faster than traditional T&L companies given its model. Global taxi & limo revenues are certainly higher than $11B.
3) Using $11B as the estimate of the US taxi & limo revenues, it is reasonable to assume that the market value of all US taxi & limo companies is larger than $11B. This assumption rests on the premise that if one owned all US taxi & limo services, one could generate ~$11B in cash annually. I don't know what revenue multiple is typical in this industry, but I'd be somewhat surprised to learn that it's <= 1. (Not to mention the monopoly licenses, brands, customer relationships, autos and other physical plant etc. that comes from owning these assets.)
And the great potential of the company will show once they find a way to offer efficient shared transportation services at much lower prices, like [2]. If they do, they'll basically swim in money.
[1]not so great but a good start :http://www.mergernetwork.com/for-sale/nations-only-publicly-...
A commonly used multiple is the price to earnings multiple of the entire industry, which is absurdly high for major tech companies- Google, for example, has a P/E ratio of ~30 [2], and Facebook has a P/E ratio of ~80 [3]. For non-tech companies, the average ratio is roughly 15.
So if we want to use the average P/E ratio, we can say that a very very very rough price for the entire Taxi/Limo market is $150bn.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valuation_using_multiples [2] http://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio [3] http://ycharts.com/companies/FB/pe_ratio
[...]
> So if we want to use the average P/E ratio, we can say that a very very very rough price for the entire Taxi/Limo market is $150bn.
P/E is price/earnings ratio, it's not calculated using revenue. Earnings is revenue less expenses.
So if the taxi industry in general is operating at a 10% profit margin, that would mean they're earning $1.1bn per year, and with a P/E of 15, that would be a $16.5bn market cap.
Admittedly, that growth could be curtailed between fighting one of the most protracted and costly series of legal cases in history against an entire industry, but based on reported figures the growth arithmetic would be strongly in their favour if they win in enough jurisdictions.
And if they don't get crushed by competitors willing to operate on thinner margins because "ride-sharing" needn't veer towards monopoly, of course...
Note: I pay a flat monthly fee for transport (public) around £1200 a year. Trans, trams, buses.
But more importantly this looks like an investment in a public company not a startup, or put another way, the difference between preferred and common stock has no doubt reached near parity. If the bankers believe the company will come out into the public markets at 34 - 50B then that puts them in some really rarified territory. Would the wider market share their enthusiasm? Or would this be like Facebook's debut, zero to down change for the first 6 - 12 months of existence.
The good news is it gives them a chunk of cash for the big fights they are fighting. Of course I'm curious if the management took any money off the table or if this is all earmarked for lawyers and expansion.
[1] I also agree the bubble hysteria is nonsense, whose money is at risk here? the .01% so don't sweat it.
> Kalanick added that Uber would continue to experiment “aggressively” with lowering prices, in an attempt to boost demand and increase the number of trips drivers can make each hour.
Valuing the company at 80 times the 2013 revenues (http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/04/leaked-uber-numbers-which-w...) is a little bit mad.
> I also agree the bubble hysteria is nonsense, whose money is at risk here? the .01% so don't sweat it.
Markets exist to allocate capital efficiently. Even if the capital belongs to people you don't like, you can still argue that misallocating it is bad.
I don't necessarily agree that markets "exist" to allocate capital efficiently, I would agree they exist so that capital can be allocated. When the market is fair, capital is pretty efficient allocated, but the private financing market is not fair on at least two axes, there are artificially high barriers to creating new goods (startups in this case), and information is not evenly distributed amongst all parties. That does put a crimp on the efficiency of their operation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/06/taxi...
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/10/21/why-taxi-me...
http://nypost.com/2014/02/26/taxi-medallion-auctioned-for-re...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/nyregion/1-million-medalli...
You can make an argument in both directions. On one hand, clearly the taxi industry is large enough to justify this kind of valuation or even much more. On the other hand, Uber currently benefits greatly from this legally enforced supply restriction that chokes off their competition while not yet applying to them. Most large cities can dramatically lower the cost of and increase the availability of street-hail cabs by issuing more permits, which can cut into Uber's revenue. Cities can also decide to apply more regulation to car service businesses or even Uber-style businesses more specifically to even the playing field.
> "Uber is creating 20,000 jobs per month, the company said in a blog post."
Really? "Jobs" as in W-2 forms and health benefits? Or independent contractors?
Not that the latter are necessarily bad, but they're fundamentally different. It is misleading to call them "jobs" in their blog headline, then switch to "partners" and "small business entrepreneurs" in the text.[1]
I understand that traditional taxi drivers don't have "jobs", either, and Uber might be a better client for a contractor than traditional taxi companies. But that's beside the point I'm talking about, which is unwelcome and deceptive PR spin.
For Uber to ever justify just this funding round, they'll probably need to become roughly the size of 1/3 the entire taxi business in terms of sales (assuming $3.x billion in sales and $600x million in profit off that base, and assuming a reasonable 20 to 30 pe ratio over time).
I'm guessing Uber is betting on selling customers a lot more than their current service offerings. There's no other way they can justify this type of valuation.
As of 2013, Uber was only generating $200 million in revenue for the entire year (according to the leaked numbers). Uber could grow crazy fast and still not justify this valuation for six or seven years. That's quite the long term bet being placed here.
http://www.quora.com/Uber-1/How-is-Uber-doing-these-days-in-...
and this
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/18/uber-lyft/
Uber could be growing at 20% per month, or 9x per year, even as recently as December. That suggests they could reach the revenue target you mention in less than two years. Obviously, growth becomes dramatically harder once you become a fraction of order unity of the market, but I don't think this bet is necessarily 7 years long.
UberX is cheaper than taxis for the short trips in/around the South Baltimore downtown area (by the sports stadiums). These are the quick trips jumping around the bar/restaurant areas.
An UberX is only $30-$40 from the Inner Harbor area to most metropolitan areas 20-25 minutes outside of Baltimore, which is a crazy good deal, especially if you split fares.
I've yet to see purge pricing or a lack of available cars on weekends in the major going out areas like Fells Point, Federal Hill and Canton.
I've seen "normal" people with Uber on their home screen.
I've heard quotes like this: "I spend so much money on Uber it's absurd." "I sold my car and use Uber." And "It's so convenient you can't NOT use it."
So in regards to Baltimore, MD, I agree with the top commenter. This a real business doing really well here from a user's perspective.
About a month ago my girlfriend told me how she was late for work on morning and wouldn't make it on time if she took her usual public transportation route, so she took Uber.
I was surprised because I never talked to her about Uber and I usually introduce her to things like this. Turns out its fairly popular at her school and other downtown Chicago campuses. Students just like it better then cabs and find it easier to get a good rate and nearly any time in the day.
I still have yet to use it myself, but I feel they are making huge in roads to being a common place name and that alone seems to justify this valuation. This isn't theoretical growth. They are getting huge, and its not just in the tech bubble.
They've since increased their commission back to 20%, added a $1 surcharge, integrated with google maps, and they've probably validated the same day package delivery business model in NY. Valuation probably reflects crazy revenue growth they have in so many markets + future opportunities to dominate other verticals.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/04/leaked-uber-numbers-which-w.... [dec 2013] <--note week-on-week increases too!
In the low budget/style area, they are competing with the public transportation system? Do they have all this financial/momentum muscle?
And in the high budget/style, they are competing with rich people who can own their own BMW/Ferrari with a private driver?
Who "needs a ride" and chooses an expensive "SUV". How could this thing make a difference in anyone's life? "Oh sure, today I want to go to work in a fancy car, wheew!". Perhaps Barney Stinson?
It seems there is a lot of opportunity in NOT solving the real problem (public transportation). Good for Uber.
What are some advantages that I really need a taxi service? Sorry, I don't drink, so no need to worry about drink-and-drive.
I would like to see someone here can enlightening me.
What makes it better than Craigslist is the convenience. Take out your smartphone, drop a pin on your location, and get a ride within minutes. Plus, you don't need to worry about payment, it all happens behind the scenes via your Uber account.
Without reading that entire document, lets just say NYC is a $20bn+ market for the taxi industry...
1. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_...
tldr: I <3 uber and Uber > taxis
I can't stress how important the airport thing is. Radio dispatch by cab is the most unreliable horrible mechanism ever. It almost may as well not exist, because a cab might show up in 5 minutes, it might show up in 15, or it might show up never. Impossible to rely on. Due to Uber being reliable I've taken more car rides than usual to O'hare on days when I'm running late, or otherwise don't want to deal with the Blue Line or waiting outside for a cab.
Basically, cab companies did this to themselves by being horrible at customer service and not giving a shit. They are up there with Comcast in the "giving a fuck" department. Ever call to complain that your cab didn't show up? Ha!
And if you think this is great for a well-served city like Chicago, it's utterly game changing for under-served cities like Minneapolis. I now can actually take a ride to the airport instead of driving and spending $250 parking my car for a week. Why? Because I can depend on the Uber showing up when they say it's going to. Cabs, I'd have to give at least a 2 hour buffer in case the first 2 I call never show up.
Basically if this puts the cab companies out of business, it couldn't have happened to better people and I won't shed a single tear. Good riddance.