They put me in a Mercedes van, drive me half a kilometer to a
helipad. I get in a lawnmower with a propeller, piloted by a guy who
looks like my paper boy in a pilot’s Halloween costume... and for 120
euros (about 20 euros more than a cab), I’m choppered over the Côte
d’Azur and set down three hundred meters from my hotel. For a
moment, I’m James bond... minus the looks, skills, gadgets, sex
appeal, Aston Martin, and license to kill. Still, close...
This is not only supercool but possible, because Uber has access to
visionary capital and has paired it with creativity and a lack of respect
for the norms around customer experience. The company can do crazy
shit like that—decide to take everybody on a helicopter from an airport
to a luxury hotel, or deliver kittens on Valentine’s Day. But it fails on
vertical, as the cars are owned by the drivers, who often work with
competitors. Not owning cars has helped them scale fast, but it makes
them vulnerable, as they have no analog moats. As you might imagine,
Uber also has considerable big data skills—it knows where you are,
where you’re going, where you’re likely to go, and it’s all linked to your
identity. The app is already auto-populating your destination based on
travel history, aging in reverse.
Uber isn’t known as much of an accelerant, because very few
people know anybody who works for Uber HQ. Uber only has a few
thousand employees, and they’re very technically literate. Uber has
figured out a way to isolate the lords (8,000 employees) from the serfs
(2 million drivers), who average $7.75/hour, so its 4,000 employees
can carve up $70 billion vs. $2 million on an hourly wage.^25 So, Uber
has said to the global workforce, in hushed but clear tones: “Thanks,
and fuck you.”
Can a car service really justify Uber’s $70 billion private-market
valuation? Doubtful. But Uber is more than just a car service. In fact,
taxis are to Uber what books were to Amazon. It’s a real business, and
one Uber can do quite well with, but it’s only the camel’s nose under
the tent. The real prize is leveraging its massive driver network (and
soon, its massive self-driving car network). In California, Uber trialed
UberFRESH, a food delivery service. In Manhattan, it trialed
UberRUSH, a package courier. In Washington, D.C., it started
UberEssentials, an online ordering and delivery service of grocery
store essentials.^26 The firm appears to be building a vascular (last-