Uber prices will rise to meet the company’s newly urgent quest for profits.
SlateRecently I was talking with an executive who used to work in car-sharing—the wave of companies, led by Zipcar and car2go, that tried to disrupt automobile ownership in the 2010s. That is because Uber has lost an astounding sum since its founding in 2009, including more than $30 billion in the five-odd years since the company’s finances became public. “The average employee at Uber is barely over 30, which means you’ve spent your career in a long and unprecedented bull run,” he wrote. “Uber has always said it would reach profitability at scale, thanks to network effects, etc.,” Griswold writes, “but what is scale if not a company that operates in 72 countries and more than 10,500 cities, which last year had 118 million active users every month and completed 6.3 billion rides/trips/deliveries? Observers credited Uber and Lyft with helping to “revitalize Nashville’s urban core” and with “changing nightlife in Los Angeles.” Food service entrepreneurs went all-in on delivery, opening “ghost kitchens” that sometimes prepared food for a half-dozen “restaurants” at a time.
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Uber and Lyft add fuel surcharges to rides as gas prices surge nationwide
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