I don't think Uber is this, even if 'impact' is purely taken as a morally neutral statement. It's just clearly not the case. Train companies, underground, shipping, airlines, have all had a much bigger impact and that's just looking at transport.
Uber also wasn't worth $70B in the last round, investors didn't know that sexism was rampant and the culture horrible, which would have surely made them not invest if they had talked to female employees at uber.
However, they didn't know that the culture is horrible and not able to grow another 10x under these conditions and conquer the autonomous driving market.
They also didn't know that Uber had all these patent problem, but they did.
Now, investors have invested at a $48B valuation, but they still overpaid, because they don't know all the information. Maybe they didn't care, because Uber told them, they will definitely be able to bloat up the company to $100, so that SoftBank makes their 2x. Surely they also have liquidation preference.
So, they actual valuation of Uber, including all the bad that no one knows, is probably only at $10B.
It could also only be $1B, since Uber probably won't compete in the autonomous car market and can only make $50M profit per year after stripping away all its overhead. But most people don't know this.
I really don't think a marginal improvement on taxis qualifies for that title.
Airbnb was born out of Craigslist spam. Facebook only grew because of a contact spammer that is still in use to this day. In Facebook’s early days, Hotmail temporarily blocked Facebook invite spam and their growth instantly dropped by 90%. Uber used Greyball to avoid giving rides to those in violation of its terms of service, some of whom were undercover law enforcement personnel looking to disrupt its business.
These big businesses don’t come to fruition by accident, and the one thing they seem to have in common is that most of them broke the rules to get where they are. It may not be pleasant or politically correct, but it’s a fact of life.
Uber used Greyball to evade municipal laws.
Look, I'm a fan of Lyft and Uber. They shook up an ossified taxi industry. But let's not sugarcoat what Uber did - they broke laws and constructed systems to aid breaking those laws.
He spent his time building THAT place I just described
Besides, ride shares isn’t that novel. The math exists. The market itself already exists! It’s just poorly managed
He found rich people to invest in “doing it at scale in the cloud.”
I don’t really give credit for outcomes that anyone with a bachelors in math, and web dev skills could come up with conceptually if not scale
The trickiest bit is getting money and navigating the administrative shitshow that is our society. But that’s easy when you just bribe ...pay... sycophants to do it
He even said himself he has a lot of growing up to do. No need to defend him as simply misunderstood
I don’t really give props for his accomplishments. He lived a contemporary life and got handouts from vultures who saw $$$ while looking at Travis
Are you talking about Uber? More convenient, cheaper taxis? Sure, I like that as much as the next person, but it's hardly one of the most impactful companies in history.
”Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” - Bryan Stevenson
Edit: I should have used the word valuable instead of impactful. I’m leaving it in because the Uber critics responding below have all jumped on my use of the term, and those replies would no longer make sense if I change it. That said, I do believe Uber has been a very impactful company and will continue to be.