This is Why Uber will Fail

Uber was once the darling of the disruption on-demand economy. Yet Uber continues to struggle and there are some serious signs it may not even exist in ten years.

Let's go over some of these shall we? After Softbank's buy-in, Uber likely isn't even the most valuable startup in the world. Meanwhile, after a scandal ridden 2017, Uber has suffered significant market-share loss to Lyft in key U.S. demographics, namely, places where young Millennials show a preference for Lyft's branding.

Globally it's becoming clear Didi will win in Asia, and even fight Uber in key regions such as Japan and Mexico in 2018. Uber lost $3.7 billion during its last three quarters. There I said it, but after a win in a legal settlement with Google, that's not even the worst part for Uber's future.


Uber will Lose the Self-Driving race to Waymo

Waymo is likely anywhere between 6 months to 18 months ahead of Uber in autonomous driving tech. This means they have a small window to launch a ride-sharing platform for the masses exclusively with self-driving vehicles.

Alphabet needs to go all-in to such an endeavor, otherwise Waymo will miss an incredible opportunity. The best way to defeat Uber is to disrupt their first-mover advantage with robotaxis. This of course will happen sooner than anyone imagines, because too much is at stake.

If Waymo fails to do this soon, Didi, Baidu, Uber and dozens of others will do it first. May the best robo-car win.

  • Uber will face significant global competition vs. Didi that will likely rule Asia (a higher density region)
  • Uber faces considerable competition in key U.S. cities from Lyft
  • Uber could lose the race to self-driving fleets vs. Waymo
  • Uber is losing around 1$ billion per quarter, which could eventually kill it given the above factors aren't in its favor.

The future will have no mercy for the likes of Travis or Dara. The bro-culture responsible for a climate of sexual harassment, duplicitous software that thwarted government regulators and taxi-killing Silicon valley greed, does not deserve to live.

Uber last week agreed to pay $245 million to settle the trade secrets case brought by Waymo, and many analysts were saying Uber got off on that one in a legal victory. However, Uber's true valuation now in 2018 is likely somewhere between $48 billion and $68 billion. It is becoming increasingly clear that the dog-eat-dog world Uber brought us, Uber won't likely be the big winner we all thought it would be.

Uber is not Amazon, Khosrowshahi is not Bezos and Uber has yet to really innovate anything of lasting value. With a business that is entirely replicable, by teams that know how to build a brand that is sustainable, without all the costly mistakes Uber has made, the autonomous vehicle could spell the end of Uber's glory. The robo-taxi democratizes transportation, and all that once made Uber so unique and differentiated, is about to evaporate in just three supremely (Uber) short years.

What do you think, was Uber born to fail?

The Avatar that will likely further usurp Uber domestically is a rather humble car.

  • The Chrysler Pacifica is one car of choice for Waymo's service. It doesn't even need a pink moustache.
  • As of February 2018, there's no reason to believe Didi isn't now worth more than Uber. Didi is valued at about $56 billion and also backed by SoftBank.

Waymo's real threat to Uber is that it will offer self-driving cars.

Consumers will trust self-driving cars because they are safer and will be considerably cheaper. So Waymo is the hands down favorite to be the first-mover into the robo-taxi industry, and if they do it properly (there's some doubt Google can do this), it should disrupt Uber's business model.

  • Waymo will be releasing its own Waymo-branded ride sharing app later this year, likely by the summer of 2018.

We believe Waymo is the leader since Waymo has the lead in testing, with over 352,000 miles driven in California, representing 70.3% of the self-driven miles in the state. Already in 2018 we can see that where there's already "many" Ubers, there's only one Airbnb. These first-mover disruptors that focus on growth and scale, leave themselves vulnerable to be disrupted as they often never do become profitable. Uber's clock is running out, though I hope to see a Waymo Pacifica soon, because I never want to use an Uber ever again.


Waymo has doubled their number of autonomous milesracking up nearly 2 million miles over a 12 month period. Today, Waymo vehicles have self-driven more than 4 million miles across 25 U.S. cities. If robots are supposed to do the heavy lifting of repetitive labor, I'm fully satisfied, I am one of those who would prefer to be driven by software than a person.

Waymo has to deploy as soon as possible, because as Didi and Lyft taken marketshare away from Uber in the years to come, Waymo has a brief window of opportunity to make this work for the future of Alphabet. Uber's demise, that's a prediction that for me is already written in stone; in the karma police of an accelerating exponential world moving at the speed of robot-taxis into the age of automation.

Uber played the bad guy to win, and now it's time others take over. When Softbank acquired a 20% stake in Uber, it was the beginning of the end. The proof of failure of a desperate company whose greed overwhelmed it where the balance of power is about to tip. Uber more than anyone, is entitled to the failure that they have coming.

#WaymoRideHailingService #UberVsWaymo #UberVsGoogle #UberVsDidi #SelfdrivingCars