Uber
Remember when Uber was in trouble because a top executive said execrable things about targeting journalists? Or because it was poaching Lyft drivers? Or because drivers were protesting pay and working conditions?
All of these are serious issues, to be sure. But nothing obliterates any notion that these problems translate into an existential crisis for the startup like a billion dollars. Or should we say another billion dollars.
On Thursday, Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick announced that his company, which let people hail car rides from a mobile app, had secured $1.2 billion in new funding. The deal comes less than six months after Uber secured its first ten-figure round, also $1.2 billion, and less than a year-and-a-half since landing more than $250 million in a round led by Google Ventures.
In a blog post, Kalanick details how the company will use the new money, which reportedly values Uber at $40 billion. But the overarching message from Uber, not to mention its powerful backers in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, is clear: whatever problems it may have, Uber is here to stay. Get used to it.
This is not to say that Uber’s catalog of conflicts is anywhere close to being resolved. Across the US and around the world, Uber is still clashing with government regulators, the taxi industry, unions, insurance companies, and its many competitors, including Lyft. Customers fear the company is playing fast and loose with their private data. Drivers say they’re being exploited.
But as it always has, Uber is using growth as a massive lever to overcome any specific issue with sheer customer demand. Big-name venture capitalist Bill Gurley, who sits on Uber’s board, says that the company’s ongoing global expansion “may be the most successful and aggressive international buildout” of any Silicon Valley startup—ever. That doesn’t really count online-only companies that can spread solely through digital means, but his point is well taken. Only five years old, Uber is already expanding across the globe—and fast.
And the more people in more places who use Uber, the more diluted any problem becomes, just as the world’s biggest companies—think Google, Walmart, or Exxon Mobile—can rely on their scale to weather any crisis du jour.
In his post, Kalanick points to the Asia Pacific region as a priority in its global expansion, and understandably so. Huge, dense cities populated by an ever-expanding base of mobile-savvy consumers promise revenues that could make the company’s US take seem paltry.
At the same time, he acknowledged the company’s faults, something of a departure from his typically defiant tone. “This kind of growth has also come with significant growing pains,” Kalanick said. “The events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change.”
He claimed changes are coming in the months ahead to make Uber “a smarter and more humble company.” It’s a little hard to imagine what humility looks like in the context of a company whose investors have poured in nearly $3 billion in expectation of global domination. But however internal changes do or don’t shake out at Uber, one thing is certain: right now, it can afford to be whatever it wants to be.
Additional reporting by Cade Metz
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