This is a failure in leadership at UberEats. Uber has more than one revenue source and delivery is in high demand, UberEats is severely losing to DoorDash in food delivery, despite Uber having significantly more resources than DoorDash. Uber has billions in the bank, Doordash only has hundreds of millions. At the time of this posting, Doordash is currently number #13 in the App store, UberEats is sitting at #62. Uber has access to capital and reserve in the bank. Reserves are often used for a rainy day, well it is pouring now. They should be using their position to gain market share during this time of peak demand for deliveries, should not be losing to DoorDash.
This is the first in a series of cuts, and this cut didn’t effect anyone in tech, it’s mostly the front line service agents. We expect 800 eng layed off globally as has been reported in leaks.
I refuse to use any of these delivery apps, which are kind of useless already.<p>Here in Toronto area, most of the big food outlets are closed, because they are not able to get workers.<p>The ones that are open, are these mom&pop restaurants, that run on a skeletal workforce.<p>So with fewer restaurants operating, and delivery apps having a limited radius for delivery, I'd rather go and get the order myself, and let the neighborhood restaurer keep more of the money I give instead of losing 30%-40% of the amount as commission (I tip on top of it even though it's a pickup).<p>I'll use delivery apps only if:
- They charge the restaurant less than 5% total fees
- They charge me 5% - 10% for delivery and processing fees whatever (lets say a minimum of $5 or $10, whichever is higher).<p>Problem is at this rate, Uber Eats or Door Dash or GrubHub wont survive.<p>I understand using these apps is more of a necessity if you have kids and larger number of people at home. But this is not for me.<p>Uber drivers who got cars on subprime loans cannot survive with deliveries only. I'm curious to how they'll get through this storm. At least in this case, Uber has fewer liabilities (all head ache borne by the driver).
I think this is pretty amazing offense move played by the Uber CEO.<p>As we enter the recession, with oil prices at all record low, driver earnings are automatically higher and riders are little more patient with sobering environment. In this mode, the support expectations are less than what they used to be before. There isn’t a desire for a super prompt response, and since support costs are linear (more reps -> faster ticket resolution), it’s quite wise to reduce the cost of both synchronous (for drivers) and asynchronous support agents (for riders).<p>For the recruiting, since most of hiring is either frozen or happens through referrals, outbound hiring is going to be quite minimal and you only need recruiting co-ordinators for interview scheduling and admin. It doesn’t make much sense to have so many recruiters in such environment.<p>For the GH hubs, if psychiatrists are moving online to telehealth, Uber green light hubs are way more simpler to be executed remotely via Zoom.<p>I am classifying this as a offense move, because the defense would have been to raise more money through debts and so many companies are doing it, Uber could have played the same move.<p>It’s pretty scary though, if this does set the precedent for other companies, unemployment recovery in HR/Support is going to very very slow.
Seems technology sparing. One of the big things that this crisis has made me realize about uber/lyft/airbnb and other disruptive entrants in regulated spaces is that they have to have footprint in pretty much every market they operate in - their staff scales more w/ use than a pure software operation. Explains their "bloated" staff counts better than just "oh they're venture backed and blitzscaling" imo.
Expected. Uber/Lyft will get through it but have to prepare for a though time ahead. I'm pretty optimistic that things will soon start getting back to normal, gradually of course. However, business travel (and personal) will take a while to recover. Companies already canceled all large events for the year. All academic conferences this year are remote, etc. Most tech employees were already told to keep working remotely until at least Sep/Oct. So even with very optimistic projections, things will start looking better for these companies only next year.
Couple of points<p>1 Where we live Whole Foods in store purchases have been cheaper than Safeway, who they are trying to put out of business Walmart style. Prime home delivery has got very expensive per item (and a lot of the items ordered don't show up, shown as out of stock) in comparison to buying in store.<p>2 100 years ago it was normal in most Western world countries for small vendors to deliver food to homes. Milkmen in the UK had electric milk floats until the 1980's, delivery bicycles and tricycles were very common until the 1960's, and smaller local vendors almost invariably offered local delivery. I spoke to an Ocardo delivery van guy in February based in Coventry UK who told his route went into Wales 90 miles away. In the US we are consuming incredible amounts of packaging to buy small items from Amazon.<p>I'm not seeing value in centralizing delivery through large entities via casual delivery people unconnected to the businesses they are delivering from, I see massive profits for a tiny number of people and zero oversight of our private business, what we order and from who. I'd like to see a return to local anonymous delivery via private arrangements with local vendors.<p>As a seperate topic I'd also like to know that my every move in an Uber/Lyft etc is not being tracked, filed away by God knows who and sold.
Is this the same Uber from the story yesterday about putting $170m into Lime?<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-reportedly-considering-emergency-funding-to-lime-2020-5?r=US&IR=T" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-reportedly-considering-...</a>
Should you hold it against companies which are laying off people or doing pay cut?<p>I have an emotional reaction to this. Maybe I should be equally needy and switch jobs as soon as I get a better offer.
I wonder if Tesla could modify their car models, such that the passenger compartment can be on a different HVAC system than the front compartment?<p>Now that the world has a recent concrete demonstration of what it means to be in a pandemic, with all of the emergent problems revealed in gory detail, shouldn't we change some things so that we can cope better in case it happens again? Like I've said, no one buckles their seatbelt in expectation of getting into a high speed crash on their current trip, but we prepare for such a severe circumstance due to the cost/benefit.
I’ve had several restaurants tell me to avoid any food delivery platform and they’re backing it up with great perks. I’d much rather spend extra tipping the person taking the risk than financing the middleman. But, I can see value in having a central verification system if I’m actually getting in the vehicle.
I don't feel bad if Uber takes a bigger hit. Earlier, I loved the potential of Uber to make transportation better but it hasn't materialized (for me at least). I had an "animal farm" feeling about Uber when I was trying to find a ride from the airport around midnight. They would match me, then cancel the ride and then match me to a ride at a higher rate. This went on for an hour and I eventually paid the same as I was paying for a cab before. At least with a cab, I could have reached home quicker. So as a consumer, I lost in every way. Yes, I hate the cab drivers and their behaviors but Uber wasn't any better for my particular situation.<p>I have also had similar experiences with UberPool. I was charged extra because the route was longer. It wasn't worth for me to complain about $10 but I stopped using UberPool later.<p>I have tried food delivery a couple of times and the extra cost was so expensive that I just didn't feel like it was worth it. I get that they need to charge a certain amount for the service to be sustainable/profitable. I didn't find it to be worth it.<p>They also played a lot of games with the Amex Platinum credits. So I closed the Amex Platinum card as well. It was not worth playing the games to save $15 a month.
masquerading as a "tech" company when you're nothing more than a physical service company is the biggest realization here.<p>This is definitely a wizard of oz moment for many "tech" companies.
This is unfortunate, but I also imagine that Uber may be one of the beneficiaries when it comes to re-opening later this summer if there are more people that choose to avoid taking mass transit. They have talented employees so I hope everyone lands on their feet.
Why are all the top comments about UberEats or food delivery apps? UberEats isn't mentioned in the article at all and this has nothing to do with food delivery whatsoever. I thought I was in the wrong comment section at first... but nope.
I get that people use delivery, but I can't even remember the last time I got food delivered. I order for pick-up now (you know, now)...<p>No judgement, just one of those "Wow, people do a thing that never occurs to me to do..." moments.<p>(OK, I did get Thistle in SF.)
It's starting to feel like we just built the Borg from Star Trek. Everything bigger, everything more centralized, everything more efficient and streamlined and outsource everything you're not good at. Economies of scale so massive you can argue they are just monopolies. Every new venture needs to scale to billions or it's not worthwhile. Some competition and innovation, but mostly just growth throw acquisition and assimilation.<p>Wasn't the Borg devastated by a virus?<p>TNG was such a good show.
in remote areas where cab drivers would heckle riders for trip charges, uber gave a predetermined number which helped. my only worry was they not having competition and that has been set right with at least one other ipo-ed company.
Why can't a company just fail any more because it's never made a single cent in profit? And likely never will.<p>The inside baseball of Uber doesn't really matter does it? Why dont they lay the whole company off?
> In an SEC filing dating back to last week, Uber disclosed plans to layoff 3,700 employees. The figure amounts to around 14% percent of the ride hailing giant’s total workforce.<p>Do drivers count as employees in states like California, but as independent contractors elsewhere? The answer would provide greater context to these numbers.