This is nuts. Where’s the taxi?
There have been protests. There has been legal risk. There has been disruption. And there have even been questions about whether breaking all the rules is really all that innovative. But Uber, the taxi...
View ArticleUberBay
An online service that matches buyers and sellers you say? Worth $18bn? Well, there are a lot of taxis in the world. We have seen this one before though, so $18bn is entirely possible, if not...
View ArticleThe great London horse carriage war of 2014
The following arrived in our inbox this Tuesday from Hailo, the cabby app which allows you to hail a cab using a mobile: As of 5pm today you’ll find a free £10 credit applied to your Hailo account...
View ArticleReservations as reserve assets
“Reserve” is the new app that Silicon Valley — specifically Uber’s Garrett Camp and Foursquare’s Naveen Selvadurai — insists we will all be going mad about this year. What is it? Another...
View ArticleThe sharing economy will go medieval on you
In Paris this week, at the Ouishare Fest, the great and the good from Europe’s sharing economy have been delving deep into what it means to be running a collaborative business model within a capitalist...
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Capital, meet labour
“Their work is the basis for [Defendant's] business…” Continue reading: Capital, meet labour
View ArticleWho cares about cost when chasing unicorns
A Monday story from Reuters catches the eye. Investors don’t think a California ruling which classed a former Uber contractor as an employee will affect valuations, either for the taxi supplying...
View ArticleIndia, private companies, monopolies and taxis
Here’s a paper from Dan Bogart at the University of Irvine about the East Indian Monopoly and why it was deemed justifiable to the British sovereign to grant all this power to a private company. As the...
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This is nuts. When’s the crash?
Charted, courtesy of Credit Suisse: The conviction from early stage investors in the growth potential for the sharing related companies is also clear. The number of “sharing Unicorns” reached 44 in...
View ArticleDo the economics of self-driving taxis actually make sense?
Financial blogger Frances Coppola runs through how and why the “sharing economy” is grossly mis-representing itself to consumers by daring to suggest it’s anything but a traditional for-profit — or...
View ArticleIf and when Uber drivers unionise…
What makes Uber such a disruptive force in the taxi market? Is it its app technology? Or is it the fact that its business model transfers the ball and chain costs of capital, vehicle rental and...
View ArticleGuessing Uber down to six decimal places
A nice scoop for Bloomberg on Uber’s potential private market valuation, as per documents provided to potential wealthy investors in the ride-hailing business by Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Of...
View ArticleScaling, and why unicorns can’t survive without it
Mike Hearn, a key developer in the bitcoin eco-circus, quit bitcoin on Thursday. He did so with much fanfare. As is the norm these days, he shared his reasoning, angst and rage in a Medium blog post,...
View ArticleWhy Uber’s capital costs will creep ever higher
So Saudi Arabia has invested $3.5bn in Uber, the ride-hailing app, making it the largest single investment ever made in a private company. Talk of war chests and global expansion abounds. But perhaps...
View ArticleDon’t bring a bad app to a taxi fight
The taxi wars have entered a new phase, with the focus turning to consolidation rather than competition. Uber has admitted defeat in China and today Bloomberg reported that the London office of Hailo...
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Mythbusting Uber’s valuation
Black cab drivers protesting in London in February. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Uber, the ride hailing app, is the archetypal billion dollar unicorn. How it’s managed to convince investors it’s...
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Uber, the trading stamp unicorn
Uber, the unicorn that likes to transform investor funds into cheap promotional giveaways and publicity stunts, is hosting a pool party this Thursday and Friday in London to drum up support for its...
View ArticleRide-hailing apps are creating an inefficient and unfair transit system
At FT Alphaville we've questioned the rationality of glorifying a business model ( Transportation Network Companies TNCs like Uber) which undermines decades worth of urban planning work focused on...
View ArticleThe autoignition temperature of manual cars is much higher than Fahrenheit 451
Despite ample reports suggesting the opposite, there is no hard proof self driving cars will necessarily be any cheaper, safer or economical than human-driven cars, let alone capable of displacing...
View ArticleSD cars and productivity
Experts say urbanization continues to drive increased congestion in urban areas and drivers in London now waste an average of 101 hours a year in gridlock. All of this is a waste of our productive...
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