Category: competitors

Uber’s dealings with competitors including efforts to undermine competitors

Posted on

Strategic Services Group spied on competitors, politicians, and police

Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 310) reports that Uber’s Strategic Services Group spied on political figures, lawmakers, and polite in cities where Uber was under scrutiny.  He explains:

They followed people on foot and in cars, tracking their digital activities and movements, and even took photographs of officials in public places.

Isaac reports that Uber SSG also pursued competitors:

SSG operatives recorded private conversations between opponents at DiDi and at Grab, their Southeast Asian competitor. One Lyft executive grew so paranoid about being followed by Uber that he walked out onto his porch, lifted both middle fingers in the air and waved them around, sending a message to the spies he was absolutely sure were watching.

Isaac questions whether these efforts were actually useful for Uber:

It was unclear how much of this intelligence was actionable or even valuable.  Nonetheless Kalanick okayed budgets that spun into the tens of millions for surveillance activity, global operations, and information collection.

Posted on

Ill will towards Lyft

Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 231) reports Travis Kalanick’s hostility towards competitor Lyft.  He reports:

Kalanick took pleasure in hurting [Lyft leaders] Green and Zimmer, and showed them no mercy.

Isaac continues (p. 230): “He wanted to professionally humiliate [Zimmer].”

Posted on

Pushed taxi and livery drivers to financial ruin

Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 146) summarizes the “financial ruin” that car services and taxis faced when Uber entered their market and destroyed the value of their permits and medallions.  Quoting from driver Doug Schifter’s suicide note:

When the industry started in 1981, I averaged 40-50 hours. I cannot survive any longer with working 120 hours! I am not a Slave and I refuse to be one.”

Posted on

Negative advertising towards Lyft

Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped describes Kalanick’s attempt to “cripple” Lyft through negative advertising:

Uber found ways to mess with Lyft. All around San Francisco, Uber bought street signs and billboards targeting Lyft.  Each billboard showed a large, black disposable razor blade with “Uber” printed on the handle, poised above one of Lyft’s pink, cuddly trademark mustaches. In the text behind the graphic, Uber made its message clear: “Shave the ‘Stache.”

(p.122)

Posted on

Interfered with Lyft’s marketing events

Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped describes Kalanick’s attempt to “cripple” Lyft, including by disrupting Lyft marketing events:

He’d send his own employees to the [Lyft] events, where they would show up in jet black T-shirts–Uber’s signature color–carrying plates filled with cookies, each with the word “Uber” written in icing. Each Uber employee had a referral code printed on the back of their T-shirt. The codes were for Lyft drivers to enter when they signed up for Uber, earning them a bonus.

(p.122)

Posted on

Encouraged regulators to pursue Lyft and Sidecar

In the period where Uber used properly-licensed black cars but competitors Lyft and Sidecar used ordinary vehicles, Travis Kalanick tried to get regulators to pursue Lyft and Sidecar. Uber leaders met secretly with San Franscisco transportation regulators to flag what they saw as violations.  Source: Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 119).  In addition, Kalanick personally blogged about the situation.

When Uber later launched UberX, with unlicensed vehicles much like Lyft and Sidecar, Kalanick wrote “We could have chosen to use regulation to thwart our competitors,” which Mike Isaac calls “disingenuous” in that Uber had in fact attempted to do exactly that.

Proudly powered by WordPress