Lyft's Founders Exit, Uber Driver Improvements, Wrong About Aggregation

This data table lifts founders exit. Uber driver improvements and run about irrigation was published on Tuesday, April 11th, 2023.

这个数据表发布于2023年4月11日星期二，内容涉及创始人出局、优步司机改进和灌溉运行。

Good morning. One correction yesterday's update. Substack did not lower the price of their round. The $585 million valuation in the Axios article I cited was the pre-money valuation from the previous $65 million raise in 2021. IE opposed money valuation of $650 million. That was the price offered to subtract writers. We covered that raise along with the Twitter Substack fight on both Sharp Tech and Dithering.

早上好。昨天的更新有一个更正。Substack并没有降低他们的轮次价格。我在Axios文章中引用的5.85亿美元估值是上一轮2021年6500万美元募资前的估值。实际估值是6.5亿美元。这个价格是给Subtract Writers的。我们在Sharp Tech和Dithering上都报道了这次募资以及Twitter和Substack之间的争吵。

On to the update.

转向更新。

Lifts Founders Exit. From the Wall Street Journal in late March. Lift Inc. grappling with competition and a battered stock price is tapping a board member as its chief executive. And its two co-founders will step back for managing the company.

来自《华尔街日报》三月底的报道：由于面对激烈竞争和股价下跌的问题，Lift公司决定任命一名董事为首席执行官，而两位联合创始人将退出公司的经营管理。

The ride sharing company said Monday. David Risher, who had management stints at Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp before starting a childhood reading nonprofit in 2009. We'll take over from Logan Green, who co-founded Lift with current president John Zimmer. The payroll pertains to their seats on the board, but not participate in running Lift Day to Day.

这家拼车公司周一表示，David Risher将接替共同创立Lift的Logan Green和现任总裁John Zimmer的职位。David Risher曾在亚马逊公司和微软公司担任管理职务，之后于2009年创立了一个儿童阅读非营利组织。他们的薪水将与董事会席位相关，但不会参与Lift日常运营。

Lift has struggled to keep up with its larger rival, Uber Technologies Inc. Uber now commands 74% of the US ride share market up from 62% in early 2020, according to consumer receipts analyzed by market research firm Yippet Data. Lift's market share has fallen to 26% from 38% over the same period Yippet Data shows.

Lift一直努力跟上其更大的竞争对手Uber Technologies Inc的步伐。根据市场调研公司Yippet Data分析的消费者收据显示，Uber现在在美国的乘车共享市场上占据74％的份额，相比2020年初的62％有所增加。而Lift的市场份额则在同一时期内从38％下降到了26％，Yippet Data显示。

Uber, which has a global and more diversified business, leveraged its food delivery operations to deal with a driver shortage that crippled the ride share industry as the economy reopened in 2021. Lift chose not to get into food delivery and operates within the US and Canada. Uber moved more quickly than lift to attract drivers with bonuses in some new futures, many of which lift later implemented.

Uber是一家全球范围更广，业务更多元化的公司，利用其食品配送业务来应对2021年经济重新开放时导致乘车共享行业陷入司机短缺的困境。Lift选择不涉足食品配送业务，仅在美国和加拿大运营。Uber比Lift更快地通过提供新的奖励措施吸引司机，其中许多奖励后来被Lift也采纳了。

I haven't ridden about ride sharing for a long time. My last full article about Uber was in 2019 expressing significant skepticism about the S1. There have been a few updates here and there since then, but in general, I've long been frustrated that Uber's disaster year in 2017 had rendered all the analysis I had done to date about Uber's prospects moot. I thought, and still think, that Uber was on the verge of knocking Lift out in 2017, that investors only put money into lift because of Uber's many scandals, and that Uber's financial prospects would have been far brighter had they become a ride sharing monopoly. I was particularly interested in seeing that happen because I was confident that Uber had a network advantage and I wanted to be proven right. After 2017 though, it seemed like my predictions were doomed to be a counterfactual that wouldn't be settled either way. In fact though, we may be finally coming close to a resolution. Lift is struggling and losing market share, and Uber is, if not thriving, at least profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis and trending in a positive direction. So I'm right, yes? Well no, I think I was wrong.

我很久没有听说过拼车了。我上一篇完整的文章是在2019年关于Uber S1的，当时我表达了很大的怀疑。那以后我听到一些关于它的消息，但总的来说，我一直很沮丧，因为Uber在2017年的灾难年使我之前对它前景的所有分析都失效了。我认为，而且现在仍然认为，Uber 2017年快要把Lift挤垮了。投资者只是因为Uber的很多丑闻而投资于Lift，如果Uber成为了拼车垄断，它的财务前景将会更加光明。我特别想看到这一点的发生，因为我确信Uber拥有网络优势，想要被证明是正确的。然而，在2017年之后，我的预测似乎注定是无论如何都不会被证实的反事实。事实上，我们可能终于快要得到解决了。Lift正在挣扎并失去市场份额，而Uber在财务和盈利可比性上至少是有盈利的，并且朝着积极的方向发展。那么我是正确的吗？其实不是，我认为我错了。

Uber driver improvements. Last week the Wall Street Journal published another article entitled, What Happened When Uber's CEO Started Driving for Uber. It's queer not just from the title, but also the contents of the story that this was a feature set up by Uber PR, and for good reason. It makes the company generally in CEO Dara Kajashahi look really good. Still, I think there are a few points that are worth highlighting, in which are validated by Lift Struggles. They also explain why I have my analysis of this market wrong back in 2014.

上周，《华尔街日报》发表了一篇题为“Uber CEO开车后发生了什么”的文章。无论从标题还是文章的内容来看，都可以看出这是Uber公关打造的特别报道，且很成功地展现出了CEO Dara Kajashahi以及整个公司的好形象。不过，我认为有一些值得特别强调的地方，这些地方也得到了Lift Struggles的认同。它们也解释了为什么我在2014年对这个市场的分析是错误的。为了改进Uber司机的服务，我们需要重点关注这些方面。

After five years running Uber Technologies Inc, Dara Koshra Shawi in September got behind the wheeled himself. Using the alias Dave Kaye and a great Tesla model why that he purchased secondhand, the chief executive made dozens of trips as a ride share driver in the following months faring people around the hills of San Francisco. Mr. Koshra Shawi's moonlining was part of a campaign by him and his lieutenants to better understand and improve Uber's experience for drivers, whose scarcity had become a critical challenge for the company after the US reopened from Covid-19 lockdowns.

达拉·科什拉·肖伊在Uber科技公司经营五年后，于九月份亲自上路开车。他使用了化名戴夫·卡耶，驾驶他所购买的二手特斯拉汽车，在接下来的几个月中，作为拼车司机载客，穿越旧金山的山丘地带。科什拉·肖伊先生的这种兼职是他及其下属试图更好地理解和改善Uber司机体验的一部分，由于美国解除了新冠肺炎封锁后司机匮乏问题成为了公司的重要挑战。

It marked a sharp turn for a company that wasn't typically seen as being driver friendly. The campaign, Code Name Project Broomering, has helped shape what has become one of the biggest makeovers of Uber's business since its inception in 2009. Quote, I think that the industry as a whole, to some extent, has taken drivers for granted. End quote, Mr. Koshra Shawi said in an interview, he had been driven on Uber before because it wasn't his biggest priority.

这标志着一个通常不被视为司机友好的公司的巨大转变。代号“扫帚特遣队”的活动塑造了Uber自2009年成立以来最大的改变之一。肖拉维先生在一次采访中说：“我认为整个行业在某种程度上都忽视了司机。”他曾经乘坐Uber，因为那不是他的首要任务。

Drivers had always been in abundance apply. The pandemic fueled labor shortage forced a company-wide introspection, he said, to quote, re-examine every single assumption that we've made. End quote,

司机一直都很充足。但疫情引发的劳动力短缺迫使我们进行全公司自省，重新审视我们所做出的每一个假设。

The entire story is worth a read, but the big takeaway is this, Uber focused on the driver product and overall experience, and that made all the difference. Still, it took a while.

整个故事值得一读，但最重要的是，优步注重司机产品和整体体验，并因此取得了成功。不过，这需要一段时间。

The story of how Koshra Shawi started driving is notable. As the economy reopened after pandemic lockdowns, riders returned at a faster pace than drivers. The imbalance pushed ride prices and wait times to record highs.

Koshra Shawi 开始开车的故事相当引人注目。疫情封锁结束后，乘客回归的速度比司机快。这种不平衡推高了乘车价格和等待时间，创下了纪录。

Uber at first defaulted to an old formula, financial incentives. In April 2021, Mr. Koshra Shawi carved out $250 million in bonuses to entice drivers. When the company revealed in August that year that the spending had weighed on its results, it shares tanked. Investors hammered Mr. Koshra Shawi on an evening call, saying he was spending too much and needed to focus on reducing costs to turn a profit. That old formula was, obviously, perhaps at the time and definitely in retrospect, a product of the zero-interest rate environment.

起初，优步采用了一个旧的方案，就是提供金融激励。2021年4月，库什拉·沙维（Koshra Shawi）斥资2.5亿美元以吸引司机。但该公司在同年8月披露该支出对公司财务造成了负面影响后，股价急剧下跌。投资者在晚间电话会议中抨击库什拉·沙维，称他花费过多，需要专注于降低成本以实现盈利。这个旧的方案显然是在零利率环境下产生的，或许当时看来还可以，但现在回顾起来则不是。

Drivers, who were contractors and non-employees, were heavily motivated to multi-home between Uber and Lyft, and both companies used bonuses to keep them primarily on their own platforms, thus delivering a good enough experience to riders. That strategy was much more difficult to pull off as a public company, though, an intolerable once-interest rate started to rise.

司机是承包商和非雇员，他们非常有动力在Uber和Lyft之间选择接单，两家公司都使用奖金来保持他们主要在自己的平台上，从而为乘客提供足够好的体验。然而，这种策略在成为一家公共公司后更难实施，因为利率开始上涨，这是不可容忍的。

Uber ahead of driver operations, Carol Chang, had been leading the effort to get drivers to return to the ride-hailing service. Her father once worked as a taxi driver after immigrating to the US, and she knew bonuses were just a short-term fix. Drivers wanted not only better pay, but also to be heard about other issues.

优步司机运营部门的领导人Carol Chang一直在努力让司机回到打车服务平台并去领导这个努力。她的父亲曾在移民美国之后当出租车司机，她知道奖金只是短期解决方案。司机们不仅想要更好的薪资，还希望在其他问题上被倾听。

In June that year, she held a four-hour Zoom meeting with the company executives and asked them to ferry passengers and food for the app, so they would understand driver's grievances. Mr. Koshusha, we developed a routine. He was spent the weekends delivering food than outline glitches and possible solutions on a Google document. He would tag employees and include photos and screenshots to show the issue.

那年6月，她与公司高管举行了一次长达4小时的Zoom会议，并要求他们为该应用程序运送乘客和食品，以便他们了解司机的不满。Koshusha先生，我们建立了一个常规。他在周末分配送食品的时间，然后在Google文档上概述问题和可能的解决方案。他会标记员工，并包括照片和屏幕截图以展示问题。

He said that earlier, Uber believed that if it attracted drivers with money, quote, the rest will take care of itself, end quote. It dawned on him after his delivery state that the company, quote, had to fundamentally change how we built our product and do it faster than our competition.

他说，早期的Uber相信如果用钱吸引司机，其他问题会自然而然得解决。然而，在他交付货物的时候，他意识到公司必须从根本上改变产品的开发方式，并且比我们的竞争对手更快地做到这一点。

The funny thing about all the anecdotes in this section is that they seem hilariously basic. What seems clear is that Uber just never cared to make the driver product better, because, per the previous point, they could just spend their way to more drivers. Never mind that making product improvements is an actual investment that pays off for years. If money is free, why go to the trouble?

这一部分所有轶事有趣的地方在于它们看起来非常基础，实在是太好笑了。看起来明显的是，Uber从来不关心让司机用起来更好的产品，因为根据之前的观点，他们只需要花钱来招更多的司机就可以了。不管产品改进能够带来多年的回报，如果钱是免费的，那么为什么要麻烦自己去做呢？

Then, in September last year, Mr. Koshusha, he tried out ferrying passengers. He bought the used-great Tesla and began picking up San Francisco riders and soon experienced some of Uber drivers because complaints. One was the inability for drivers to see drop-off locations and estimated pay before they accepted a trip, a restriction that made it impossible to decide if a ride was worth their time.

去年九月，Koshusha先生尝试成为载客的司机。他购买了一辆二手的特斯拉，开始在旧金山接载乘客，并很快就遇到了一些对Uber的司机的抱怨。其中一个问题是司机不能在接受行程前看到下车地点和预估付款，这一限制使得司机无法确定是否值得他们的时间去接乘客。

Uber had worried that drivers would tripic rides, avoiding some neighborhoods and discriminating against riders going to those places, so it only gave the information to some drivers with high trip acceptance rates. When Mr. Koshusha, he tried out driving, he rejected some trips and the app punished him by taking away the ability to see destinations ahead of time.

优步担心司机会规避某些社区乘车，歧视前往这些地方的乘客，因此只将信息提供给一些接受率高的司机。Koshusha先生尝试开车，拒绝了一些订单，应用程序因此惩罚了他，剥夺了提前查看目的地的能力。

The experience was so frustrating that he asked his team to speed up the timetable for all US drivers to see destinations upfront without any restrictions. To make some destinations more attractive, the company needed to change the way it calculated driver pay. Uber started measuring real-time demand at drop-off locations to add to time and distance in factoring pay.

他的经历非常令人沮丧，以至于他要求他的团队加快时间表，让所有美国司机都可以在没有任何限制的情况下提前看到目的地。为了使一些目的地更具吸引力，公司需要改变计算司机工资的方式。Uber开始测量卸货地点的实时需求，并将其加入到计算工资的时间和距离中。

Drivers were paid more if it took passengers to areas that were unlikely to bring new rides such as secluded neighborhoods. Driver Danny Jacob dumped lift after Uber introduced pay and destinations to disclosure in Chicago in September. He said the ability to see where he was going and the value of the ride was liberating and Uber kept him busy because he could switch between rides and food delivery.

如果司机将乘客带到不太可能带来新乘车的地区，如偏僻的社区，则司机会获得更高报酬。司机丹尼·雅各布在9月份Uber在芝加哥引入支付和目的地披露后，放弃了Lift。他表示，能够看到自己要去的地方和乘车价值是解放性的，而且Uber让他忙碌，因为他可以在乘车和送餐之间切换。

Mr. Jacobs said Uber still is a long way before it can call itself driver friendly, but the move signaled that it was willing to listen, quote, after years of us banging our heads against a wall.

Jacobs 先生表示，Uber 仍有很长的路要走才能称自己为司机友好型，但这一举措表明它愿意倾听，引用他的话说，“经过多年的头痛撞墙后”。

Driver engagement and lift dropped after Uber summer rollout, according to people close to lift. The company's product manager scrambled to match Uber's changes, replicating many features months later. The trouble for a lift is that it's a lot easier to get drivers to switch than it is customers, but the best way to get customers to switch is to have intolerable long wait times. Uber's wait times got better more quickly than lifts because Uber made the driver experience better and lift may be an aspire they can't recover from.

据接近 Lift 的人表示，Uber 推出夏季之后，司机的参与度和提升率都下降了。该公司的产品经理匆忙跟上 Uber 的变化，数月之后才复制了许多功能。对 Lift 而言，问题在于让司机转投 Uber 要比让顾客更容易，但让顾客转投的最佳方法是让等待时间太长无法容忍。由于 Uber 使司机体验更好，所以等待时间比 Lift 更快得到改善，而 Lift 可能是无法从中恢复的一种努力。

Wrong about aggregation When Kostrashahi took the job I wrote in Uber's new CEO, quote, most new stories are making the obvious point that Kostrashahi is qualified because he is a CEO for a tech company in the travel industry. What is even more relevant though is that Kostrashahi is the CEO of an aggregator. Expedia and other online travel agents and their associated stables of sites have built businesses by focusing on discovery.

当Kostrashahi接手这份工作时，我写道：“Uber的新CEO，大多数新闻报道的显而易见的观点是Kostrashahi有资格担任这个职位，因为他曾经是旅游业的科技公司的CEO。”然而更重要的是，Kostrashahi是一个聚合平台的CEO。Expedia和其他在线旅行代理商及其关联网站已经通过专注于发现而建立了业务。

Instead of having a final tell directly, a customer can go to expedia and search for a location. This spike extension draws supply. While hotels may complain about having to pay OTA fees, the truth is the volume driven by the OTA is well worth the cost and Kostrashahi has been willing to remind hotels of that fact. In fact, what makes Uber so valuable and still so attractive despite all of the recent troubles is its position with riders.

与其直接确定最终地点，顾客可以去Expedia搜索地点。这种曲线上升的扩展吸引了供应。尽管酒店可能会抱怨不得不支付OTA费用，但事实是，OTA带来的交易量绝对物有所值。Kostrashahi一直愿意提醒酒店这一点。事实上，尽管近期遭遇各种麻烦，但Uber之所以如此有价值，如此吸引人，正是其在与乘客的交互中的位置。

The more riders Uber has, the more drivers it will attract. Even if the economics are worse relative to other services, driving at a worse rate is better than not driving at a better one. To that end, Uber's strength and its sky evaluation comes from the company's ability to acquire customers cheaply thanks to a combination of the service's usefulness and the effects of aggregation theory. As the company acquires users and its users increase their usage, Uber attracts more drivers, which makes the service better, which makes it easier to acquire marginal users.

Uber拥有更多的乘客，就会吸引更多的司机。即使与其他服务相比，经济效益较差，以更低的价格行驶仍然比不行驶要好。为此，Uber的优势和高估值来自于公司能够廉价获取客户的能力，这得益于服务的实用性和聚合理论的效应。随着公司获取用户并增加他们的使用率，Uber会吸引更多的司机，使服务更好，从而更容易获取边缘用户。

Not by lowering the price, but rather by offering a better service for the same price. The single biggest factor that differentiates multi-billion dollar companies is a scalable advantage and customer acquisition cost. Uber has that. End quote. The reason why I found the above story interesting and wanted to quote from it so liberally is because it basically suggests the exact opposite. Uber appears to be building a sustainable advantage by focusing on the drivers, on supply, which means my base understanding of the company and the market was mistaken.

不是通过降价，而是以同样的价格提供更好的服务。区分亿万美元公司最大的因素是可扩展的优势和客户获取成本。Uber有这个优势。引用完毕。我觉得上述故事有趣，并想自由引用它的原因是它基本上暗示了完全相反的事情。Uber似乎通过专注于司机和供应来建立可持续的优势，这意味着我对公司和市场的基本理解是错误的。

What is a bit annoying is that in retrospect my mistake seems very obvious. Aeration theory applies in markets defined by abundance, not scarcity, and drivers are a scarce resource. Perhaps that scarcity wasn't as obvious in the employment environment of the 2010s, or those big subsidies attracted an unrosic number of drivers, or the explosion and gale alternatives simply depleted the pool. But at the end of the day, there was always a limit on just how many drivers there could have been, and I should have been included into that a lot sooner.

有点让人烦恼的是，回想起来，我的错误显得十分明显。通风理论适用于定义为富足的市场，而司机是一种稀缺资源。也许在2010年代的就业环境中这种稀缺性不太明显，或者那些巨额津贴吸引了大量司机，或者激增的出行和代替品简单地耗尽了资源。但归根结底，司机的数量总是有限的，我应该早早地考虑到这一点。

I also think if this is all fairly encouraging in terms of the broader societal impacts of Uber as well. I've long believed the company was a net positive given what a drastic change it has made in the availability of rides in places that were never served by taxis, leading to more economic activity, less drunk driving, etc. There was always a concern though that if Uber knocked lift out, it would be an unaccountable monopoly. In fact though, it is clear that Uber is very much beholden to drivers who have other options outside of ride sharing, food delivery, groceries, etc. in who are a scarce resource.

我也认为，就整个社会影响而言，Uber是具有鼓舞人心的作用的。我长期以来一直认为，由于其对于交通服务区域的大幅改变，使得原本从未有出租车服务的地方也有了租车的机会，从而带来更多的经济活动，减少醉酒驾驶等问题，Uber对社会的贡献是正面的。不过，一直以来有一个担忧，那就是如果Uber挤掉了Lyft，这将会是一个无法问责的垄断。但实际上，很明显Uber在很大程度上是受司机们所掌控的，这些司机们在拼车、送餐和购物等领域之外，还有其他的选择，而且他们是一种稀缺资源。

At the same time, with its lack of monopoly power may be bearish for the stock, it is encouraging that product improvements, which represent spending on which Uber gains long-term leverage, actually make a difference. Indeed, perhaps the best way to think about Uber is that it has an abundant number of riders, and its true customers are drivers, and that there are ways to win those true customers beyond simply throwing money at them.

同时，虽然缺乏垄断权可能对股票形成压力，但令人鼓舞的是，代表优步长期获得杠杆的产品改进确实有所改善。事实上，也许最好的方式是将优步看作具有众多乘客的公司，其真正的客户是司机，而赢得这些真正的客户并不仅仅是扔钱。

The daily update is intended for a single recipient, but occasional forwarding is totally fine. If you would like to order multiple subscriptions for your team with a group discount, please contact me directly. Thanks for being a subscriber and have a great day.

这份每日更新是专为一位收件人设计的，但偶尔转发也是完全可以的。如果您希望为您的团队订购多个订阅并享受团体折扣，请直接联系我。感谢您成为我们的订阅者，祝您拥有愉快的一天。