Uber taxi
 |
|
|
Formerly called
|
UberCab (2009–2011) |
|---|---|
| Privately held company | |
| Industry |
Transportation Delivery (commerce) |
| Founded | March 2009 |
| Founders |
Travis Kalanick Garrett Camp |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
|
Area served
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Worldwide, 528 cities |
|
Key people
|
Travis Kalanick (CEO) Thuan Pham (CTO) Ryan Graves (COO) |
| Products | Mobile app, website |
| Services | Transportation network company Vehicle for hire Delivery (commerce) |
| Revenue |
 US$ 5.5 billion (2016) |
 US$ -3.0 billion (2016) |
|
|
Number of employees
|
6,700 |
| Divisions | UberEATS, Otto (company) |
| Website | uber |
Uber Technologies Inc. is a transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, operating in 528 cities worldwide. It develops, markets and operates the Uber car transportation and food delivery mobile apps. Uber drivers use their own personal cars, although drivers can rent a car to drive with Uber.
Uber has been a pioneer in the sharing economy and the changes in industries as a result of the sharing economy has been referred to as "Uberification" or "Uberisation". Uber has also been the subject of protests and legal actions.
Uber was founded in 2009 as UberCab by Garrett Camp, the cofounder of StumbleUpon, and Travis Kalanick, who had sold his Red Swoosh startup for $19 million in 2007. The name "Uber" is a reference to the common (and somewhat slangy) word "uber", meaning "topmost" or "super", and having its origins in the German word über, meaning "above".
Kalanick joined Camp and gives him "full credit for the idea" of Uber. Camp spent $800 hiring a private driver with friends and had been mulling over ways to decrease the cost of black car services ever since. He realized that sharing the cost with people could make it affordable, and his idea morphed into Uber. "Garrett is the guy who invented that shit," Kalanick said at an early Uber event in San Francisco. The first prototype was built by Camp, and his friends, Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan, with Kalanick being brought on as a "mega advisor" to the company.
Uber's first market was San Francisco and, following a beta launch in May 2010, Uber's services and mobile app officially launched there in 2011. Originally, the application only allowed users to hail a black luxury car and the price was 1.5 times that of a taxi.
In February 2010, Ryan Graves became the first Uber employee, getting the job by responding to a tweet from Kalanick announcing the job opening, and receiving 5-10% of the company. After ten months as CEO, Kalanick succeeded him as CEO in December 2010. Graves stepped down to become the company's COO.
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Wikipedia