Uber COO says there's a downside to being at the top

At the top, it's difficult to cognize wherever other to go.

In an question and reply connected Harry Stebbings' 20VC podcast published connected Monday, Andrew Macdonald, Uber's main operating serviceman and president, said that uncovering caller businesses tin beryllium challenging erstwhile the company's halfway business is already truthful large.

Call it the "classic innovator's dilemma," he said.

"The point you've already built is truthful large that it conscionable swallows up your organizational capacity to do thing else," Macdonald said. "And moreover if you're capable to guidelines up different businesses, it's intolerable for those businesses to get the resourcing, attention, distribution, trading dollars, engineering capacity — immoderate it is, it conscionable gets swallowed up by the hole."

Macdonald said Uber is adjacent to $250 cardinal successful gross bookings connected an annualized basis. At that scale, he said, a caller merchandise would request a plausible way to becoming a multibillion-dollar business earlier it's compelling capable for the company.

"It conscionable really constrains your reasoning a small bit," Macdonald said.

Uber is operating astatine a formidable scale. The institution reported $58 cardinal successful gross bookings successful its astir caller 4th and $14.2 cardinal successful revenue. Uber said the level averaged 208 cardinal monthly progressive level consumers.

The institution is still making large bets.

Autonomous vehicles, Macdonald said, are now Uber's "largest azygous area of investment." The institution has collaborated pinch a slew of robotaxi platforms, including Alphabet's Waymo, and launched Uber Autonomous Solutions earlier this twelvemonth — a suite of services aimed astatine helping AV companies commercialize their tech. The Financial Times estimated successful an April study that the institution has committed much than $10 cardinal to investments successful AV companies and spending connected robotaxi fleets.

On Monday, Uber besides unveiled a business pinch drone-delivery startup Zipline to let Uber Eats customers to person drone deliveries starting later this year. The companies said they were targeting 1 cardinal regular drone deliveries by the extremity of 2029.

The business includes a "strategic investment" successful Zipline by Uber.

Macdonald said connected the podcast that the institution tries to incubate fledgling ideas done a programme called "Growth Bets," successful which Uber dedicates labor to caller projects alternatively than having group negociate existing businesses simultaneously.

Even then, Macdonald said large companies throwing a ton of money astatine caller projects often move much slow than startups, arsenic group get "fat connected the resources."

The upside for Uber, he said, is that if a caller thought works, the institution tin put it successful beforehand of much than 200 cardinal people.

Not a bad caput start.

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