WEBVTT - The Untold Story of One of Uber's Very First Drivers 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.199 Don't let your legacy I T systems cost you money, 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.320 innovation and a place at the digital table of the future. 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.280 You can change your systems and the economics of it 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.720 with software from red Hat. See how at red hat 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:23.320 dot com. More than one point five million people drive 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.160 for the global ride sharing juggernaut Uber. They're always available 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.200 day and night, taking us where we want to go. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.000 But it's driving for Uber a productive, profitable way to 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.920 make a living. Does Uber come through and its promises 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.519 to drivers. It provides much needed income for college students, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.760 the recently retired, and the unemployed. But half the driving 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.440 gets done by people working more than thirty five hours 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.159 a week. These people often fight to make ends meet. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.400 The hours are long and the returns can be meager. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.840 Today we're exploring the sensitive relationship between Uber and its drivers. 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.560 Our story starts back in the fall of two thousand ten, 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.320 when Uber was just starting out in the Golden City 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:07.120 by the Bay, San Francisco. One of the first Uber 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.000 drivers was a soft spoken immigrant in his mid thirties 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.840 named Sophia and Uali, an Algerian former safety specialist in 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.200 the oil industry. Like many immigrants to the US, Sophia 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.280 found work in the taxi and limousine industry. A fleet 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.560 owner gave him a smartphone with the Uber app and 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:27.640 a pearl white two thousand three Lincoln town Car. It 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:32.119 gets people to like the car because it's white and 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.319 the whole system was black. At that time, all Uber's 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.600 cars were black. This car stood out. In fact, as 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.280 Sophia tells us, Uber initially wanted him to change the car. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.000 Even Ubert got in touch with me to UH to 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.160 try to to convince me to to change the car. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.120 And I was like, if if the car changes, I 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.960 am not here too. So because you had no other option, exactly, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.320 I had no no other option, and I started to 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:06.680 to build some right there's esteem to that car. And 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.720 how I did that it was it was like tedding 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.760 my riders that this is the only single white car 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.720 in the whole branded the car exactly, branded the car exactly. 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.120 Pretty soon Uber's customers were tweeting about the car and 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.360 reviewing it on Yelp, hoping that they would call an 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.480 Uber and get Sophian's majestic white ride. There was something 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.359 magical about Sofian's car, and someone who it was exactly 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:43.040 it's lost to history decided to call it the Unicorn. Hi, 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.160 I'm Brad Stone and I'm Eric Newcomer. Welcome to this 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.079 week's episode of Decrypted. Now, Brad, come clean. The timing 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.800 of this podcast isn't totally coincidental, Okay right. My new book, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.520 The Upstarts comes out this week on January one. It's 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.559 about the rise and rapid expansion of the global sharing economy, juggernauts, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:06.160 Uber and Airbnb, and the nearly NonStop controversy and turmoil 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.960 that they have left in their week. Today's story of 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.120 Sophion in the Unicorn is drawn from Brad's book, and 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.959 through Sophia's experience, will dig into the skills at all entrepreneurs, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.800 including Uber drivers, need to make it in a rapidly 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.680 changing business world. Will also looks specifically at what Uber 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.880 offers its drivers and ask whether one of Silicon Valley's 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.440 most celebrated successes is living up to its mission of 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:42.480 helping drivers generate self sustaining income. Sophion is one of 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.640 the world's most prolific Uber drivers. He's been there since 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.360 the beginning and says he's driven around thirty thousand rides. Now, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.800 that's five thousand rides a year. More than four fifteen 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.400 rides a month, more than eighty three rides a week, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.440 working six days a week. Not to be glib, but 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.680 that's a lot of sitting down. It is so it's 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.480 San Francisco in the fall of two thousand ten. Even 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.360 in Uber's early months, sophia On implicitly understood its potential. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.200 Customers loved it. Drivers didn't waste as much time sitting 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:18.680 around waiting for fairs, and the app was easy to use, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.320 so newcomers to the city could seamlessly find their way around. 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.120 In the beginning, sophia says it just paid the bills, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:30.799 but after a while the money started pouring in. Sophion 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.600 was like a lot of early Uber drivers. He saw 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.839 the company as a platform on which he could build 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.880 a business. Uber encouraged this. Travis Kalinnik, Uber CEO, boasted 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.400 about drivers who were building fleets of cars on the 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.120 Uber system. After seven months, Sophion left the fleet and 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.719 took over the Unicorns lease from the owner. Then he 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.799 started taking loans out, leasing new town cars and hiring 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.880 new drivers. His company was called Global Way Limousine because 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.320 he had aspirations to expand a around the world, and 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.560 business was good. He told you he was making seven 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.440 hundred or eight hundred dollars a day, right, he was 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.920 doing that by taking commissions from his drivers who were 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.479 driving his cars for Uber. Meanwhile, Sophie and kept driving 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.279 the Unicorn, which was getting famous in the city. And 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:17.840 at the same that You've got this car and it's 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.200 kind of a local celebrity, right, the exact unicorn. Did 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.440 you find that people wanted the Unicorn, that they were 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.719 trying to hail it? Oh? Yes, definitely. I mean a 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.160 lot of people who I get every day, they all 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.720 the ones who love it. They all say, how how 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.600 could we How can we get you every day as 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:45.000 our driver? But unfortunately the Uber system doesn't allow allow 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.200 people to have that option. Well, that might have been 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:48.920 some of the magic of the Unicorn, that I could 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.960 only show up like a real unicorn. It can only 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.120 it can only show up through a circumstance. Exactly, luck, Exactly, 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.640 that's what I say when when I find people who 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.440 doesn't like that. And then the ground shifted under his feet. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.599 In the fall of two thousand thirteen, following rivals like 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.520 Lift and Sidecar, Uber introduced a ride sharing service called 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.480 uber x that let anybody with the driver's license pick 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.000 up a passenger with their own vehicle as long as 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.160 they met certain criteria. And with the rollout of uber X, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.640 Uber started lowering prices and it kept on lowering them. Travis, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.719 the CEO of Uber, raised a fortune and venture capital. 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:30.359 He was using price as a weapon to grow quickly 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.520 and outpaced rivals with less money. There was also a 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.160 bigger mission. He said that Uber would replace car ownership 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.200 right but Travis is, above all else a competitor. He 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.960 wanted to make sure Uber, not Lift or anyone else, 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.159 dominated the market for ride sharing. It took a while 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.560 for Sophie On to feel the effects of these changes. 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.720 Writers slowly migrated from Uber Black to the cheaper alternatives 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.640 Uber Black rates fell each ride became less profitable. But 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.600 worst of all, Sofian's drivers eventually gured out that they 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.200 shouldn't be giving them a commission at all, but driving 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.800 their own cars directly for Uber. So when uber x 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.960 rolled down, I I was thinking to find other ways 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.880 how to how to balance up my my business with 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:23.520 the changes. So so the business kept being good up 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.000 up to to the first I would say, to the 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.400 first quarter of of the thousand and fourteen, and then 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:34.120 it started we started to uh to fill the effect 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.559 of uber X, you know, so prices started to drop down, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.720 and maybe the demand was the same, but prices started 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.920 to drop down because of the the Uber x launch. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:54.280 So from there I I felt that it was a 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.880 turning point for the Uber system. Not necessarily on the 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.640 bad way, I would say. I would say, knowing the 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.320 business from the beginning, I had to take some some 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.720 action to to not lose money. What about your drivers, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.680 did they start to leave and go out on their 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.880 own because there was this opportunity to use their own cars? Well, 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:22.120 definitely you have. You have you have this pressure from 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.560 your drivers to to go away from you because there 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.200 is that that opportunity to end and honestly you don't 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:34.120 have any choice. Then of course encouraging the drivers just 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.000 being nice with them and make as much as business 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.840 they can with you, and then encourage them to go, 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.760 you know so, because because it's open for them. By 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.240 two fourteen, Sophie had to shut down his business Global 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.680 Wey Limousine. But it's remarkable that he really understands why 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.040 Uber made these changes and it is a piece with it. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.240 There was a huge, huge demand from from customer customer 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.840 site and the huge demand from Uber to encourage people 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.680 to to have fleets at the beginning. But when the 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.920 business started to change and policies change and prices started 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.520 to go down a little bit, they had this idea, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:21.880 which is a brilliant idea and I totally understand it. 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:29.680 Drivers are more happy being their their own to be 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.920 to be our own boss, you know. So I think 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:40.199 that that what makes Uber change change their their policies 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.120 to not encourage people to have to have fleets anymore, 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:50.800 because the drivers are more happy, happier when they have 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.200 their own car and their own business. And to be honest, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.040 it's a good decision. It's a good decision from them 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.240 because the companies health here this way then he used 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.360 to be. Because some of the partners who had fleets 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.040 and a lot of drivers, I can't tell you my 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.760 drivers they were happy, but not all drivers who were 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.559 driving for someone they were happy. So because they were 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.720 sharing their income exactly, they were sharing their income and 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:29.400 sometimes without any any good business criterias, you know, so 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.800 they are sharing it. Ah, there was a lot of 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:38.640 injustice in there, you know. So I saw things from 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.720 from partners who had fleets. That's that's sometimes you hire. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:47.080 They hire drivers and they give them like a very 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.720 very low, the lowest portion from from the business they had. 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:55.320 They they were doing it in percentages, and the percentage 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.560 they give them it's it's just fair low. So let's say, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.880 let's say the part to know who hires ten drivers, 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:08.360 they give deals that that are not in the favor 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.079 of the driver. It's there is no badance to help 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.880 to help a driver. So they were given, let's say, 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:19.720 for an example, sevent thirty percent deal, So the owner 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.000 of the card takes seventy and the driver takes which 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.040 is not not right. So at this point Brad is 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.960 Sophia and still writing that white unicorn. Well Eric will 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.400 get to that, but yeah, Sophie and was now working 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.920 for himself, driving for Uber Black, trying to make it. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.400 In Uber's new economic reality, the days of seven hundred 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.760 dollars a day earnings were a thing of the past. 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.880 How much are you making now per day? I would 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.280 say it's an average of three fifty three three fifty 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.520 three hundred, three hundred fifty dollars, which is still pretty 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:54.920 pretty good. Pretty good. Sounds like half of what you're 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.000 making in the heyday. Yes, but I would say, let 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.520 me tell you this. I would say, back in the day, 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:07.640 it wasn't normal. The prices were there was very little competitions, yes, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.080 little competition, and it was to be honest, it was overpriced. 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.280 I mean for someone to take an Uber and Uber Black, 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.320 which is the only option on the system, take an 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.480 an Uber black from the financial district to the North 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.079 Beach for twenty five bucks, that's that's a lot of money. 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.560 That's a lot of money. It sounds like Sophian is 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.640 happy being his own boss, working for Uber Black, making 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.240 a decent living well. His story is a bit of 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.960 an aberration. There are many drivers who work for uber 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.960 x and other Uber services who struggle to make ends 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:46.760 meet and don't make much above minimum wage. Up Ahead 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.400 will zoom in on that struggle so many drivers are facing, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:51.559 and we'll see what Uber is doing to make things 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.480 better for drivers. But first a word from our sponsor. 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.600 Inside the most successful organizations, I t has gone from 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.360 supporting the business to driving the business. But the costs 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.960 of legacy infrastructure can impede this progress. Budgets can't stretch 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.400 enough to pay for digital innovation at the speed required. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.600 No one gets a blank check. The answer is to 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.320 change the economics of your I by shifting from ownership 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:26.320 to use, from licenses to subscriptions, from proprietary to open, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.840 change the economics of it with open software from red hat. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:42.400 Learn more at red hat dot com. Okay, we're back. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.839 Right before the break, we saw Sophion forced to dismantle 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.760 its dreams of running a global taxi fleet and deal 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.040 with a fifty pay cut after Uber started rolling out 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.600 cheaper services like uber x and Uberpool, chipping away at 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.920 drivers salaries. Eric you and olivia's Aleski recently wrote an 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:02.000 amazing story about one extreme Some drivers now go to 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.480 trying to make ends meet sleeping in their cars in 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.480 parking lots. Now, why would anybody possibly do this? You know, 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.600 we talked to one driver who lives in Sacramento, drives 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.840 into San Francisco, slept in a safe way. Now McDonald's 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.680 worked all week. It's a way to maximize his income 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.120 while keeping costs low. It's free to sleep in your car. 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.280 I can't imagine that they're smelling too good after a 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.760 couple of days. Well, some sneak off to a hostel 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:27.920 or find a gym and take a shower. So is 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.440 there anything Uper is doing to incentivize this or to 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.880 put another way, could they discourage it if they wanted to? 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.520 But sort of the ultimate Uber value here, right, flexibility. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.160 The drivers are free to do whatever they want. Lift 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.200 restrict drivers to fourteen hours of working continuously. Uber drivers 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.640 set their own schedule. It makes me wonder if drivers 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.400 are kind of locking themselves into a career and the 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.360 lifestyle that's getting worse and worse and harder and harder 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.120 over time. Drivers say their pay has gone down over 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.080 time and they're not really building up the skills to 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.760 find another job. It feels to many of them like 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.600 their career as they've chosen is getting worse and worse. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.680 But we should point out that some of the drivers 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.120 you guys spoke to were actually proud of the fact 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.040 that they were sleeping in in parking lots and in 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:12.960 camps at night. That they felt like they kind of 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.280 hacked the Uber system. Yeah, they're taking fars when they're 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.400 at their most lucrative, you know, late at night, early 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.120 in the morning, building their schedule around sort of the 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.440 commuter and the late night millennial going out to a bar. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.280 So so you know they're they're going into this pretty 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.240 clear eyed. UH. To explore this further, I spoke with 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.280 one of our favorites, the ride share Guy Love the 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.440 ride chair Guy. He's one of the most prominent experts 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.080 when it comes to sort of thinking about the best 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.280 way to make a living as an Uber driver. My 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.080 name is Harry Campbell. I'm an Uber and Lift driver 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.080 and founder of the Ride Share Guy blog, podcast, and 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.600 YouTube channel. Harry has been driving for Uber and Lifts 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.520 since two thousand fourteen. I pretty quickly realized that it's 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.760 not the most difficult job in the world, but it's 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.240 definitely a little bit more complex than it seems, And 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.280 so I started a blog about my experience as a driver, 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.760 what it was like getting signed up, what it was 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.400 really like working for the services, and now we try 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.080 to really highlight the good and the bad about being 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.720 an Uber and Left driver. When Harry started driving for Uber, 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.400 drivers could make thirty to forty dollars an hour on 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.760 weekend nights, and Uber was advertising drivers could make ninety 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.960 thousand dollars a year right. Although they recently settled the 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.680 lawsuit about those kinds of exaggerated claims. Yeah, Uber paid 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.800 a twenty million dollar penalty to the Federal Trade Commission 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:33.240 for misleading drivers about earnings and vehicle financing claims. So 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.960 what does Harry the rideshare guy say about driving for 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.840 Uber now? He says Uber has been changing all along, 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.760 and not many drivers are as accepting of this as Sophia. 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.800 The only constant in this industry is changed. Just knowing that, 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.720 especially from a driver's perspective, I mean, what the strategies 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.680 that you're using, or the places you are driving, or 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.560 even the pay that you're getting six months twelve months 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.040 ago is not going to be the same today, right, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:16:59.520 And I think that's the big thing for a lot 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.120 of drivers. Drivers don't like change. Nobody likes change, whether 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.520 it's uberpool or whether it's lower rates or whatever it 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.720 might be. So you definitely have that side of the 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.480 equation for drivers, And I mean for drivers that have 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.680 been doing this for a while, they've sort of seen 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.720 a very big shift. Is that sort of vision of 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:23.199 the k a year salary still a vision that drivers 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.840 believe in today? How is sort of both the myth 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.320 and the reality of being an Uber driver changed since 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:32.199 you started tracking the company? Well, I don't think there 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.159 are any drivers today that are going in or getting 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.320 into Uber expecting to make anywhere near ninety thousand dollars 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.120 a year. I think that if anything, Uber has had 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.840 more publicity sort of against that notion than they have 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.760 for it. And you know, kind of like what I 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:49.720 always say is that it's still a good opportunity for 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.280 a lot of people. It is still one of the 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.280 most flexible jobs in the world. You can log on 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.160 and log off whenever you want. It's just that it's 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.280 shifting more towards if you want to make the most 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.040 amount of money, you need to log on during certain times, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.760 you need to drive certain places, and so it might 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.359 seem like it's flexible, well paying from the outside, but 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.520 once you actually start doing it and you start driving, 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.920 you do realize that Uber does control a lot of 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.560 when and where you drive. Eric I've noticed this also 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.879 from talking to Uber drivers. Why are they dissatisfied with Uberpool? 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.480 As Harry suggests, Pool makes their lives harder, it's more complicated. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.119 The hardest part of being Uber drivers picking up passengers 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.240 and dropping them off, and Pool asked them to do 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.239 much more of that an hour. There's the perception, at 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.640 least that they're making less money do you think that's right? 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.840 The pay on pool is super confusing and it depends 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.160 sort of who you trust. I think Uber would say. 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.600 When it works on an hourly basis, drivers are making 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.560 more because they're getting more people in their cars. But 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.560 drivers see that on a per passenger basis, they're making less. 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.280 Passengers pay less in the hopes that they'll be able 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.159 to cram multiple people and they may not always have 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.840 a full car exactly. So last summer, Uber hired a 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.320 new president, Jeff Jones, and marketing exact at Target and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.639 Jeff is called two thousand seventeen the Year of the 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.679 Driver at Uber. What does that mean exactly? Well, One, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.600 it means they're just going to communicate with drivers better. 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.600 You know, you can see him tweeting it, drivers trying 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.119 to answer their problems, posting on LinkedIn. They're going to 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.639 improve their support so that drivers have someone they can 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.280 reach out to. But this is an engineering company. More 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.920 and more in Uber really thinks it can build tools 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.240 to help drivers. That means, you know, when they want 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.719 to head home, helping the route more efficiently get them 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:29.240 home with fares along the way, so they're getting paid 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.679 for every hour. The more rides you can get, the 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:33.719 more your per hour pay is going up, or at 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.960 least staying the same. Uber has always, of course paid 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.199 lip service to drivers, but it feels to me that 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.200 the key constituency has always been writers, and that over 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.520 the years they've basically focused on lowering fares as almost 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.199 a competitive weapon to try to corner the market in 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.080 ride sharing. Yeah, Brad, you know this better than anybody. 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.320 Uber is built around the founding story of serving the writer. 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.199 It's about calling a car with a push of a 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:58.680 button when you want to go out late at night. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.040 It's not a company that was built sort of to 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.200 give employment to sort of hundreds of thousands in the 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.320 United States alone drivers. And so I think after the fact, 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.720 there's sort of had to realize this is a two 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.040 sided marketplace. We need to celebrate riders and drivers. So 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.360 what is Uber telling you right now about this new 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.320 focus on drivers. I spoke with none new John A. Karam, 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.399 Uber's head of driver engagement, for the story about drivers 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.000 who sleep in their cars. I thought it had relevance 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.480 to this discussion. He said, the way to make more 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.240 money on our platform in general, and the way that 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.960 everyone makes more money is when the system becomes more efficient, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.720 so there is less time between trips for drivers they're 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.640 driving to um, you know, places that are closer by 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.720 to pick up passengers or or or things like that, 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.520 expanding the number of different kinds of trips that they 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.160 can take, so uber eats and things like that. Like, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.760 the more efficient our system gets for drivers, um, you know, 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.480 the more that drivers will engage in our platform, and 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.000 um you know, the more that we can you know, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.040 keep driver earnings in a kind of able place. And 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.600 I think that's the big thing that we've been really 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.159 pushing for from product perspective, which is how can we 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:16.760 bring general kind of stability to earnings. So, Eric, what 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.639 does Harry Campbell think about some of these new driver programs. 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.760 He's a bit skeptical. Uh. He believes there's one thing 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.720 that can improve life for drivers, and that's more cash. 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.320 Show me the money. A lot of people ask me 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.080 what drivers care about, and honestly, drivers are just like 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.439 everyone else. They care about frankly, their money, right, how 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.280 much they're getting paid. All of the top articles on 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.000 my site have to do with how much you can 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.240 learn how to make more money. When we surveyed our audience, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.160 pay was the number one thing and the drivers cared about. 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.480 So I mean, I think that anything that can affect 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.800 a driver's bottom line, and you know, if I'm sitting 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.560 at Uber, those are the things that I'm looking at. So, Brad, 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.399 let's get back to Sophia Newali and the Unicorn of 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.040 San Francisco. Is Sophian still drive? He is still driving. 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:03.280 In fact, I took a ride with him recently. He's 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.639 still a faithful Uber Black driver and he's starting to 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.280 work on a book sharing some of his tips about 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.399 driving for Uber. And whatever happened to the unicorn. The 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.600 unicorn actually met a tragic end. Here's Sophia describing to 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.439 me what happened on a faithful Easter two fourteen. So 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.720 the Unicorn. That was a very sad end of story 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:27.399 for the Unicorn. So one of my drivers actually, so 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:29.960 this is what I do with my drivers when they 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.120 have any problem with with their car, at their own 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.560 car that they are driving, I just decided to give 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.399 them my car, which is the Unicorn. Of course, I 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.399 gave the Unicorn for for one of my drivers, and 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.320 I got his car to some maintenance. And I remember 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:50.640 the day when I when I gave him the unicorn. 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.719 I said, hey, please take care of off my baby 0:22:54.960 --> 0:23:01.040 and he said okay, yes, And two three hours later, 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.800 oh no, he called me and then he said, I gotta, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.680 I gotta in an accident. I said, no, please don't. 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.040 And when I got there, I saw the car and 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.479