Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Right now, Darak kazer Shahi, the CEO of Uber, sitting
Speaker 2: down with Tom Giles in conversation live on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Let's listen.
Speaker 2: It came out of Uber earlier this week. Thank you
Speaker 2: Natalie Lung for breaking that story about some changes upper management.
Speaker 2: You promoted Andrew McDonald to chief operating disser. You were
Speaker 2: quick to say you're not going anywhere anytime soon. You
Speaker 2: also said in your note something that was a little
Speaker 2: bit of a little enigmatic to those of us on
Speaker 2: the outside that with Max stepping up, I intend to
Speaker 2: put focus on our six strategic shifts, spending more time
Speaker 2: with our tech teams.
Speaker 1: Tell us about what are the.
Speaker 2: Six strategic shifts and why do you need to spend
Speaker 2: more time with the tech teams.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if I talked about all six would
Speaker 1: be here the whole time. But for example, one that
Speaker 1: we talk about for us is coming much more of
Speaker 1: a company in terms of the lifetime relationship with our customers.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why actually I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring back in as president COO. He's been at Uber
Speaker 1: longer than I have, for thirteen years. He's an incredible
Speaker 1: veteran incredible operator. Is that the power we see in
Speaker 1: the Uber platform continues to increase. Now what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is we have a relationship with you on
Speaker 1: the ride side, a lot of you using Uber to
Speaker 1: come here, Thank you very much. And then are Uber
Speaker 1: eats business is almost as large as an Uber rides
Speaker 1: business and growing very very quickly and accelerating if anything,
Speaker 1: and looking at a customer right now, the way the
Speaker 1: business was built, we essentially had a mobility business that
Speaker 1: mac ran delivery business that Pierre Dmitri ran did a
Speaker 1: terrific job, and it was almost like two businesses interacting
Speaker 1: with you as a customer. And now the focus for
Speaker 1: us is really moving to lifetime interaction with a customer,
Speaker 1: looking at you not just as an Uber customer Uber
Speaker 1: Ease customer, but overall as an Uber customer, and how
Speaker 1: do we continue to build that relationship. For example, the
Speaker 1: membership program that we've got Uber one gives you no
Speaker 1: delivery fees and discounts on rides. We've got thirty million members,
Speaker 1: and people who use multiple products on Uber tend to have,
Speaker 1: you know, transact with us much more, tend to have
Speaker 1: much more satisfaction with the product. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I wanted to get an experience operating executive
Speaker 1: to really focus on the overall relationship with a customer
Speaker 1: rather than separate p and ls.
Speaker 2: I think you said one in five of your customers
Speaker 2: are using both mobility and delivery.
Speaker 1: It's about now. It's closer to a third now, So
Speaker 1: it's increasing statilist, so it's moving.
Speaker 2: In the right direction, right, What do you do to
Speaker 2: get that number higher? And where do you want it
Speaker 2: to be in say three years.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, we want to get to fifty percent. And
Speaker 1: once we get to fifty percent, I want to go
Speaker 1: higher than that. And it's about the little interactions every day.
Speaker 1: For example, when I got a ride to the office
Speaker 1: the other day and along the way, I was offered
Speaker 1: a coffee from Phills to be ready for me along
Speaker 1: the way to the office, right, And so it's those
Speaker 1: little interactions that are value add to the consumer. It's like, great,
Speaker 1: of course I want my morning coffee and if it
Speaker 1: can be ready for me right on the way to work,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. That is also a way to kind of
Speaker 1: get me to use Uber East. For example, if I
Speaker 1: didn't use it now. I use EAS all the time.
Speaker 1: But it's these little interactions powered by AI, power by personalization,
Speaker 1: understand the context of where you're going and there's a
Speaker 1: coffee shop close by to give you that opportunity. It's
Speaker 1: those experiences that we have to build more and more,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons now I'm going to
Speaker 1: work more with the tech teams because you know they're
Speaker 1: they're the ones building these experiences.
Speaker 2: I want to spend a little bit of time talking
Speaker 2: about your relationship with Autonomous Yeah. Sure, it's been a
Speaker 2: up and down for Uber over the years, even preceding
Speaker 2: your tenure. You have stakes, and a lot of AV
Speaker 2: companies talked recently about wanting to monetize some of those.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit or your stakes
Speaker 2: and your equity stakes? Generally you didn't specify av's but
Speaker 2: I am curious. Have you identified where you want to
Speaker 2: focus where? What do you want to free the cash up?
Speaker 2: Is it about developing deeper relationships with a select number
Speaker 2: of AV partners.
Speaker 1: What's the strategy? So we want to essentially support the
Speaker 1: AV ecosystem and continue to help that ecosystem develop and
Speaker 1: then av's penetrate into the marketplace. Av we think represents
Speaker 1: a safer way of transportation. Ultimately, we think it'll expand
Speaker 1: the marketplace as it makes kind of safe transportation and
Speaker 1: cities available to everybody. So we're big fans of AV
Speaker 1: and generally we're working with multiple partners in the ecosystem
Speaker 1: waymore for example, in Austin and Atlanta coming up wave AVRI.
Speaker 1: There are probably eighteen partnerships that we have in the
Speaker 1: AV ecosystem, and we want to help these players develop
Speaker 1: by investing in them in some cases, but really by
Speaker 1: working with them to bring their product to market. These
Speaker 1: are technologies that are unbelievably promising, but they've taken billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to develop and you know, ten plus years,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those overnight successes that's kind of
Speaker 1: taken twenty years of development, but it's finally ready to
Speaker 1: hit market, and we want to help the ecosystem get there. Separately,
Speaker 1: we have large stakes in many companies, you know, well
Speaker 1: over five billion dollars that we think we can take
Speaker 1: some of those steaks and essentially recycle them into additional
Speaker 1: investments in the AV ecosystem. So over a period of
Speaker 1: time we'll get it right, We've got a ton of
Speaker 1: free cash fow of the companies one way or the other.
Speaker 1: You know, the goal is to build up the av
Speaker 1: ecosystem around our network.
Speaker 2: Build up the av ecosystem. You guys have the UI
Speaker 2: for example, that works really well. You have that customer
Speaker 2: relationship that maybe some of them don't. So is the
Speaker 2: idea you really want to kind of concentrate on a
Speaker 2: fewer number or is it just keep the broad brush
Speaker 2: broad number of av partners.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: partner with the right players, and I'd say safeties is
Speaker 1: the most important area. We want to make sure that
Speaker 1: they pass with flying colors through our safety case, which
Speaker 1: is actually pretty tough. But to the extent that the
Speaker 1: tech is there, the team is there, safety is part
Speaker 1: of the culture we want to work with them. So
Speaker 1: there's a right now there are a number of promising
Speaker 1: partners and you'll probably see the number of partners increase
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 2: Okay, you mentioned your relationship with Waimo. We had Sundar
Speaker 2: last night. Asked him about when when he's going to
Speaker 2: be able to take away from Mountain View all the
Speaker 2: way up to San Francisco, We're not quite there yet,
Speaker 2: but there are genuine concerns about the ways that you
Speaker 2: are both a partner and a competitor to Weaimo. What
Speaker 2: is the conversation like internally and with your board over
Speaker 2: how you continue to deepen that what is a valuable
Speaker 2: relationship as far as I can tell, but also keep
Speaker 2: it from becoming something that starts to undermine your business.
Speaker 1: Well, the relationship with Weimo. I think the press and
Speaker 1: to some extent investors love to create drama because well
Speaker 1: the hell. But you know, the type of relationship that
Speaker 1: we have with Weaimo is very similar, for example, to
Speaker 1: the type of relationship we'll have with a Starbucks coffee.
Speaker 1: They're a great partner with Uber Eats, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, Starbucks wants to have its own app and
Speaker 1: wants to have interactions directly with the customer. And it
Speaker 1: isn't an either or it's an ant. So we offer
Speaker 1: Starbucks and Eats and they compete with us in some
Speaker 1: ways with a Starbucks app and with their loyalty program,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. That's the way business goes. Same thing
Speaker 1: with Dominos Dominoes three years ago, was it going to
Speaker 1: work with the platforms now works with the platforms and
Speaker 1: in the same way. In San Francisco, yes, we compete
Speaker 1: with Weamo to get rides here, but in Austin Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we absolutely work with them. And what we're seeing in
Speaker 1: Austin is, frankly, the launch is going better than we expected.
Speaker 1: Number one is safety and obviously Wemo's the best at it.
Speaker 1: And number two is customer love. And our customers are
Speaker 1: loving kind of the delight and surprise of getting Awamo
Speaker 1: and they're coming back. So I do think that this
Speaker 1: is going to be It's not either or we're going
Speaker 1: to be working together. Weimo is developing its own channels
Speaker 1: and at the same time we can work together very
Speaker 1: constructively as.
Speaker 2: We head toward an increasingly a the future. I know
Speaker 2: you've been asked about this before, but what are some
Speaker 2: of the new ways that you're seeking to overcome that
Speaker 2: challenge of reassuring drivers who are still an incredibly important
Speaker 2: part of your ecosystem very much You have their backs,
Speaker 2: but we also love these way moods that have no
Speaker 2: driver in.
Speaker 1: Them very much. So. So one is growth helps a lot, right,
Speaker 1: So our business is growing almost twenty percent a year,
Speaker 1: and on average we're going to need more drivers on
Speaker 1: the platform for the next couple of years, and I
Speaker 1: see that continuing for some period of time. So I
Speaker 1: think drivers generally on our platform are going to be
Speaker 1: more busy, are going to have more to do, and
Speaker 1: the number of drivers on our platform and caurers on
Speaker 1: our platform is going to grow. That's one. The second though,
Speaker 1: is we're putting significant efforts in creating more work and
Speaker 1: earnings opportunities for drivers and couriers. Right we started with
Speaker 1: driving who we might to delivery. Now you can actually shop,
Speaker 1: and there's a subsegment of careers et cetera who you
Speaker 1: know will love their local Walmart, for example, or Albertson's
Speaker 1: and you know shopping those stores or for Walmart, we
Speaker 1: deliver those packages. And now we're actually going further where
Speaker 1: we're developing now what we call Uber AI solutions, where
Speaker 1: drivers are actually now labeling maps, translating language, looking at
Speaker 1: AI answers, and grading AI answers. So, you know, one
Speaker 1: way to look at Uber is that we are essentially
Speaker 1: a transportation platform will help you go anywhere, get anything.
Speaker 1: Another way to look at Uber is that we are
Speaker 1: the largest on demand work platform on Earth and the
Speaker 1: first use case for US is actually transportation, and now
Speaker 1: we're expanding use cases into other use cases and knowledge
Speaker 1: work is one of them. So I think as long
Speaker 1: as we grow, as long as we are honest with
Speaker 1: our drivers and couriers in terms of our expectations and
Speaker 1: now expand the number of opportunities to them, I think
Speaker 1: will be more than fine.
Speaker 2: You're you're actually getting your drivers, You're encouraging your drivers
Speaker 2: to help the AI and make it smarter. The AI
Speaker 2: that's gonna it's it's going to be put.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a part of our life
Speaker 1: going forward. And this is it's good work. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly our drivers are qualified to do it.
Speaker 2: How much of how much of their time do you
Speaker 2: find their spending doing I assume this is like in
Speaker 2: the course of a of a day's drive.
Speaker 1: It's very it's very small compared to the overall workload. Right,
Speaker 1: we're doing over thirty three million trips a day now
Speaker 1: in terms of our main line segments. But it's a
Speaker 1: Uber AI Solutions is a very very promising segment growth
Speaker 1: segment for US, and I think in five ten years
Speaker 1: it will be a significant part of the overall opportunities
Speaker 1: that we're giving to our drivers and careers.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Bill Ackman sure his relationship
Speaker 2: with Uber. It's nice to have a an activist who's
Speaker 2: friendly as far as I can tell us about the
Speaker 2: ways that you are interacting with Bill and how he
Speaker 2: is encouraging Uber to be better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Bill is one of the legendary investors out there,
Speaker 1: and so I was very happy, Like I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of his kind of investing fundamentals, long term, making big bets.
Speaker 1: So I've always admired Bill. So when we found out
Speaker 1: that he was a shareholder, is like right on. And
Speaker 1: the cool thing about Bill as a shareholder is he
Speaker 1: uses the product. He is intensely interested in the product's
Speaker 1: and he's talking to his drivers, so he gives me
Speaker 1: a lot of feedback and actually a couple of features.
Speaker 1: You know, for example, he was leaving dinner one night
Speaker 1: and he wanted to order ubers for his kids and
Speaker 1: his parents, and for some technical reasons, we couldn't do
Speaker 1: that at the time, and we built that feature based
Speaker 1: on that idea, and it's proven to be a really
Speaker 1: cool feature. So you want the kind of long term
Speaker 1: investor that Bill is. But what's cool about it is
Speaker 1: that he's actually, you know, he's brilliant, but he uses
Speaker 1: a product and he uses in a constructive way. And
Speaker 1: we've got a great relationship.
Speaker 2: Speaking of relationships with folks on the East coast, you
Speaker 2: you know, Silicon Valley has this really interesting relationship with
Speaker 2: the Trump administration right now, this need to engage, but
Speaker 2: also recognizing that there are policies that the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: like any administration, is pursuing, that may not work so
Speaker 2: well for the tech industry. No taxes on tips something
Speaker 2: that's part of the legislation, something that you would say
Speaker 2: you support. Can you talk about kind of the dialogue
Speaker 2: that you have with the president and what kind of
Speaker 2: feedback are you giving him on that, what kind of
Speaker 2: feedback are you giving him on the tax bill more generally?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we want is taxes on tips is we
Speaker 1: think a terrific piece of legislation. It will, if passed,
Speaker 1: save our drivers and caurers hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in taxes that they would have otherwise paid. So we
Speaker 1: are big supporters of that.
Speaker 2: And I've put a specific number on that over a
Speaker 2: time period, it's.
Speaker 1: In the hundreds of millions. I don't know the specifics,
Speaker 1: but it's significant, and we think it's a appropriately targeted,
Speaker 1: you know, to a segment of the population that we
Speaker 1: all want succeed. And I've been very supportive of that
Speaker 1: directly with the President and our folks, with the staff,
Speaker 1: and I see generally we engage with every administration out there,
Speaker 1: both in on a federal level and on a state level.
Speaker 1: We certainly engage with the Trump administration, and what I
Speaker 1: like in terms of what I'm seeing is that it
Speaker 1: is a pro growth, pro business in terms of kind
Speaker 1: of common business interest administration, and we'll continue to engage
Speaker 1: with them constructtively going forward.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of rhetoric around immigration and a lot
Speaker 2: of policies around immigration that have a mixed effect. What's
Speaker 2: your message to the Trump administration when it comes to
Speaker 2: limitations on immigration. You rely on immigrations, immigrants for build drivers,
Speaker 2: for your engineers, across the board.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think I'm an immigrant. You know, I
Speaker 1: came here when I was nine years old. So I
Speaker 1: am absolutely pro immigration generally for the US. But I
Speaker 1: think there's no question that we should secure borders, and
Speaker 1: so I think from that standpoint, we're very supportive our
Speaker 1: drivers and couriers have been quite supportive of President Trump
Speaker 1: as well for similar reasons. And I think with immigration,
Speaker 1: you know, there is a dialogue for us to be had,
Speaker 1: which is what is the right level of immigration in
Speaker 1: this country, How you know, we select, how we qualify,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That I'm hoping that we get to have
Speaker 1: that dialogue as a country. And I think that dialogue
Speaker 1: suffers from kind of the two sides shooting at each other.
Speaker 1: But I think that if we can just come together
Speaker 1: and recognize that this is a largely immigrant nation and
Speaker 1: immigration done right can benefit society. Done wrong, it can
Speaker 1: go the other way. So let's just focus on doing
Speaker 1: it right well.
Speaker 2: For example, and it's not necessarily that we're building a
Speaker 2: wall on the northern border, but you, on your earnings
Speaker 2: called talked about the ways that some of this sort
Speaker 2: of unwillingness to come to the United States because of
Speaker 2: some of its political stances toward foreign countries starting to
Speaker 2: affect your business.
Speaker 1: We've definitely seen Canadian immigration into the travel to the
Speaker 1: US come down from historical levels. The good news for
Speaker 1: Uber is that we're a global company, so to the
Speaker 1: extent that Canadians are traveling to Europe. They use Uber
Speaker 1: in Canada and they'll be able to use Uber in
Speaker 1: Europe as well. So for US, the effect on the
Speaker 1: business is changing business mix. Okay, But as long as
Speaker 1: people travel and the global economies are doing well, which
Speaker 1: they are, we're going to interact with consumers one way
Speaker 1: or the other.
Speaker 2: Have you seen any shifts since the last weight in
Speaker 2: on this topic?
Speaker 1: The biggest one is a Canadian shift and that has
Speaker 1: there was a i say initial significant effect and we're
Speaker 1: seeing some of that continue, not all of it continue.
Speaker 2: You talked about the consumer sentiment holding up. What have
Speaker 2: you seen since you last talked to the public about that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not going to update obviously we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a quarter. But generally we have seen for
Speaker 1: the past two years and that has continued until last quarter.
Speaker 1: The consumer remains strong. We're not seeing any effects in
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, lack of confidence, et cetera. We
Speaker 1: look to see if consumers are trading down first am,
Speaker 1: all the kinds restaurants that they're eating at, or are
Speaker 1: reducing the size of let's say, the shopping baskets. We
Speaker 1: don't see any signal whatsoever. The US consumer and generally
Speaker 1: the global consumer has remained resilient, and obviously I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that continuing.
Speaker 2: I want to take just a couple of seconds before
Speaker 2: I get kicked you get and I get kicked off, I.
Speaker 1: Get kicked off. I think you're staying.
Speaker 2: I understand that you are considering stable coin as a
Speaker 2: vehicle or uber.
Speaker 1: Talk about where.
Speaker 2: Your considerations are and how that might benefit your business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're still in the study phase, I say, but
Speaker 1: I think stable coin is one of the for me,
Speaker 1: more interesting instantiations of crypto that has a practical benefit
Speaker 1: other than crypto's a store value. You know, obviously you
Speaker 1: can have your opinions on bitcoin, but it's a proven commodity,
Speaker 1: will and you know, people have different opinions on where
Speaker 1: it's going. But I do think that stable coin is
Speaker 1: quite promising, especially for global companies that are moving money
Speaker 1: around globally, to create a mechanism for us to essentially
Speaker 1: reduce costs in terms of moving money internationally. So that's
Speaker 1: super interesting to us and we're definitely going to take a.
Speaker 2: Look taking a look at it closely. Dara, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us, Thank you for having tech
Speaker 2: is great to have you here. Please, thank you for
Speaker 2: giving me a round the block.
Speaker 1: That was Bloomberg Senior Executive editor for Global Technology Tom Giles,
Speaker 1: sitting down with the CEO of Uber, Dara Kosher shahe
Speaker 1: at the Bloomberg Tech Summit out in San Francisco. Seen
Speaker 1: and heard live here on Bloomberg TV and radio.