THE UBER STORY
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: In 2009, an idea was born on the
streets of San Francisco that changed how millions of people travel. The ride
share giant Uber burst onto the scene.
DOUG O'CONNOR, FORMER UBER DRIVER: In the early days of
Uber, it was one of the coolest ... it was the place to be.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Today it's one of the world's most
recognisable brands ... but for Uber it's been far from a smooth ride. A series
of scandals has severely damaged its reputation and despite its popularity,
it's still losing billions of dollars.
HUBERT HORAN, TRANSPORTATION ANALYST It's massively
unprofitable, it has no competitive advantage, uh, and it has no signs that it
can expand profitably anywhere else. To turn around four, four and half billion
dollars of losses into steady growing profits would be one of the greatest
corporate turnarounds of an operating company in history.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Tonight on Four
Corners, we investigate Uber's ruthless rise to dominate the global ridesharing
business ... and why the disruptive technology giant is facing an uncertain
future.
SEAN NICHOLLS: This is where Uber controls its vast global
empire across 65 countries. At Uber's headquarters in downtown San Francisco,
trip data floods in from 3 million drivers hired via Uber's smartphone app. The
15 million trips taken each day around the world are carefully mapped.
SHAN HE, DATA VISUALISATION ENGINEER, UBER: At Uber we have
a lot of location-based data ... what that means is every single trip we're collecting
data where people go and how the trip actually happens.
On a greater ... a larger scale, like a city level we also want to understand
different parts of the city, how the trip is happening. So
we need a tool that can show this large scale of data on the map.
SEAN NICHOLLS: It's all part of Uber's ambition to
monopolise - and monetise - the way we travel.
MANIK GUPTA, VICE-PRESIDENT, AND UBER'S CHIEF PRODUCT
OFFICER: We want to be the one stop transportation platform for the world. So
you as a user come to Uber, you say you want to go from point A to point B and
we'll provide you all kinds of options that allow the user to choose the right
price point and convenience for themselves and be on their way.
SEAN NICHOLLS: To 'Uber' is embedded in the language of a
new generation. If one person is responsible, it's this man ...
TRAVIS KALANICK, UBER'S CEO, 2010-17: Wow this is awesome,
its full. Good to meet all of you. My name is Travis Kalanick cofounder CEO of
Uber.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Travis Kalanick was just 32 and had already
made millions from a technology startup when he
co-founded Uber.
TRAVIS KALANICK: The bottom line is that in order to be in
this business, in order to be this disruptive to what's going on, you have to have ... you have to be willing to fight.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Kalanick began Uber in 2009 as a way to order a hire car using a smartphone.
MAN: The Uber system allows riders to request drivers at any
time.
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: ...before coming up with UberX - a
way to hire drivers in their private cars.
MIKE ISAAC, NEW YORK TIMES TECHNOLOGY REPORTER: People
always thought of Travis as not um, your typical entrepreneur. He didn't really
care about being liked. He um, was commonly known as like just a jerk. And uh,
didn't really care if the press liked him. And I think folks
kind of respected that in a little way, a little bit. Um, because he, his
whole, his whole journey was to just buck against regulation and, and against
these entrenched taxi interests, and against uh, regulators who didn't want him
to succeed.
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: The launch of UberX sparked furious
protests from taxi drivers around the world. In most places transport
regulators declared it an illegal taxi service. In country after country,
Kalanick defied the authorities trying to shut him down.
BLAIR DAVIES CEO AUSTRALIAN TAXI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: He
confronted the regulators and said, "If you just send me cease and desist
notices, I'm just going to screw them up, throw them in the bin. They mean
nothing to me. The only thing that matters is if you start fining drivers and
impounding vehicles. If you don't get serious, then we'll just treat your
regulations as not being there."
SARAH KAINE, CENTRE FOR BUSINESS AND SOCIAL INNOVATION, UTS:
I've heard it described as kind of a modern wild west approach, where if
there's a market there to be taken, we're just going to take it. Just try and
stop us. We're riding in with our sheriffs, and we're gonna
take this town. I kind of think of it more as the digital equivalent of that
greed is good mentality. The Gordon Gekko mentality,
but in a digital space. Which is, "We will do this. We can do this, and no
one's going to stop us."
SEAN NICHOLLS: In its quest for dominance, Uber developed a
suite of software tools and covert techniques to fight against regulators and
adversaries. In San Francisco, Uber set up a global strategic nerve centre
known as the Threat Operations division - or Threat Ops.
SEAN NICHOLLS: It was allegedly here in this nondescript San
Francisco city building that Uber launched covert plans to eliminate its
competitors and thwart its opponents. Its targets included taxis and other
rivals and even government officials.
SEAN NICHOLLS: The alleged activities of the ThreatOps division were revealed in 2017 by former Uber
Global Intelligence head Richard Jacobs.
VOICE: "Uber implemented a sophisticated strategy to
destroy, conceal, cover up and falsify records or documents with the intent to
impede or obstruct Government investigations ..."
MIKE ISAAC, NEW YORK TIMES TECHNOLOGY REPORTER. Rick Jacobs
was an ex security employee at Uber who had worked there for a while. And he
worked on, he essentially unveiled the existence of this entire threat ops team
inside of Uber, that um, was pretty much made up of a bunch of ex-CIA, FBI type guys who would travel around the world,
spending millions of dollars investigating uh, competitors. Investigating taxi
companies. Uh, digging up dirt on folks. And just sort of spy type stuff that
is kinda crazy to, to go on at a tech company.
SEAN NICHOLLS: One of Uber's covert tools was a piece of
software designed to force its competitors out of business by stealing their
drivers. It was codenamed 'Hell'.
BLAIR DAVIES CEO AUSTRALIAN TAXI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: There
was a programme called Hell where Uber was keeping a sophisticated watch on its
competitor Lyft over in the US to seek commercial advantage out of that, and it
was argued in the reports, used for industrial sabotage.
MIKE ISAAC: Hell they used to track
Lyft drivers and uh, recruit them over to work for Uber.
BLAIR DAVIES: Uber is a very significant, technological
company, but some of its technology is not about providing better services to
the community. It's about making better profits for Uber.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber was not only targeting its
competitors... it also went after government authorities. It deployed another
powerful software program dubbed 'Ripley' across its global offices that was
used to remotely delete company data being sought during raids by government
investigators.
MIKE ISAAC: Ripley was another fun one, which was their way
of remotely destroying any of their data or, or hard drives in case they got
raided by the Feds at some point. Or, or a competitor in another country.
SEAN NICHOLLS: In 2014 UberX launched in Australia ... now
one of Uber's most successful markets.
SUSAN ANDERSON, UBER AUSTRALIA'S GENERAL MANAGER,
2018-PRESENT:
In Australia, we now have some of the most progressive
ride-sharing laws globally. And that's a reflection of the fact that this was a
service that customers wanted. Nearly 4 million Australians use Uber on a
regular basis.
SEAN NICHOLLS: When UberX started in Australia, authorities
declared it illegal. So Uber threw incentives at
drivers to try to get them to sign up.
MARK ALIPRANDI, UBER DRIVER: They paid for everything: your
criminal record check, your driver history check, your vehicle check was all
paid for. So you walked out with a bonus; once you'd
done 20 trips they gave you a $500 bonus, as 'thanks for coming and joining
Uber'. So it was really enticing to get involved. We
were known as the renegades. I was illegal, the customers were illegal, and we
were getting together and we were beating the system.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Do you acknowledge that Uber was breaking the
law in Australian states and territories?
SUSAN ANDERSON: No, we don't acknowledge that.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Why not?
SUSAN ANDERSON: At the point of which we launched here, ride
sharing was a totally new service and this was
something that didn't exist before and we were open with governments and regulators
to understand the way in which we should operate.
SEAN NICHOLLS: One of Uber's first Australian drivers was
Mark Aliprandi. He remembers how Uber thwarted
Australian authorities who were trying to shut them down.
MARK ALIPRANDI, UBER DRIVER.
Uber had a unique system that when the inspectors signed up
for Uber accounts to try and entrap us, they actually
monitored them and cancelled their accounts. So
they were kind of on the watch for all of that. They were kind of a step ahead
of everybody.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber deployed spyware called Greyball to outwit regulators as it muscled its way into
the Australian market.
MIKE ISAAC: GreyBall was a
software tool essentially. A little piece of code that um, Uber could attach to
other people's phone to um, essentially serve them a
different version of the app. So if I were, if I you
know, GreyBalled you, um, uh, it would mean that you
could try calling for an Uber in the area, and you wouldn't be able to find
one. Or no cars would be around, or they would show you like fake cars, or
something like that. We broke the story. And then um the Department of Justice
here started looking into the use of the tool. Um, uh, to see if it had indeed
violated obstruction of justice laws. Um, and then a bunch of attorneys general
in each of the cities uh, it had taken place uh, started filing investigations
into it as well.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Now this was used uh, not just in the States.
This was used in Australia as well, right?
MIKE ISAAC: Australia, the E.U. All across
the E.U. And those are like highly regulate markets with really
strong taxi uh, incumbents. Um, in Asia. I'm pretty sure in, in South
Korea it was definitely used. Iit
was across the world.
BLAIR DAVIES CEO AUSTRALIAN TAXI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION.
They were deliberately setting about to enter a foreign
country, Australia, and defeat Australian laws through their technology. They
weren't looking to abide by Australian laws. They were looking to defeat
Australian laws and law enforcement officers going about their duty.
PETER WELLS: We knew the taxi industry and hire car industry
backwards.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Peter Wells was on the other side ... as the
official responsible transport regulation in NSW at the time.
PETER WELLS, FORMER DIRECTOR, SAFETY AND OF COMPLIANCE, NSW
ROADS & MARITIME SERVICE: As Uber started, I was naturally worried about
the basics. So making sure that the travelling public
is safe, the economy and transport are efficient, and also thinking what's the
impact on the taxi industry and what are the risks or safety issues of Uber
commencing?
SEAN NICHOLLS: Peter Wells sent his officers undercover to
hire rides with Uber drivers to monitor them. But Uber used Greyball
to identify them and block them from hiring cars.
PETER WELLS: We would go to book a journey and there'd be no
journey because, 'Hang on'. Clearly they knew who we
were. They would track name, phone number, credit card or method of payment. Firstly that happened almost immediately. We thought that
would take them a while, but almost straight away. We assumed they are very
clever. They're technically savvy. They'll be able to work out all and
EVERYTHING to do with technology, tracking, location. So
we assumed that from day one.
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: The investigators took unprecedented
steps to fight back, creating false identities for themselves with new credit
cards and phone numbers.
PETER WELLS: We had to negotiate with telcos
and banks to execute that quickly and in big number. And that's important to do
for an act of public safety, but it was certainly an unusual thing for a
regulator to have to do in that area. We had to have many credit cards. We had
to have many SIM cards to be able to assume new identities as it were and be
very careful not to do anything illegal ourselves. And we took legal opinions
to make sure we're within the law, but so that we couldn't be traced by Uber. So we're essentially constantly a new customer X that they
couldn't tell who was who.
SEAN NICHOLLS: What do you know about Greyball
and its use in Australia?
SUSAN ANDERSON: That technology is no longer used. It was
before my time and when we look at how we have evolved the way we operate, it's
not something that we would do today.
BLAIR DAVIES: Greyball was a very
effective way of stopping the governments from being able to enforce their laws
and forcing Australian governments to change their laws.
SEAN NICHOLLS: They were outfoxed.
BLAIR DAVIES: Outfoxed and outplayed, yes.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber's tactics had a devastating effect on an
early Australian competitor called GoCatch which
developed a taxi hailing app. GoCatch chose not to
launch Uber-style ride sharing until laws were changed to allow it.
DAVID HOLMES, FORMER GOCATCH CEO: Really the only difference
in Uber versus the other ride sharing companies that had popped up before and
after them was that they went, "We are going to go and to enter as many o-
markets as possible, but we're going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission
from a legislative perspective." So they really
drove that home. And they had they the money to actually
fight the battles when they needed to.
ALEX TURNBULL, FUND MANAGER AND GOCATCH INVESTOR: It meant
that we basically lost the Rideshare market, because we were slow to take up
and being a second entrant was quite challenging. If I had a time machine today I would suggest to go back in time and say, do what
Uber did.
SEAN NICHOLLS: What GoCatch didn't
know, was that in Uber's Australian headquarters, another covert tool was being
prepared. A secret program dubbed 'Surfcam' was
developed in 2015 by an employee in Uber's Sydney head office. Surfcam was used to gather data to poach drivers employed
by rival companies. Four Corners has learnt that one of those targeted was GoCatch.
ANDREW CAMPBELL CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, GOCATCH: Yeah. Well, we
were a small team back then, so there were about half a dozen of us operating a
scalable technology platform. But we could see that our drivers were being
acquired from usage on our systems and on our app. We heard it from the drivers
directly, and we saw it in unusual behaviour in the data that we were looking
at.
SEAN NICHOLLS: GoCatch didn't know
how it was being done. Uber's Surfcam spyware was
used covertly against GoCatch to identify driver
details. This allowed Uber to directly contact the GoCatch
drivers and lure them to work for Uber.
SEAN NICHOLLS: So what's your
reaction to learning that Uber was using spyware against your company with a
specific desire to drive you out of business?
ANDREW CAMPBELL: Well, the fact that Uber used hacking
technologies to steal our data and our drivers is appalling. It had a massive
impact on our business. It sets a really dangerous
precedent for Australian economy and the Australian businesses as well. It
tells every multinational company to come to Australia and follow the same
practise.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Have you ever heard of a piece of software
called SurfCam?
SUSAN ANDERSON: I have not.
SEAN NICHOLLS: So SurfCam was used
and developed in the Sydney office right here as a piece of software to scrape
data on competitors. What do you think about that?
SUSAN ANDERSON: I'm afraid I've never heard of that software
and I don't know anything about that.
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: Uber later told Four Corners Surfcam's use has been banned and that today Uber has
robust policies to ensure ethical practices.
ANDREW CAMPBELL. I think our investors would be very angry
to learn that Uber's been allowed to get away this sort of behaviour that has
no doubt had an impact on their investment.
SEAN NICHOLLS: By 2017, every Australian state had
introduced Uber-friendly laws.
SUSAN ANDERSON. Uber has made it easier for us to get about
our cities and to actually spend our time doing the
things we want to do. If I think about you Uber being used as
a way to get us home faster, after we've been at work all day, it means
you're more likely to get that bedtime story with the family.
SEAN NICHOLLS: In only a few years, Uber had outsmarted
authorities and rivals to assert itself as the world's dominant ride share
company. But in 2017, the win at all costs culture that helped get it there
caught up with Uber.
NEWSREADER: "Google spin-off Waymo claims that Uber
possesses stolen trade secrets related to self-driving cars.
NEWS REPORTER: A very confident Travis Kalanick was on the
stand for just a little more than two hours today.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Google sued Uber, accusing it of stealing
sensitive information about its autonomous car program. Uber settled the case
for $US245 million. There was more bad publicity to come ... when a former Uber
software engineer blew the whistle on a culture of sexual harassment.
SUSAN FOWLER, FORMER UBER SOFTWARE ENGINEER: I felt this
crushing sense of powerlessness. This is the time to take my power back. Here's
my story. It's an honour to be the person who can say 'hey, I spoke up about
this. I took on the risk."
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: Then, following a sensational trial
in India, a woman raped by an Uber driver sued the company. She accused senior
Uber executives of illegally obtaining her medical records to undermine her
credibility. Uber settled the case. By mid-2017, Uber's board and investors had
had enough ... forcing Travis Kalanick to resign.
DARA KHOSROWSHAHI, UBER CEO: I'm Dara Khosrowshahi
Uber's new CEO. Since joining Uber nine months ago, my priority has been to
listen to you. Moving forward it's time to move in a new direction. One of our
core values as a company is to always do the right thing. You've got my word
that we're were charting an even better road for Uber and for those that rely
on us every day.
HUBERT HORAN, TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: they knew what kind of
culture was here. But the whole thing was to say, "Okay, we'll get rid of
Kalanick, bring in Khosrowshahi, and now it's a
redemption story. No, the culture was integral to the strategy for the
investors.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Despite the change in leadership, Uber's
troubles continued. After mass protests by drivers of London's black cabs, the
city's transport department announced Uber would be banned.
SADDIQ KHAN, LONDON MAYOR: Uber aren't a fit and proper
private vehicle operator. There are real concerns around safety and their
security.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber successfully appealed the ban ... but
remains on probation.
SEAN NICHOLLS: You must acknowledge though, that, the
damage, the reputational damage to the company caused by everything that
happened in that year and, and you know, before that was, was, was
extraordinary. I mean how damaging was it?
MANIK GUPTA, VICE-PRESIDENT, AND UBER'S CHIEF PRODUCT
OFFICER: Yeah. So look, you know, we made mistakes.
I'll acknowledge that. Um, and at the same time, I think it's important how you
recover from those mistakes and how you grow. And I feel pretty
confident that under Dara's leadership, we're at a point now where we
are much more open as a company, we are much more collaborative. Um, we are
doing the right thing in a, in almost all the cases that we operate under.
SEAN NICHOLLS: In Australia Uber has more than 60,000
drivers. In Sydney, many of them gather here at what Uber calls its Greenlight
Hub in the city's inner west. Mark Aliprandi has been
driving with Uber for 4 years ... he's one of their model drivers
MAN: So how's your day been so far?
MARK ALIPRANDI: Fine.
MAN: Planning to drive today?
MARK ALIPRANDI: I am.
SEAN NICHOLLS: The Greenlight hub is the main point of
contact for drivers who need assistance.
MAN: What I'm going to do is sign you in. Have a seat.
Someone will call you up. Send you a message on your phone, a text.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber treats its drivers not as employees, but
as contractors ... so they don't get holiday pay or superannuation.
SARAH KAINE, CENTRE FOR BUSINESS AND SOCIAL INNOVATION, UTS:
The relationship between the drivers and Uber is skewed very much in Uber's
favour. Because Uber can unilaterally change the contract. If the driver
doesn't accept it, the driver doesn't get access to the app, they don't drive
for Uber anymore. So, you couldn't pretend that there was any sense of
negotiation, or equal bargaining power between drivers and Uber.
MAN: Log into that. Change your vacancy.
MARK ALIPRANDI: Fabulous.
MAN: That's it. Anything else I can help you with?
MARK ALIPRANDI: All good.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Mark Aliprandi says
he drives 10 hours a day, five and a half days a week.
MARK ALIPRANDI: The best thing about driving for Uber is the
social interaction. Ok, the money's good if you're a hard worker. Getting paid
on time and being in control.
MARK ALIPRANDI: Righto, what's on tonight mate?
PASSENGER 1: Not much, taking it easy. It's my birthday
today.
MARK ALIPRANDI: Congratulations. How old?
PASSENGER 1: 22. Too old.
MARK ALIPRANDI: Ha Ha. Wait til you get to 56, mate.
MARK ALIPRANDI: How you going Fraser?
PASSENGER 2: Good.
PASSENGER 3: I love this street.
MARK ALIPRANDI: It's all happening!
MARK ALIPRANDI: How you doin'
James?
PASSENGER 4: I'm doing quite well. How are you?
MARK ALIPRANDI: Good mate.
PASSENGER 5: So you're Uber's most
experienced driver?
MARK ALIPRANDI: Yeah.
PASSENGER 5: Most number of trips?
MARK ALIPRANDI: 23 thousand, six hundred.
PASSENGER 5: That's a fair number.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber takes up to 25 per cent of everything
drivers earn. Mark Aliprandi says that in a good week
- after paying petrol, tolls and GST - he can earn up to $30 an hour. But he's
an exception ... a recent study showed Australian Uber drivers earn on average
less than $15 an hour. That's about 20 percent below the minimum wage.
SARAH KAINE, CENTRE FOR BUSINESS AND SOCIAL INNOVATION, UTS:
Some drivers kind of accept that it's a very transactional relationship.
"I'm earning a few bucks on the side, whatever. Perhaps it's not super
fair, but I'm doing it because it suits me." Then you have those who are
trying to make a living out of Uber, and that's quite a different story.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Associate professor Sarah Kaine says refusing
to treat drivers as employees is critical to Uber's bottom line.
SARAH KAINE: There's a huge financial incentive for Uber to
maintain that framework of independent contracting. They're not alone in that.
And they're certainly not alone in that in the gig economy.
SUSAN ANDERSON: Our driver partners tell us that it's the
flexibility that they want. If they were to have fixed shifts and with that
level of rigidity, then they would no longer be able to use the app. So we're working hard to make sure that they can have
flexibility. The ability to be able to give us a driver's licence, show
insurance, have a clean background check and to be able to earn is something
that hasn't existed before. That access to earnings opportunity was new and
very much desired.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Sarah Kaine says other businesses are eyeing
off Uber's approach as a way to cut costs.
SARAH KAINE: There's a reason why the term Uberisation of work has become so popular. What we've seen
is that employers or organisations in the gig economy, but also outside the gig
economy, look at the relationship that Uber has with its drivers, and see that
there is a financial gain to be made.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber's rise in Australia has battered the
taxi industry. Australian taxi drivers, many of whom have lost their
livelihood, are preparing a class action demanding compensation from Uber.
ELIZABETH O'SHEA, LAWYER, MAURICE BLACKBURN: These people are
everyday people who've complied with the rules, who've run their business
lawfully, who know what is required of them to be able to participate in this
industry, and have done all the right things, and Uber comes along, has an
advantage, because it's not complying with the relevant rules, and as a result
these people have suffered loss. So I think we're
definitely talking in the hundreds of millions, I think this could be the
largest class action in Australian history.
BLAIR DAVIES, CEO, AUSTRALIAN TAXI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION:
They were providing a taxi service without all of the
accreditation and facilities that they require to be a taxi service, and their
intention was to take market share away from the taxi industry. Taxi businesses
going about their lawful business, Uber was seeking to do damage. In a
nutshell, that's illegal
SEAN NICHOLLS: Why shouldn't taxi plate owners whose plates
have plummeted in value as a direct result of Uber X, be compensated?
SUSAN ANDERSON: Governments have put in place compensation
schemes for taxi plate owners across Australia, in a number
of states. In fact, the compensation schemes amount to up to about a
billion in compensation, which has been put in place by governments.
REBEL WILSON: Tonight I'll be
eating ham and pineapple pizza with the extra pineapple and a garden salad ...
girl's gotta eats!
SEAN NICHOLLS: Now, Uber is delivering a whole new type of
disruption in a completely different industry. At restaurants like this one in
Sydney's inner east Uber is having a serious impact.
SERVER: Christos?
DRIVER: Yep.
SERVER: There you are...
DRIVER: Thank you.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Customers pay a $5 delivery fee to Uber ...
and Uber also takes a big cut of the sale from the restaurant.
MARK JENSEN, CHEF AND RESTAURANTEUR: Well that's the thing
with Uber and customer's expectation, they actually think
that they're supporting the restaurant industry by using Uber. But they don't
appreciate that the restaurant pays 35 cents in the dollar straight to Uber for
their convenience. And the thing is, we already work in a pretty
tight environment. They're really putting the squeeze on the
restaurants.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Mark Jensen says the popularity of Uber Eats
means fewer customers walking into his restaurant.
MARK JENSEN: It's eliminated bums on seats. Given recent
times, there's been very little growth in the business. I would actually say there's been no growth in the business. So then
now that you're taxed 35%, essentially 35 cents on the dollar, that's eating
into your bottom line.
SEAN NICHOLLS: UberEats and
similar delivery services have even spawned what are called 'dark kitchens'...
that have no shop front.
MARK JENSEN: It's not a bricks and mortar restaurant,
there's no tables, there's no waiters, there's no food in house delivery
service. So a restaurant just appears on an app. So
that dark kitchen could be producing food for five, six, seven, 10, the sky is
the limit, different cuisines under the one kitchen.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Mark Jensen fears the rise of dark kitchens
could force traditional restaurants like his out of business.
MARK JENSEN: If I don't have to then employ people, front of
the house people, if I don't need to spend money on lavishing the restaurant
and making a really holistic dining experience, all that money I can then save
and just concentrate on food costs, essentially food costs, packaging,
refrigeration and production. That's all I have to
consider.
SEAN NICHOLLS: So that's a real threat to the future of your
industry.
MARK JENSEN: It's a real threat to the future of
restaurants, full stop.
SUSAN ANDERSON: We've seen that for the
majority of restaurants, this is increasing their revenue and it's a new
customer that they weren't accessing before. Now it might not work for every
restaurant and some restaurants may choose not to take part in the Uber Eats
platform. But the vast majority of restaurants are
having a good time.
SEAN NICHOLLS: This is where Uber is hoping to build its
future. Inside an old shipbuilding factory in San Francisco's east is Uber's
Advanced Technologies hub ... Where teams are fine tuning projects Uber hopes
will dominate personal transport in coming decades ...
NICK FOLEY, UBER'S DIRECTOR OF JUMP: "We've built in some
critical pieces of enabling technology that enable these great customer
experiences."
SEAN NICHOLLS, REPORTER: They're talking up their electric
share bikes.
NICK FOLEY: And we want to create transit hubs in places
where there are highly organised bikes that are easy to access and always
charged.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber is rolling out its bikes internationally
... as well as electric scooters.
NICK FOLEY: So the scooter on the
handlebars has a brake, a bell and a throttle ... as well as foot brake on the
back and suspension on the front that make a really safe and fun way to get
around a city".
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber built its brand on ridesharing and
providing cheap fares ... but this hasn't covered its costs.
HUBERT HORAN, TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Of
course it's popular. The people who use it don't have to pay for the
cost of their service. All of Uber's growth and popularity is due to tens of
billions of dollars of predatory subsidies. The purpose of those subsidies was
that the yellow cabs of the world don't have the backing of Silicon Valley
billionaires and can't compete.
SEAN NICHOLLS: So it's bleeding
cash ... in the last two years alone it's lost more than $US6 billion. That's
problematic for Uber as it prepares to launch its first public share offering
this year.
MIKE ISAAC: They have to sort of prove to Wall Street now
that, "Yes, we're a ride hailing company. Yes, we provide rides. But we
can grow much further beyond that," right. "We can do food delivery.
We can have scooters and electric bikes. And uh, we can deliver all sorts of
things in future." So their whole thing is,
"Yes, we're a valuable company. But we can become tens of billions of
dollars more valuable in the future. So you should buy
our stock." And you know, it might actually work.
HUBERT HORAN: If you followed Uber, their story, their
narrative on how they someday will make money, has changed every couple of
years. First it was limousines, and then it was regular taxi service, and then
it was carpools, and then it was food delivery, and then it was oo- u- urban logistics, and, "Oh, we're gonna become the dominant company in the future driverless
car business. Oh, we're gonna become the Amazon of
transportation.
SEAN NICHOLLS: One way Uber is
trying to pump up its future is by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into
developing a self-driving car.
MAN: Wow, it's cool to see this thing up close.
BRANDON BASSO, UBER'S DIRECTOR OF AUTONOMY: The spinning
thing is a laser, it's got a sensor bar of cameras, and then on the bumpers and
around the vehicle there's radars and ultrasonic. And this is what we used in
order to figure out what out there are pedestrians, are bicyclists, are cars.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber claims its fully functional autonomous
cars will be on the road in five to ten years.
BRANDON BASSO: in the future, once we remove the driver, it
can look entirely different. It can look like a conference room, it can look
like light-rail commuter train, and the point is that, once we've actually
gotten to the step where we can remove the driver and it's safer than a human,
we can change entirely how this looks and feels, and how it works for a person.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Perhaps Uber's grandest future vision is Uber
Air.
That vision is for thousands of autonomous flying taxis over
the world's major cities. Uber reckons that before long we'll all be zipping
around in flying taxis on our daily commute.
ERIC ALLISON, HEAD OF UBER ELEVATE: So
you'll book an Uber Air on your app and then, depending on where you are, a car
will show up to take you to a Skyport. Um, you'll
seamlessly transition into one of these, these vehicles on the Skyport. It'll take you to the next Skyport.
And then a new car will be there waiting for you to take you to your final destination.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber says it will start testing its flying
taxis next year and launch a commercial service by 2023.
MAN: By providing unlimited access to the sky the Uber mega skyport becomes a destination that reclaims more than just
time.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Australia is on the list.
ERIC ALLISON.: We've shortlisted five countries, um, where
we're really looking at, uh, the right outside US market, the right global
market to launch this in, in addition to Dallas and Los Angeles. And
Australia's one of those five countries, in addition to France, Japan, Brazil
and India. And, uh, and certainly in Australia, uh, Melbourne and Sydney are
very much in the running, and we're ... we'll anticipate making an announcement
in the June timeframe on that.
MIKE ISAAC: I mean, flying cars, self-driving car ... It's
funny, because there's a period where everyone was like, "Oh, yeah.
Self-driving cars are coming in five years." You know, "It's on its
way." And, and it's not, it's not true. I mean, there are a lot of
problems with artificial intelligence and um, machine learning that requires so
much information on how, how traffic works, how roads work. And it's constantly
changing. So a lot of this is much further off than
you would think. And not to mention like regulations are nowhere even near able
to handle any of this stuff. So a lot of that is a
good growth story. And think of it more in like decades of innovation
timeframes, rather than like two to five years.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber is banking on investors buying its story
in the hope its coming
public share offering will raise tens of billions of dollars.
HUBERT HORAN: This is really make
or break for Uber. Uber's been in business, this is its 9th year, it started
operations 2010. Um, they have 20 billion US dollars in investments so far.
None of those investors have seen a penny of actual return with a few minor
examples. They need a valuation of, I would estimate, at least 90 billion
dollars for all their current investors to come out ahead. If they don't, if
they get a significantly smaller valuation, some other investors will end up
losing money, and the board warfare will all begin again. So
either they go public, investor's happy, or it's a mess.
DAVID HOLMES, FORMER CEO, GOCATCH: Their main competitive
advantage has it's been really Uber versus the taxi industry. I think it will
be interesting to see Uber versus Tesla, Uber versus Mercedes, Uber against
Boeing, if you're talking about those new industries. And I can tell you that
they're much more competitive and they're just as ruthless if you go against
them.
SEAN NICHOLLS: The hype has prompted speculation by
investment banks that Uber's value could skyrocket to $US120 billion.
HUBERT HORAN: That would make it more valuable than all the
airlines in America put together. That would make it the most valuable
transportation company in world history.
SEAN NICHOLLS: And how realistic is that?
HUBERT HORAN: Well, think about the history of
transportation. Fantastic innovations, diesel engines, jet engines, the
application of computers to things like reservation pricing. If you believe
Uber is worth a hundred billion, 120 billion, you're saying Uber's innovations
are more important and more powerful than diesels or jets or computers.
MANIK GUPTA: I just feel that, uh, the pace of technological
innovation in this space is so rapid that there's just so many new consumer
behaviours that are being formed. And we, when we look at strategic priorities
for our company, we absolutely have to invest in newer
forms of transportation that are on the horizon. Otherwise, if we don't disrupt
ourselves, somebody else will disrupt us.
SEAN NICHOLLS: Uber is entering a whole new world of competition. Its challenge is to convince the public and investors to come along for the ride.