“While the operation of a ride-hail network may seem simple, our technology obscures a huge amount of complexity. We support roughly one million trips per hour [and our] marketplace tech… makes over 10 million predictions per second. More mundanely, we handled more than 25 million lost items last year alone” said Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Khosrowshahi was talking to analysts this week on an earnings call, after Uber reported record profitability of $1 billion for the quarter – with drivers and couriers earning a new all-time high of $17.9 billion in Q2.
It’s an impressive turnaround for Uber, which in an economically troubled 2022 warned that investor pressure to deliver profit was mounting.
(“Market size is irrelevant if it doesn't translate into profit... in times of uncertainly investors look for safety. Channeling Jerry Maguire, we need to ‘show them the money’... as its CEO had put it to staff at the time.)
Uber eyes Autonomous Vehicle “liquidity”
Behind the scenes of that transformation has been sustained innovation on Uber’s sprawling technology stack (more on that below) and its CEO highlighted the work of the “technical teams who deliver in good markets, bad markets, uncertain markets” on an August 6 earnings call.
