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Jason Contreras
CST 300 Writing Lab
8 September 2019
Transportation Network Industry

Over time, technological innovations have birthed and destroyed whole industries. If any

company is unable to stay up to date with these advances there may be a chance of it going out of

business. This has been relevant in companies such as Blockbuster who was unable to adapt to

the trend of online streaming to be able to survive. Another example of this would be the taxi

industry falling victim to rising trend of the transportation network industry, in specific means,

ride-hailing apps.

A transportation network company refers to a company using an online platform to

connect riders to drivers using their own personal vehicles. The major corporations in this

industry include Uber, Lyft, Ola, Grab and Didi Chuxing. These companies are widely

recognized for their “ ride-hailing” or “ride-sharing” services. Services like these are highly

dependent on machine learning, which is why related jobs such as software engineering are in

demand for these companies. Uber covers

Picture yourself in a luminous city, on a cold starry night. You need a ride back to your

apartment or home but there is no cab in sight. This happened to Travis Kalanick and Garret

Camp on a winter night in Paris. They were unable to get a cab back in 2008, and the idea of

Uber was born.

Uber, is known as transportation network company behemoth Garrett Camp and Travis

Kalanick are the official cofounder of Uber. Back in 2008, merely 11 years ago, Uber was just an
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idea. Travis and Garret developed a smartphone app that allowed people to tap a button and

request a private ride. They officially launched UberCab in San Francisco with its’ only option

being able to request a private rid of black luxury car at the average cost of one-and-a-half times

the cost of a taxicab. The very first Uber trip happened on July 5th, 2010. A few months later in

August of 2010, Ryan Graves became the first official CEO of UberCab. UberCab’s startup life

was not an easy one. They were non-surprisingly facing major opposition A few months later on

October 20, 2010 UberCab was ordered by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency

and the California Public Utilities Commission to halt all ads and operation with proper

permitting. They followed with:

“The name UberCab indicates that you are a taxicab company or affiliated with a taxicab

company,” the local transit authority wrote on Oct. 20, 2010. “However, as there are no taxis in

your fleet, we demand that your company, its affiliates, and any other entity to cease calling

itself UberCab.” (Quartz, 2010)

Ryan Graves later responded with, “UberCab is a first to market, cutting edge

transportation technology and it must be recognized that the regulations from both city and state

regulatory bodies have not been written with these innovations in mind,” (Uber has been served,

Ryan Graves, 2019)

Uber remained active, but a few days after Ryan’s post, UberCab was officially renamed Uber.

After this initial rocky start Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber decided to take on the role of

CEO in late 2010.

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By 2014 Uber had expanded to over 100 cities. By this time Uber also had another

competitor which was also founded in San Francisco. This was Lyft. Lyft was not even the major

concern for Kalanic at this time. Uber’s main concern was the opposition of the taxi industry.

Uber faced heavy vocal opposition from taxi operators and politicians who were involved with

taxi companies. Once again Uber voiced that it was not a taxi company, but rather a new

platform to connect riders to drivers, similar to how the situation with San Francisco

Transportation Agency played out. Uber later hired David Plouffe(former Obama campaign

manager) to lead a new “Big Taxi” campaign in order to pass legislation in states to create rules

favorable for Uber.

Fast forward a couple years Kalanick announces a leave of absence as chief executive

operative in June, 2017. Not so long after Kalanick resigned from his position after being pushed

out by own board. Now as of August 2017, Dara Khosrowshahi is the third and current CEO of

Uber.

Despite Uber’s popularity they are surprisingly unprofitable. Uber suffered $1.8 billion

loss after the Dara’s first full year as the new CEO. It has recently gotten worse as Uber has

suffered their biggest loss to date of over $5 billion dollars as of the second quarter of 2019

earnings. This was mainly due to the expenses of Uber’s ludicrously unsuccessful IPO. At this

point Uber’s financial security is uncertain.Uber’s core ride-hailing model has been too reliant on

promoting driver incentives rather than a consistent stream of drivers. They are spending too

much money to get more consistent employees. Kalanick believes that in the future, Uber may

eventually become profitable when driverless cars will eliminate the main expense of the

business which is paying human drivers.

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Uber has also attempted to stay current within the technological trends of the

transportation network space. The field is only growing as more transportation trends are

becoming more apparent. With the trend of app reliant food delivery. Uber has also released their

own version named UberEats.Along with the rising popularity of dockless scooter brands and

on-demand bikes such as Lime and Bird. Uber acquired JUMP which was a dockless scooter and

on-demand bike focused brand. Uber acquired JUMP on April, 2018 for $200 million. One of

Uber’s more unique approaches to transportation is their approach to transit. As of right now

they have collaborated with Denver’s Regional Transport District where riders are able to

purchase tickets on the app rather than waiting in line or being reliant on passes. Looking toward

the future Uber is looking to develop fully functional self driving cars for riders. Kalanick hopes

this will lead to the company becoming profitable. Lastly Uber is looking to have riders fly to

their destinations with UberElevate. This is still in development along with their self driving cars

so it will be a while before it becomes close to fruition.

Software Engineering is a fascinating category of engineering. There I several types of

software that can be developed such as computer games, applications, middleware, etc. I do not

know which specific type of software I will be aiming to make in the industry yet, however; app

development has always interested me. : I plan to follow the CSUMB online course program to

obtain my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. These courses should strengthen and expand

my knowledge of coding, communication and group management. I plan to practice coding

outside of school when I can. Reviewing code documentation and diversifying your portfolio of

coding languages is important for the industry. Internships are a staple entry level jobs. I plan to

review key subjects such as Discrete Math, Data Structures & Algorithms.
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References

(n.d.). US Latest News. Retrieved from https://www.uber.com/newsroom/

2019 About Uber, Retrieved from https://www.uber.com/us/en/about/uber-offerings/

(n.d.). Uber Reports Second Quarter 2019 Results. Retrieved from

https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2019/Uber-Reports-Second-Qu

arter-2019-Results/default.aspx
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Griswold, A. (2019, May 5). Uber's stunning journey to a $90 billion IPO changed transportation

forever. Retrieved from

https://qz.com/1592032/how-uber-got-to-its-90-billion-ipo-and-changed-transportation-forever/