Despite popular belief, apps and communities don't run themselves. Uber is scaling at an ungodly speed, and they're hiring a ton of people to do so. Seriously, look at how many jobs they're hiring for right now: https://www.uber.com/jobs/list (then realize they're doing this in hundreds of cities simultaneously, in addition to the hundreds they're already in).
I'm actually blown away that they're losing so little, given the amount of revenue they're bringing in. Those are, despite what it may seem, really good numbers. If they can reach scale and capture the market (not trivial)... wow.
I agree that you need people to expand, but it never hurts to question how many people you actually need. Nobody denies that megacorps probably have many redundant positions, it's not possible for a company with 3000 employees to have them either.
My understanding from talking with people close to the company is that they have a process for opening one city. It's a specific number of people in exact positions (15, if I remember correctly)? They go out and clone the exact process/number of people in each new city.
It starts with one person who is responsible for spearheading the operation; that person is supposed to find, hire, and manage the other 14.
It's like Uber is opening up franchises of itself. The model has been nailed, so it's just a matter of cloning/duplicating that model.
I'm not certain on all of the details, but I find it absolutely fascinating.
Good Eggs just laid of 140 people, more than 50% of it's workforce and shut down 3 out of 4 of their markets - only SF, their HQ, will remain, and even the SF office sustained layoffs. They are Sequoia/Index backed, and raised $21M less than 12 months ago.
Good example of a company that asked the question "how many people do we actually need?", with an unpleasant answer =(
It may actually hurt. Uber is in the growth business. They aren't bootstrapping. It may not be worth the time for them to think whether or not they really need to hire someone for x position in x market when they have hundreds of positions to fill in dozens of markets.
Yeah, they likely have decades of amazing margins ahead of them. Doesn't make sense to be too frugal in just the first few years if it puts that growth at stake.
Until they get in price competition with a few others. Imagine Google launching a self-driving taxi business at 20% lower prices than Uber. It would be a bloodbath price competition that Google would win because of their deep pockets and lower costs.
Uber is swimming in capital right now. Their only goal is growth because that maximises cash out ROI for investors. There'll be time for cutting heads and focusing on profit post IPO.
Another thing to keep in mind is that über would have to pay corporate income tax, to the tune of 30%, on any profits made in the US. It seems like they're doing a good job (or are insanely lucky) at reinvesting their gross income back into their company growth while keeping their burn rate relatively low to the $6.9b in raise capital. (e.g. they've only cut $0.5b into their $7b cash stash).
I'm actually blown away that they're losing so little, given the amount of revenue they're bringing in. Those are, despite what it may seem, really good numbers. If they can reach scale and capture the market (not trivial)... wow.