Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2023

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi dropped by the Acquired studio for an Eats delivery, so we broke out the cameras and asked him to hang out for a wide-ranging conversation. :) We talk about his 20 years working with Barry Diller, starting his career at Allen & Company, how the Uber CEO search process ACTUALLY went down… and oh yeah, the massive transformation that’s happened at Uber over the past few years. When Dara took over the company it was bleeding huge sums of cash, losing share to competitors and embroiled in one of the biggest corporate controversies in recent memory. Fast forward to today and it’s turned cashflow positive while also having tripled revenue to over $30B (on $120B in GMV) and solidified its rideshare dominance in the US. And in perhaps the biggest change, it’s done it all while staying out of the headlines. Tune in!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So, uh, I came up here. We scheduled this time to record. What are we talking about today?
0:07.0	We haven't talked about Uber in a while.
0:10.0	Hmm, that's right. A lot has happened since we did the IPO episode.
0:14.0	It's been, what, four years? That is crazy. All right. Yeah, let's do it.
0:20.0	I ordered some food. I hope that's okay.
0:22.0	Oh, yeah. Um, maybe we can eat while we, uh, we, oh, dear.
0:29.0	If it's on order of greets. Oh, yeah. That's me. All right. Cool.
0:33.0	Um, there's got some wine in here. Oh, great. That's perfect.
0:36.0	So, can I join you guys? Actually, yeah, the degree up. Come on in. Come on in.
0:42.0	Come on in.
0:59.0	Welcome to this episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.
1:06.0	I'm Ben Gilbert. David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts.
1:10.0	Today's episode is an interview with Uber CEO, Dara Kazushahi,
1:14.0	where he joins us from the acquired home studio in Seattle.
1:18.0	And it's been a while since we checked in on Uber. They've gone through quite the transformation since our 2019 episode on IPO day.
1:25.0	In the past 12 months, they've done over $30 billion in revenue up from just $10 billion two years ago.
1:32.0	And that's not TMV. That's revenue.
1:34.0	That is revenue. And they have two businesses, as many of you know,
1:38.0	that complement each other nicely in eats and mobility.
1:41.0	And they've divested anything hardware, international,
1:44.0	or that's too far in the future or speculative.
1:47.0	They're even doing something we couldn't imagine at IPO time, which is profitability.
	...

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