[jennyyang]

The genius of Travis Kalanick is twofold:

1) Going global as quickly as possible. He aggressively moved into a lot of countries as quickly as possible with the same formula, and for the most part it worked.

2) He created an entire industry by having the balls to lower prices to the point where it fundamentally changed transportation. Everyone ubered everywhere (before the pandemic) and I know many people who sold their cars because ubering was cheaper.

The downside was that both are extremely capital intensive, which showed in how much money they raised. But I would say both techniques are extremely innovative and what most startups these days are trying to strive for.

[cambalache]

> The downside was that both are extremely capital intensive

There is another small downside: They still need to be profitable.

[zepto]

Is there anything to this genius other than recognizing that he could get VCs to fund predatory pricing almost indefinitely?

[jennyyang]

Kalanick is a billionaire, many employees in SF are multi-millionaires, and millions of drivers around the world made a lot of money driving on the platform and continue to do so. I heard in Brazil, Uber helped 300,000 drivers alone make money during their very deep recession. I think that sounds like a genius to me.

[zepto]

Are all billionaires Geniuses then?

If it turns out in the end to just have been about transferring money from investors to Kalanick and employees, I’ll grant that it’s a clever scheme.

[jennyyang]

I never said all billionaires are geniuses. You are not engaging in a sincere conversation.

[zepto]

I never said you did. I asked you whether you thought that.

You used the fact that he was a billionaire to qualify that he is a genius, so it seemed like a pretty reasonable follow-up.