The Revolutionary Story of Two Friends Who Founded Uber

On a rainy Paris evening, two entrepreneurs waited for minutes outside a restaurant to find a taxi. An idea suddenly appeared in the minds of Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, who met at this time: Why shouldn’t we create our own taxi service?

The sudden idea would be the beginning of a transportation revolution. This project developed since 2009is an example of an initiative that everyone uses today.

Based on this idea, Travis and Garrett created their first prototype.

On an evening in 2009, Kalanick and Camp set out to attend a technology conference. They are both entrepreneurs and they happened to meet at the same conference. It would lead to a great coincidence.

Just after the conference, when I couldn’t find a taxi in a stormy and rainy weather. The idea of ​​calling a car via mobile phone, A lightbulb went off in their heads. Garrett Camp after the conference Bought the name UberCab.com and convinced Travis Kalanick to partner on this exciting project.

The developed application was launched in 2010. The idea of ​​calling a car with a touch, It seemed more logical to people than waiting for a taxi for minutes. That’s why this idea has become increasingly popular. In the beginning it was a little more expensive than a taxi. But people didn’t like to wait.

Later, a problem arose in the name of the site, the “cab” phrase in the name UberCab.com was removed and the company was only He continued on his way as “Uber”. The CEO of the company that received its first investments is Ryan Graves happened.

Uber, which initially only offered limousine services, experienced significant growth in 2011.

The application was constantly renewed and effective technology was used. However As the app grew in the US, so did its enemies. and they faced constant punishment.

But Uber continued to grow successfully, expanding into India and Africa in 2013. It entered the Chinese market in 2014 and today In 84 countries and more than 760 cities is operating.

When we look at Turkey, in October 2019, Istanbul 10th Commercial Court of First Instance, We know that Uber decided to stop its operations, claiming unfair competition.

The court also decided to block access to Uber. Problems with taxi drivers It has also been on the agenda a lot.

In 2014, former Amazon executive Jeff Holden joined Uber as business development manager.

Holden, He put forward the idea that it would be better to add information showing where the drivers will go, and determined the routes of the drivers, turning the user experience into a work of art.

Uber has been working on providing services with driverless cars since 2013. According to Bloomberg Uber’s value increased by $50 billion in 2018 compared to the previous year, reaching $120 billion.

At the end of the process, which started full of difficulties, these two entrepreneurs They improved the application with the feedback they received and they expanded their business as much as possible with investments. When they stepped into New York and other big cities, the project reached a completely different dimension.

In 2016, the company faced an unprecedented setback at the time, selling its Chinese branch to mobile transportation company Didi Chuxing.

With an additional investment of $3.5 billion that year, many investors were concerned about the company’s future prospects. He believed he would see better days. However, 2017 was a bad year for the company.

The problems began in December 2016, when Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was named as the new president at the time. It started with his decision to join Donald Trump’s economic advisory council. This decision caused a wave of anger against Uber among customers reacting to Trump’s election victory.

In January 2017, Uber launched a campaign against Trump’s immigration policy in New York City.announced that it was temporarily suspending increased pricing during nationwide protests that included a strike by taxi drivers in .

This move was perceived by many as an attempt to take advantage of the taxi drivers’ strike. #DeleteUber The hashtag quickly gained popularity on social media.

Although the company stated that the suspension of incremental pricing was intended to keep the price of trips low during times of high demand, this led to the deletion of the application by more than 500,000 users. After this boycott, Travis Kalanick He resigned from the economic advisory council on February 2, 2017. explained.

Things took a turn when former employee Susan Fowler shared a blog post claiming that the company had a dysfunctional and sexist workplace culture.

Fowler’s article reached a wide audience, prompting Travis Kalanick to launch an investigation into the company’s culture. US attorney general He led Eric Holder to office.

As a result of the investigation 20 personnel were dismissed and suggestions for improving workplace culture were offered. On March 3, 2017, The New York Times revealed a program called Greyball that Uber uses to track its drivers, further complicating the company’s relations with the public.

Again, following these events, Uber driverless vehicle tests It resulted in an accident, causing the company to temporarily halt vehicle testing.

All of this further damaged Kalanick’s already negative public image. Following criticism from shareholders, he resigned as CEO on June 20, 2017 and was replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi was brought in.

Khosrowshahi wants to repair Uber’s image and finances and even to go public It focused on goals such as. The IPO, which took place in May 2019, attracted attention as Uber’s stock price opened below expectations, despite high expectations.

this too It was recorded as the worst opening for an American company since 1975. After the disappointing IPO, Khosrowshahi decided to lay off more than a thousand staff.

The obstacles they encountered on this path, especially allegations of unfair competition in Turkey, were just a few of the difficulties that Uber could not avoid.

Despite many obstacles and problems With driverless vehicles, security measures, and social responsibility projects, Uber has managed to go beyond being a transportation giant.

This idea was born on a rainy Paris night. changing the daily lives of millions of people It turned into a revolution. Today, millions of people use Uber to benefit from a worldwide transportation service.

In our country, it is very problematic The beginning of the Uber issue dates back to 2014, based on the launch of Uber XL service in Istanbul. As a result of the fights, Uber later continued to operate only commercial taxis. Right now UberTaxi continues to serve as.

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