Member-only story
What Exactly Is Uber’s End Game?
Food delivery is a losing game — so why is the most aggressive unicorn on the planet betting everything on it?
When Uber’s board of directors searched for a new CEO to replace Travis Kalanick during the summer of 2017, they landed on Dara Khosrowshahi, an investment banker-turned internet dealmaker. Khosrowshahi had spent nearly two decades of his career working at online travel giant Expedia and before that at IAC, a holding company with a portfolio of over 150 media and internet brands, where he learned the art of the business deal — buying, selling, and spinning off companies (IAC purchased Expedia in 2001). Now nearly three years since taking the helm, Uber is starting to follow the same acquisitive, deal-heavy playbook that has become a corporate signature for Khosrowshahi.
While Uber is most associated with ride-sharing, its Uber Eats business has been a bigger growth story. In Q4 of 2019, Eats was 32% of Uber’s gross bookings (the total dollar value of its services, including ride-sharing, Uber Eats, Uber Freight, etc.), but accounted for 51% of the company’s gross bookings’ growth. That trend rocketed up in Q1 of 2020, with Eats adding $1.6 billion in bookings compared to the year before, while gross bookings for the Rides business shrank by 5% from the year before.
