STRAIGHT TALK
MARK BARNES: Don’t write off Uber
The company epitomises the new value game
Uber’s listing on the NYSE last week has been described as a flop. Really? I’d love to own a flop like that. Imagine you start up a company, and just over 10 years later its worth $75bn? I’d get over the 8% drop in the listing price in a heartbeat. Uber epitomises, for me, the new value game over the past decade. It’ll be one of the case studies in technology enabled customer-centric strategies that are disrupting every business model that came before them. Even Uber may have to watch out. If the traffic is serious enough in Manhattan, the fare for a quick helicopter flip to JFK airport quickly updates to the point where it starts competing with the time it’ll cost you in the top-of-the-range Uber black. That’s tech for you, that’s data. The power is in our cellphones, in our hands. We all know that. What is becoming clearer though, is that it’s all pervasive, it’s going to take over everything — well, almost. It’s not all good, but it’s unstoppable. The cover story in the latest E...
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