Uber’s recent investor day presentation (link here) is interesting if you’re an investor or thinking about becoming an investor, but it’s also interesting from an urbanism standpoint. Part of the promise of Uber was that it was going to help lure people away from owning… Read More
Last week Travis Kalanick – the cofounder who built Uber into the most highly valued privately held startup in the world – stepped down as chief executive at the request of his investors. This was the culmination of months of controversy related to the company’s… Read More
https://500px.com/embed.js My friend Evgeny published a great blog post today called, On Car Ownership And The Future Of Transportation. And in it he made the argument that instead of buying a car and an expensive downtown Toronto parking spot (average price: $40,000 – 60,000), most of… Read More
The title of this post is a line from one of the works of Jenny Holzer. It feels appropriate right now. On Wednesday, Toronto saw a large scale anti-Uber protest involving as many as 2,000 taxis. It involved a bunch of taxis driving real slow… Read More
Holding Pattern by Sean Arbuthnot on 500px https://500px.com/embed.js This afternoon I saw on Twitter that Toronto Police are now starting to crackdown on UberX drivers in the city. The investigation is called “Project Snowball” and they have already charged at least 11 people. The fines are… Read More
A few days ago, Bill Gurley – who is an investor in Uber – wrote a really fascinating blog post called, Uber’s New BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): UberPool. Bill doesn’t update his blog very often, but when he does it’s incredible stuff. I’ve touched… Read More
Earlier this month, Bloomberg published this map showing where Uber operates and where it’s been banned (or is being challenged). You can click on the map for a larger version. Uber operates in about 250 cities across the world. But it’s being challenged in a… Read More
One evening this past spring I was leaving a Rotman School event at Liberty Grand on the west side of Toronto. There aren’t a lot of taxis coming through this part of the city, so I figured I was going to have to wait while… Read More
This morning I woke up to a post from venture capitalist Fred Wilson talking about the cost of loyalty when it comes to local transportation markets. More simply, it was a cost comparison between regular city taxis and ride sharing services such as a UberX, Lyft,… Read More
UberX officially launched in Toronto today. Which means that Toronto’s taxi and limousine industry is about to get a lot more grouchy. For those of you who may not be familiar, uberX is Uber’s low-cost car service. Just like the regular version, you hail a… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 