Uber Learned If You Can’t Beat Them, Invest
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Is Uber a global ride-hailing operation or a service for the developed world with some investments in emerging markets tacked on? It’s starting to look more like the latter.
The story was that Uber’s technological advantages were supposed to overpower its competitors. Thousands of software engineers in San Francisco were supposedly building Uber Technologies Inc. a deep “moat”—a competitive advantage that would be the undoing of local competitors. Mix in some buzzy but irrelevant truths about social networks (something, something, network effects something, something, winner-take-all businesses) and you’ve got a compelling pitch.