//UBER vs HAILO SHOW-DOWN// — “Everybody’s Private Driver” UBER lands in London, right on the home turf of “London Black Cab App” HAILO.
Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Hailo’s Jay Bregman go head-to-head on stage at #LeWebLondon with their respective investors by their side. So — Who won? While there wasn’t an official victory announcement, Uber revealed that they scored a high profile new hire. Ex Booking.com CEO Kees Kolen joins Uber as new COO to accelerate international growth.
With respect to profitability, Bregman answered that Hailo is ‘Purposely unprofitable’ , whereas Kalanick noted that ‘Uber is profitable in 8 out of 12 markets’. Competition will even get more fierce between the two companies, as Hailo enters the US and Uber announced they will offer different transportation ranges, including a taxi option.
We spoke with Travis Kalanick at the London Web Summit in March this year about the anticipated London launch and what it takes to conquer a city. For Uber it is all about understanding how a city moves to maximize efficiency. At Where 2.0 in SF we met Bradley Voytek, Uber’s data evangelist. The trained neuroscientist gets to play with Uber’s data to take a deep dive into the living and breathing transport organism of each city. Uber officially launches in London end of June. Until then there will surely be some more secret uber sightings. Welcome!
//Where 2.0 - Interview with Bradley Voytek from Uber// - After speaking with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in London, we meet the company’s Data Evangelist Bradley Voytek at Where 2.0 in San Francisco. Originally a neuroscientist, Brad “gets to play with the Uber data all day long” to figure out how cities move, because as he tells us “How different brain areas communicate and how people move around cities are very similar patterns”. Uber’s amazing data model includes everything from car densities to demographics, birth and crime rates, flight patterns and Foursquare check-ins. The meticulous data driven analysis lets Uber practically create a living personality of each city – a value that could be put to use for a whole new line-up of urban on-demand services. But for now, Uber’s focus is on international expansion of their townhouse . In Europe, Uber has landed in Paris – with keen plans to bring “Everybody’s Private Driver” to London very soon.
