Very well written and I think spot on. I'd go even further than you on the "kick the clutter can down the road" point (with which I agree): I think that can wasn't even IDENTIFIED for the first two years. All the VC talk was about growth, utilization rates, longevity of scooters, cost of retrieval and repositioning, etc. Once again, Silicon Valley (to make a sweeping generalization) is all about EFFICIENCY (doing things right), not EFFECTIVENESS (doing the right things). The former is easy to plug into Excel and so gets measured: growth rates, utilization rates, lives of scooters, etc. The latter is hard to put into Excel or PowerPoint ("What if people don't like all the clutter? What if a pile of scooters looks messy?") and so doesn't get measured and charted. Like the old joke about Uber-for-toothbrushes: "Yes, I only use it 1% of the day, so it is horribly, inefficiently underutilized, but I sure as hell am not renting it out for the rest of the day!"
Very well written and I think spot on. I'd go even further than you on the "kick the clutter can down the road" point (with which I agree): I think that can wasn't even IDENTIFIED for the first two years. All the VC talk was about growth, utilization rates, longevity of scooters, cost of retrieval and repositioning, etc. Once again, Silicon Valley (to make a sweeping generalization) is all about EFFICIENCY (doing things right), not EFFECTIVENESS (doing the right things). The former is easy to plug into Excel and so gets measured: growth rates, utilization rates, lives of scooters, etc. The latter is hard to put into Excel or PowerPoint ("What if people don't like all the clutter? What if a pile of scooters looks messy?") and so doesn't get measured and charted. Like the old joke about Uber-for-toothbrushes: "Yes, I only use it 1% of the day, so it is horribly, inefficiently underutilized, but I sure as hell am not renting it out for the rest of the day!"
As an Uber and Bird alum, I can't really argue! Nicely written.
Best commentary of this development that I've read. chapeau, Ali! : )