My first tip
The sun was just beginning to peek over the hills so I pulled over to stretch my legs. It was 6 am.
I had only been driving for about an hour, but I hadn’t ever come to this section of the Bay Area before. Right over the Golden Gate Bridge and down towards Stinson Beach I had fallen off a passenger.
Maybe it was his “ride of shame” after a night of partying? Or perhaps he was going to some yoga studio retreat that was secret before the stock market opened at 6:30 am. As an Uber driver, what my passengers did at hours was left up to the imagination.
The Beginning Of Uber
In 2015, I childless was jobless and had a whole lot of time on my hands. After spending 13 years waking up by 5 am working in finance, I often found myself twiddling my thumbs for many hours before my wife woke up.
She was the night owl and I was the morning lark. To fill my time, I would write on Financial Samurai as I still do today.
But as I read more and more about people’s experiences making extra money driving for Uber, I just had to try it myself. After all, I was based in San Francico and Uber was set in San Francisco.
Uber touted that I would be my own boss, drive I wanted, and make a whole lot of money. Further, they offered a $500 sign up bonus to me. Sounded good to me!
Everything counted towards my laser attention of building enough passive income so that both my wife and I could avoid full-time job indefinitely. Besides, I knew there would be tales.
Got lured into signing up in 2015 w/ my old rented automobile named Rhino
In the beginning, I was excited about my new hustle. My two park tennis teammates made about $30-$.
I figured if I could make $90 – $120 by the time my wife woke up, I could make to pay for both of us for entertainment and food.
Further, I’m always encouraging readers to begin a side hustle. It was logical to try driving for Uber myself and report my findings back to help others make an informed option.
Until this day, I still clearly remember my very first Uber passenger. She had flown in from Denver and I dropped her off at a warehouse somewhere south of town. She succeeded at meeting up after she was done, but I politely declined.
As Uber kept touting the benefits of driving on their platform and as I got savvier the more hooked I became. Rather than giving one ride as some do as a PR stunt, I wanted to give at least 100 rides to make my experience significant.
I learned strategies to boost my rate to $45-$50. Then I realized I could make even more if I referred drivers to sign up using my online platform. I signed up my wife and drove her to get the bonus!
With experience, I started getting overconfident about how much I could create.
The Beginning Of The Decline
After about six months of driving, I started to notice my rate had begun to decline. However strategic I was in terms of driving in early 2016, sometime during maximum surge prices it became rare for me to breach the earnings threshold.
It was like deja vu all over again, where the greater I performed while working in finance, the less I got paid. All anybody wants is a correlation with reward and effort. It was apparent after price cuts, driving for Uber became less profitable.
Then I noticed that driver referral payouts were beginning to decline. Rather than making $500 – $1,000 per referral for drivers who finished 25 rides on the platform, the payouts decreased to $50 – $100 per referral and qualification eligibility increased to 50 – 100 rides.
Back when payouts were good
Of making six figures on referral side hustle and my driving, my dreams started to fade.
But what irked me most was not the falling payouts, given the current market is rational and no one forced me to do anything for Uber. What irked me more was some of the people I met at Uber corporate.
Three fellow drivers and I had been invited to Uber headquarters as a “reward” for being such great drivers and referrers.
I moved because I was curious to get food and to visit with their offices. I was also actually hoping they’d be awarding us with some type of incentive or financial bonus for being such amazing “spouses ” as they called us.
What a disappointment. The food turned out to be water and cold pizza. I felt like prey. Their purpose was to pick our brains and try to learn Uber could replicate our success across its platform.
After he got what he wanted from us, 1 guy came in for 20 minutes and rudely left. I felt used. We were used.
Here we drivers were, a Black guy, a couple Hispanic men, and an Asian guy talking to six White girls and an Asian guy who all went to private colleges. The contrast was stark as I went to school, and a public one. About the way to be better drivers, they peppered us with questions.
Why they peppered us with 10, and do you know?
Because none of them had pushed! You’d think that one of the best ways to improve your driving platform is to actually experience what it’s like to be a driver. It’s not like they had been making some item that required a PhD in chemistry.
When I asked them why they didn’t just spend some of their work hours driving themselves, none of them responded. An individual might have snickered.
It was like they had been too wealthy or too privileged to do the job that was going to make them rich.
I’m not a fan of people who think they are better than others or good for some type of work because of their fancy backgrounds.
This experience was the start of the end for my excitement for Uber.
When I then saw Uber roll out its predatory automobile leasing program to keep drivers enslaved, I finally deleted my driver app for good.
Uber Culture Is Rough
From my one meeting at its headquarters, I’m not going to generalize all Uber corporate employees as rich clueless men and women who take advantage of others. That would be unfair as I’ve met several fine Uber corporate employees as well.
But what I will say is that if you’ve never gotten your hands dirty by working a close to minimum wage job, especially in the service sector, you don’t have any idea how hard it’s to make a living in these professions. You will likely take for granted how good you have it too.
By the time I stopped driving in mid-2016, my wage after taxes and expenditures was only around $15. My car was barfed in and nicked up.
I had also struck several passengers after Uber Pool was introduced. It appears as if are often the worst.
A company ’s culture starts at the top. And it was apparent from Uber’s sexual harassment litigation and several complaints which Uber had a culture problem. It had grown accustomed to treating people poorly due to its growth, in general, not just its builders.
Below is a example of Uber’s culture from a guy who led some of Uber’s rider development teams from 2015-2018. He s now a VC at Andreessen Horowitz.
Rather than calling ” it’s probably better to say “thank you. ”
Let’s try to humble ourselves the moment we begin believing we’re hot things. It’s quite easy to confuse our success rather than being blessed to hop on a train that was going somewhere.
Uber Millions And Billions
At the day’s end, Uber has improved the quality of lives for millions of consumers, which is why the company is able to raise billions in an IPO and worth itself at close.
None of us want to go back to paying 3X more. Having the ability to get many different food using Uber Eats is great.
It is also true that driving and delivery for Uber are options. Nobody is forcing people to work for less or close to minimum wage while risking a situation where one accident can wipe out s worth of profits.
Even if Uber continues to lose $1.8 billion a year as it did in 2018, its IPO will fund them for at least another five decades.
I just ask the thousands of Uber and Lyft employees that are billionaires and millionaires not to forget.
You might find yourself stuck in a pickle with nobody willing to pick one up, if you aren ’ t at least thankful.
Final Takeaways From Uber
1) To get rich, you must sell people the dream to work for you while giving them little-to-no equity. Work on your marketing abilities. Work on building your own equity.
2) While trying to convince your underpaid contractors that you are doing them a favor, work on new invention like self-driving cars so that when your builders finally revolt, you’ve got your bases covered.
3) Excess profits are always finally transitioned away. Therefore, to make the money, you must be an early adopter. Today drivers in 2013 made way more money than drivers. Needless to say, the same goes for Uber’s corporate employees. Practice recognizing opportunity.
4) Don’t be pleased to get rich. Do what you must to provide for your family. I don’t care if people online make fun of me for only making $ month or when I gave countless rides. It is because of these experiences that I’ve continued to grow and appreciate what I have.
5) No matter how successful you become, try to stay grounded. If you don’t, you will be eaten alive.
6) Even better than grinding away at Uber corporate is being an early investor. Make your capital work hard for you so you don’t have to.
Readers, any of you work for Uber or know people who work at Uber? How was/is the experience? What will you be doing with your financial windfall? Any new side hustles we should be aware of?
The article How Uber Sold The False Dream Of Riches And Enriched Itself Instead appeared first on Financial Samurai.
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