How to build population scale technology?
Watch fireside chat between #Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and #Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani. #NDTVProfitLive
(Courtesy: Uber India)
Watch fireside chat between #Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and #Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani. #NDTVProfitLive
(Courtesy: Uber India)
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TVTranscript
00:00 Well, it's not every day that you get to see the visionary behind the digital public infrastructure
00:09 in India in a very special conversation with a man who is responsible for the business
00:16 of Uber in more than 70 countries in the world.
00:20 So ladies and gentlemen, please join me with a thunderous round of applause as a welcome
00:25 onto the stage for a very special chat, the CEO of Uber, Mr. Dara Khusro Shahi in a very
00:33 special conversation with co-founder and chairman of Infosys, Mr. Nandan Nilagiri.
00:39 Thank you very much.
00:42 Welcome to you.
00:45 All yours, sir.
00:47 Thank you very much.
00:48 It's great to be here.
00:51 And this is my first visit to India in four years.
00:56 And it's absolutely extraordinary how things have changed, how India is racing forward
01:02 in many things, but especially all things digital.
01:06 And it's great to be here with you.
01:08 I thought just we could start the conversation, actually.
01:11 We were sharing some stories backstage.
01:15 And one thing that I didn't know is, you know, I've been running Uber now almost seven years.
01:21 And I came to the company in a pretty tough time.
01:25 The company was going through very difficult cultural issues, leadership transformation.
01:33 Before I joined, there were 14 CEOs, which, you know, I'm not sure is a good thing.
01:38 I'll take one CEO.
01:40 But actually, during that tough time, the India team here asked for some help.
01:46 They needed the local team to be inspired.
01:51 So they asked you, Nandan, to come into the office.
01:54 And you gave them a little pep talk.
01:56 Tell us about that.
01:57 Tell us who called you, what happened.
01:58 Well, you know, I think it was just a week before you took charge.
02:00 So we didn't know that you were coming.
02:02 But --
02:03 I didn't know I was coming at the time.
02:04 Yeah, I'm told they announced it without telling you.
02:07 But anyway.
02:08 Yeah.
02:09 So and I told them a story which I thought should inspire them.
02:12 I said, look, I got my smartphone because of Uber.
02:17 And what happened, I was in New York in February of 2008 or thereabouts.
02:21 And I went to see a friend at NYU who was always like a geeky guy who kept track of
02:26 new things.
02:27 And after the meeting, he said, shall I call a cab for you?
02:30 I said, sure, but, you know, I can go down and hail one.
02:33 He said, no, come down.
02:34 He tapped on the phone.
02:35 And in two minutes, something magical appeared.
02:38 And that really got me, you know, hooked on Uber.
02:41 And I still use it every time I travel.
02:43 In India, I have the luxury of having a car with a driver.
02:47 So I don't use it that much.
02:48 But around the world, I'm on Uber.
02:51 So thank you for what you guys have done.
02:53 But to your thing, you know, you came to this company in 2017.
02:57 And you know, it had all the issues.
03:00 And in seven years, you transformed it.
03:04 Market cap at an all-time high.
03:06 You're actually giving cash back, which is a big deal in this world.
03:10 And you really put something-- $7 billion is your plan.
03:14 So how did you pull this off?
03:17 It's a long story.
03:18 And I would say that it's been a lot of ups and downs at the company.
03:23 But I do think that at the very core--
03:27 I mean, you said it.
03:29 The reason why I came to Uber--
03:30 I've been running Expedia for 13 years.
03:32 It was a great run--
03:35 was that Uber is a product that I was very passionate about.
03:39 It's a magical product.
03:42 It's a product that had incredible impact in the world that we live.
03:46 It's not just a digital-only product.
03:48 But it's at the intersection of the digital and the physical.
03:53 And while Uber was going through very, very difficult cultural issues,
03:59 the talent of the company was actually pretty extraordinary.
04:03 You know, Travis, who was a founder--
04:07 and I know there are a lot of founders here.
04:08 Listen, he had his strengths and weaknesses.
04:11 And he had to push very, very hard to establish Uber in a world
04:16 where I think a lot of incumbents didn't want Uber to exist.
04:19 And that went too far sometimes.
04:24 But one of his strengths was he identified and hired great talent.
04:30 And so for me coming in, it was actually pretty extraordinary,
04:33 which was the public perception of Uber versus internal,
04:39 who was here at the company.
04:41 It was very different.
04:42 It was a group of people who were incredibly passionate about the company,
04:46 wanted to change the world, wanted to bring this digital transformation
04:51 of movement to everybody.
04:55 And for me as a leader, it was just about pointing them
04:58 in the right direction, which is, hey, there's absolutely--
05:02 we want to keep pushing this revolution, but we want to do so in the right way.
05:07 And sometimes in order to speed up, you have to slow down.
05:11 You have to make sure that you have safety to the core when you're bringing
05:17 on drivers and earners onto the platform.
05:19 You have to think about the environment in terms of the effect of transportation
05:26 on the environment, et cetera.
05:27 And I think that my coming in, telling the company to slow down,
05:32 think about all of our constituencies, because in some ways, yes,
05:35 Uber is a private company, but it's also a public good.
05:40 And listening to all the constituencies before you go,
05:43 that really then allowed me to take this unbelievable talent base
05:48 and point them in the right direction.
05:49 And the rest is theirs.
05:51 Now, we had to make a lot of painful decisions.
05:55 We had to learn how to be a profitable company.
05:59 There are certain details there.
06:01 But I think the company now is in better shape than it ever has been.
06:07 But it came because the talent base that I got to work with
06:10 was extraordinary in the very first place.
06:12 Fantastic.
06:13 Yeah, it's really fun.
06:14 I'm curious, one of the--
06:17 I've been here this morning, and I've been getting a brief on our business,
06:21 et cetera, which I always do.
06:24 But one of the unique elements of India is this digital public infrastructure
06:33 that has been built, but continues to be built on top of.
06:40 You are credited with being the architect of DPI and all
06:47 of the components there.
06:49 Can you talk a little bit about-- because this
06:52 is something that is unique to India.
06:56 It's for companies like ours to figure out how we engage here.
07:00 And Uber is an active engagement with the various components
07:06 that's being built. But tell me a little bit about the why,
07:11 how did you come up with the idea, and where do you see those building
07:16 blocks going forward?
07:17 Sure.
07:18 Actually, it began 15 years back.
07:21 And I had the opportunity--
07:25 I was invited by the government to join to give every Indian an ID,
07:31 a unique ID, which itself was a fairly--
07:33 quite a pathbreaking idea way back in 2009.
07:37 And so I said, let's do it.
07:40 So I had a nice corner office looking at golf course in Bangalore,
07:46 over 100,000 employees, and I suddenly got this feeling
07:50 that let me go and do something.
07:52 So I quit my job in Infosys, joined the government.
07:55 Employee number one of a startup.
07:57 And if anything more difficult than a startup,
07:59 it's a startup inside a government.
08:01 So I had to put the team together, get the budget.
08:04 It was like crazy stuff.
08:06 But I think-- and I also made the--
08:09 I said, we're going to give 600 million IDs before I step down,
08:13 which everybody said you're crazy to make commitments like that.
08:16 But I needed a unifying goal for everyone.
08:19 So that's how I ended up in the Aadhaar world.
08:22 And today, of course, 1.3 billion people have an ID,
08:24 and it's used 80 million times a day for authentication, KYC, and so on.
08:30 And then we also--
08:32 we said, what are the use cases of this ID which make it compelling?
08:35 And it had to be a digital ID, so it's an ID on the online ID.
08:39 So we came up with one authentication, verify who the person is.
08:44 And that turned out to be a very useful thing in many, many applications.
08:48 And we gave it as an API, because we realized
08:50 that innovation has to happen outside.
08:52 We had to build the rails on which innovation happens,
08:55 something how the internet or GPS happened.
08:58 They were built as rails on which innovation could happen.
09:01 So we took the same principle.
09:02 And another use case was KYC, or know your customer.
09:07 And to open a bank account or to get a mobile connection,
09:11 you need both these things.
09:13 And we came up with a way to collapse the time of a KYC from days to minutes,
09:20 which, by the way, you use for driver verification.
09:22 We do.
09:23 We do, yeah.
09:24 I presume, yeah.
09:25 So then the big thing happened was-- one was when Prime Minister Modi came in,
09:29 he went on a massive financial inclusion journey with the Jandan Yojana program.
09:35 So they used Aadhaar KYC to open hundreds and millions of bank accounts.
09:39 And Mukesh Ambani came with DeLangeo, and he
09:42 used Aadhaar KYC to get hundreds and millions of customers.
09:46 Suddenly, you had a situation where everybody had an ID,
09:49 everybody had a bank account, everybody had a mobile phone.
09:51 And these are the three basic tools that people could use.
09:55 And then over the last 10 years, there have been layers and layers
09:58 of stuff built on that--
09:59 UPI and Fastag and all that.
10:02 And it's all coming together.
10:03 And as you rightly said, we feel we're only halfway on the journey.
10:06 There's still stuff coming down the pike.
10:09 And I think at the end of this, it will be really quite something to see.
10:12 But it's a very unusual approach for a government or government-sponsored
10:19 entity to build out these open protocols.
10:21 So did you-- was the government not that focused,
10:24 so you got to do whatever the heck you wanted?
10:26 Or was there convincing-- because it is a very unusual approach that--
10:32 Yeah.
10:33 Look at it this way.
10:34 The internet was funded by the US government.
10:37 GPS was funded by the US government.
10:39 And they were open protocols.
10:40 So it's not that we are creating a new model.
10:42 It already existed in the US.
10:44 So we just took that approach to--
10:46 So use the internet--
10:47 No, we used the architecture of creating a public rail
10:51 on which private innovation could happen.
10:52 It was essentially modeled on the internet and GPS.
10:56 But the fact is, the government had this policy of doing an ID.
11:01 Our value add was, let's make it a digital ID.
11:05 2009, might as well make it a digital ID.
11:08 So I think it was very supportive.
11:11 And we had government changes.
11:14 Everybody is supportive.
11:15 I think because--
11:16 I think people realize that if you really
11:18 want to solve India's problems at scale,
11:21 you need digital rails which enable things to happen.
11:25 For example, today, India does the world's largest
11:27 direct benefit transfer.
11:29 So we just have to press a button, and money goes into people's bank
11:32 accounts at scale.
11:33 During COVID--
11:35 The US could have used that during COVID.
11:37 So--
11:38 They were sending checks in the mail and all that.
11:40 So they realize the power of these things.
11:43 So I think-- and Prime Minister Modi is a very tech savvy person.
11:46 So he fully appreciates and supports it.
11:50 But I want to get back to you on--
11:53 within a couple of years of joining, COVID happened.
11:56 Yes.
11:57 And COVID was about--
11:58 I mean, when COVID happened, people didn't leave their homes.
12:01 So they didn't need to go anywhere.
12:03 Mobility was not a business anymore.
12:05 So how did you survive that one?
12:06 Ah, with some difficulty.
12:09 So I do think that sometimes the worst things that
12:16 can happen to the company, in hindsight,
12:17 could be the best things.
12:19 With COVID, we were, at the time, losing $3 billion
12:23 in terms of profitability, if you want to call it that.
12:29 And our mobility business was a cash cow to business.
12:31 And we were using mobility to fund the delivery business.
12:35 Delivery Eats was just a promise.
12:38 And overnight, we lost 85% of our volumes when COVID happened.
12:44 And I still remember, actually, the first time I heard about COVID,
12:49 we were about to have a management off-site.
12:51 And we heard about three passengers in Mexico getting COVID.
12:55 And then we got some details.
12:58 I killed the off-site.
12:59 Everyone go home, et cetera.
13:01 But we lost 85% of our volumes.
13:05 And that required a lot of soul searching.
13:10 We had been a company that was completely focused on expansion.
13:14 And we had to retrench.
13:17 And it really forced us, as a company,
13:21 to decide what is the core value that Uber brings,
13:25 and then what's non-core.
13:26 So there were businesses that we were in.
13:28 We were building bikes and scooters, e-bikes and scooters.
13:33 We were building autonomous technology, et cetera,
13:36 vertical takeoff landing products.
13:39 We had to painfully get out of those businesses.
13:42 And we had to do a layoff of a quarter of our population,
13:48 which was incredibly painful.
13:49 I never thought I'd come to Uber to lay people off.
13:52 It's a growth company.
13:54 But I think that event really caused the company
13:59 to double down on what we do, which
14:02 is build these giant managed marketplaces that bring demand
14:07 for transportation and supply for transportation
14:10 together in a very artful, easy way, the pricing
14:14 and the matching, all of it driven by ML, et cetera.
14:18 It really forced us to double down on what we do well.
14:23 We got either-- we were smart or lucky in that our Uber Eats
14:26 business exploded.
14:28 So a lot of our drivers who no longer had earnings
14:34 opportunities, they moved over to Eats.
14:37 And we really started building the Eats business in a huge way.
14:43 And we survived.
14:45 We did what we had to do.
14:46 How much cash did you burn in those two, three years?
14:50 Well, we went from a $3 billion burn to a $5 billion
14:53 burn if we didn't make cuts.
14:54 But then we took it back down to $3 billion burn.
14:58 Fortunately, we had a lot of money in the bank.
15:00 One of the lessons for the founders
15:02 here, always have more in the bank than you think you need,
15:07 because you never, ever know what's going to happen to you.
15:10 And thank God, we raised more.
15:11 Was that because you raised capital?
15:14 We raised capital in the IPO.
15:16 And we raised way more capital than we ever thought we need,
15:20 except we needed it.
15:23 And then we came out of COVID, I think,
15:26 because of the Eats business and because after COVID,
15:29 we really started focusing on the needs of our drivers
15:33 and earners.
15:33 Before COVID, I would say, just being self-critical,
15:36 we took our drivers for granted to some extent.
15:39 We were generally oversupplied, et cetera.
15:41 And we were much more of a consumer-focused company.
15:44 And the customer who was the rider or the eater
15:48 was always right.
15:49 And the customer became, for us, the driver.
15:52 And we really started focusing on the driver needs.
15:55 What are their needs, the onboarding, everything
15:59 that they need for us to build a platform that's
16:01 fair to both sides.
16:03 And ultimately, with Uber, the power of Uber
16:06 is the 6 and 1/2 million earners who are on our platform
16:10 and the services that they provide for everybody.
16:12 So that allowed us to come out of COVID stronger than ever.
16:16 And the discipline, the other lesson for us
16:19 is there's, in technology, and it's a bit of a twisted view,
16:25 which is engineering teams often,
16:28 they identify the size of their teams with their value.
16:31 If you have a 20-person team, you want to then lead a 30-person
16:34 team.
16:34 You have a 30-person team, you want to lead a 50-person team.
16:37 If you're on a 50-person team, you
16:38 want to lead a 100-person team, et cetera.
16:40 So the bigger your team, the better.
16:43 And because we had to focus on cost so much,
16:46 the heroes became the ones who could do great things
16:49 with 10 people and who didn't ask for more people.
16:53 And so the whole mentality of the company became different,
16:57 and it became about doing more with less, working smarter.
17:02 And coming out of COVID now, we really are a platform.
17:05 It is about mobility and delivery.
17:08 Not in India.
17:09 We're just mobility.
17:10 It breaks my heart.
17:10 But still, around the world, we're
17:13 about mobility and delivery.
17:14 And I think our best days are ahead of us.
17:16 But that was-- I never, ever want
17:17 to go through that experience again.
17:19 Crazy.
17:19 But in hindsight, it was--
17:21 And is it true that you wear a cap and dark glasses
17:24 and actually do the Uber duty once in a while?
17:26 Yeah.
17:28 It was actually-- during the pandemic,
17:30 I was going crazy at home.
17:32 So I wanted to get out of the house, so I bought an e-bike,
17:35 and I started delivering food for Uber Eats.
17:38 And it preserved my sanity during those dark days.
17:44 And I didn't own a car.
17:45 After COVID was over, I bought a Tesla.
17:49 And so I drive the Tesla as an Uber driver.
17:52 I'm Dara K. If you ever see me on the road,
17:54 please give me five stars.
17:55 I don't drive here.
17:56 But I wore a mask because I didn't
17:59 want people to recognize me, et cetera.
18:01 It was just about the experience.
18:02 And that, again, really helped me identify
18:06 with the earners and the drivers.
18:08 And it helped us build better product.
18:11 So those are dark, dark days.
18:14 But it's the test of any great entrepreneur.
18:18 It's not how you do on your best days.
18:21 It's how do you do on your worst days.
18:24 The best are the ones who-- they fight through the worst days
18:28 so that when the good day comes, it's
18:30 easy to succeed during the good days.
18:32 And do you feel that driver loyalty happened
18:35 with all the things you did?
18:36 I think we have to earn driver loyalty every day,
18:41 every single minute.
18:42 But I think that our drivers saw us
18:45 as a platform that was dependable for them, that
18:48 listened to them, and was fair.
18:51 But every single day, the nature of the earner economy
18:55 and flexible earnings is we earn that loyalty every single day.
18:59 And it's about making money.
19:02 And it's about making money in a fair way
19:04 where the ecosystem is an ecosystem that
19:07 makes sense for everybody.
19:08 That's great.
19:09 Now, tell me a little bit about coming back
19:15 to DPI and the ecosystem that we're trying to build in India.
19:22 As a private company, we've got size.
19:26 We've got scale.
19:28 We, to some extent, have built our own--
19:31 call them private protocols-- the demand
19:34 and the supply and the managed marketplace
19:36 that we've built at Uber.
19:38 How do you think private companies
19:40 should think about engaging in the digital infrastructure
19:45 and the open protocols that are being built here?
19:47 How do you-- I can see especially smaller players
19:51 wanting to engage in the ecosystem
19:53 because if you've got demand, it can bring free supply, et
19:56 cetera.
19:58 But for the larger players, the Ubers, the Googles,
20:01 the Facebooks, et cetera, how do you
20:04 think we should look at engaging in this ecosystem?
20:09 And how do you build--
20:11 ultimately, we want to do public good,
20:13 but we're private companies that have to earn capital.
20:15 How should we look at this opportunity?
20:17 No, I think DPI has been built for enabling innovation,
20:22 whether it's large players or whether it's startups.
20:25 So we make sure that it's a level playing
20:28 field for everyone to use.
20:30 But it varies from company to company
20:32 because of their business, right?
20:33 So if you look at Google, Google's very successful product
20:36 is Google Pay, which is among the top two products on UPI.
20:42 And they've done an amazing job with that.
20:44 So they embraced it, and they built this.
20:46 And in fact, they've been talking about it
20:49 in other parts of the world because they
20:52 found it so useful.
20:53 Specifically for Uber, I think there are three or four things.
20:56 One is, of course, payments.
20:58 I think if you remember in the early days,
21:00 it was all cash on delivery and people fumbling around cash.
21:03 Then you give the cash to the driver.
21:04 Then he has to give it to you.
21:06 Now it's all UPI-based.
21:08 And so I think a significant part of the payments
21:11 today, I assume, are UPI-based.
21:13 And then you can also--
21:14 with UPI Lite, you have a single-factor authentication
21:18 below 500 rupees.
21:19 You can just walk out, and the payment happens.
21:22 And you can set up an auto-instruction
21:25 so that you don't have to do it every time.
21:27 You just set up saying, every time my Uber payment is
21:29 below 1,000 rupees, do an auto-debit.
21:31 The whole host of things which I think
21:33 has made life easier on the payment side.
21:36 Similarly, driver verification.
21:40 I think the fact that you have another KYC.
21:42 DigiLocker, which is another great product
21:44 built by the government, keeps documents of the drivers,
21:47 verified documents like your driver's license,
21:50 vehicle registration.
21:51 So dramatically reduces the cost of verification of credentials.
21:56 Both of your driver as well as the vehicle which is driving.
21:59 That's huge use case.
22:01 Then you talk about the intercity service.
22:04 All our highways have Fastag.
22:06 So you can-- instead of waiting for a long time at the toll
22:09 gate, you just drive through and debit the account.
22:11 So Fastag is another big productivity benefit for Uber.
22:15 So look at all this stuff.
22:17 I think tomorrow when the AI comes,
22:19 AI in Indian languages, then your drivers
22:23 can get all the instructions in the Indian language, which
22:25 are the language of their choice.
22:27 So I think everything in the stack of India
22:31 is actually valuable for different players
22:34 for different benefits.
22:37 And then, of course, there's the ONDC framework
22:40 where as an incumbent, you may decide not to be on ONDC
22:45 because of other reasons.
22:47 But if you want to do adjacencies,
22:48 you want to get back into Uber Eats, I wish you should.
22:53 I don't know why you're not doing that.
22:55 I'll talk to my board about your advice.
22:56 Thank you.
22:59 So get back into Uber Eats.
23:01 And I think in general, even grocery delivery,
23:04 I think the whole delivery system
23:07 is waiting for someone to crack it at scale and speed, which
23:10 you guys know so well.
23:12 So a ton of things.
23:12 You can use what's already there.
23:14 You can do what's coming.
23:16 But by the way, the ecosystem of companies
23:20 that have created value around BPI
23:23 runs into maybe $100 billion.
23:26 So it's not-- people have actually
23:27 built real companies out of this.
23:29 So it's very much there.
23:31 And I think you guys can embrace it fully.
23:34 And I would say we are embracing it in various ways.
23:37 One of the strategic opportunities,
23:44 the biggest strategic opportunities for Uber
23:47 is for us to expand in a low-cost space.
23:50 It's Uber now.
23:52 We have been historically more four-wheelers.
23:55 And it has historically been a product.
23:58 Originally, Uber, when Travis and Garrett founded Uber,
24:02 it was in the streets of Paris.
24:05 They wanted to have a black car.
24:06 So the business, kind of the core of the business,
24:09 came from high-end luxury goods.
24:13 But actually, if you look now, for us,
24:17 the single biggest opportunity that we're very passionate
24:21 about is lower-cost products--
24:24 three-wheelers, two-wheelers.
24:26 We're building a service, Uber Bus, high-capacity vehicles
24:30 that work for longer distances that maybe a two-wheeler
24:33 or three-wheeler doesn't.
24:34 So for us, low cost is an extraordinary opportunity.
24:38 It's also an extraordinary opportunity for us
24:40 to expand our services to a wider swath of the population.
24:43 We don't want to just be upper-middle-class product.
24:47 We want to be available for everybody.
24:50 And the rails that you're building,
24:52 in terms of one of our largest costs
24:55 is bring onboarding earners onto the platform.
24:59 In the West, many times, it'll take two weeks
25:02 to get someone on, all of the various cases, et cetera.
25:07 Here in India, we have certain circumstances
25:09 where drivers have uploaded all their documents.
25:13 It can be almost instantaneous.
25:15 It could be within the day.
25:17 And the fast-earn earner says, I want
25:20 to earn flexibly on the platform.
25:22 And everything is taken care of the higher the conversion.
25:26 So for us, we're very interested in these kinds of products.
25:29 And the same thing in terms of payments.
25:32 Having low-cost payments methods for a two-wheeler,
25:34 a three-wheeler, or these buses that we're looking to build,
25:39 these bus services that we're looking to build
25:41 is incredibly important.
25:43 Because the cost of payments can become--
25:45 especially with the Visa or MasterCard in the West--
25:50 is enormous.
25:51 It's an enormous part of our business.
25:52 So we're rooting not only for this ecosystem
25:57 to thrive in India, but especially in developing
26:01 countries elsewhere.
26:04 If this model expands elsewhere, it'll be, I think,
26:07 a win for society, but also a win for Uber, too.
26:09 And that's a big part of my job.
26:12 If you can become a global champion and evangelist
26:14 for India's DPI, we'll be grateful.
26:16 Yes.
26:17 Yes.
26:17 We will.
26:18 I mean, it is--
26:19 I think it's a good thing for the world.
26:21 But it's also in our interest, too, frankly speaking.
26:26 One of the things when you came back to Uber was you
26:29 brought focus.
26:32 I think they were doing everything, right?
26:34 Yes.
26:34 Yeah.
26:35 And you systematically and ruthlessly, if I may say,
26:38 trimmed all that stuff and went back to basics.
26:40 You know, I'm nicely ruthless.
26:42 I'm not meanly ruthless.
26:43 No, you did it nicely, I'm sure.
26:45 But you did it with the clarity.
26:48 So what did you-- you said, let's get back to basics.
26:51 What was your--
26:52 Yeah, I think it's very easy--
26:56 I always tell my team, it's very easy to say, yes, let's try
26:58 this, let's try that, et cetera.
27:00 But to me, actually, the greatest thing as a company
27:05 is when you say no to a really good idea.
27:08 Tell all the founders here.
27:09 No, because-- yes, listen.
27:10 If you say no to a really good idea,
27:12 it means that the ideas that you're saying yes to
27:14 are even better.
27:16 So you should celebrate the no's, right?
27:18 Strategy isn't just about-- especially for larger
27:22 companies like ours, et cetera.
27:23 Strategy isn't about just what you do.
27:25 It's about what you say no to.
27:27 Look at one of the greatest founders, technology founder,
27:31 Steve Jobs.
27:32 He was the greatest no person.
27:35 And by the way, no's hard, right?
27:37 Because it's always fun to go after the next opportunity.
27:40 And I would tell you, it was a learning opportunity for me.
27:45 I had said yes to too many things.
27:48 And I think in hindsight, we lived at the time
27:52 in the zero interest rate world.
27:54 Zerp.
27:55 Yeah, the Zerp world, where everyone was saying yes
27:59 to everything.
28:01 And I do think that some companies, including Uber,
28:04 we got caught in chasing our own valuation.
28:09 So I was trying to manufacture ways
28:13 to catch up to the expectations that others had of us.
28:16 We have seen that movie here too.
28:18 Yeah.
28:19 And COVID kind of made the music stop.
28:23 And at that point, then we had to say,
28:27 what is it that we are truly passionate?
28:29 What are the side gigs?
28:33 Let someone else do that.
28:34 Someone else can be passionate about that.
28:36 What is it?
28:37 What's the core of what we do?
28:38 And the core of what we do are these managed marketplaces,
28:42 bringing hundreds of millions of people looking for mobility,
28:48 matching them up with the 6 and 1/2 million earners,
28:52 and everything that has to go with it in terms
28:55 of the routing, the matching, the pricing, et cetera.
28:58 And we can do that better than anyone else.
29:01 And then there are some adjacencies, right?
29:03 Going from mobility to delivery, going from delivery
29:08 to grocery, building an advertising business on top
29:13 of that, going from four-wheelers to two-wheelers.
29:16 So we are still quite expansionist as a company.
29:19 And we are still very ambitious as a company.
29:22 But the ambition should be where you're absolutely passionate,
29:25 where you're going to be the best, the best, the best
29:28 in terms of what you do.
29:30 And then, of course, there'll be an ecosystem around you.
29:33 But if you try to be good at everything,
29:34 you're not going to be good at anything.
29:36 One thing I want to talk about is autonomous cars.
29:38 I remember 10 years back, or whenever it was,
29:41 Uber said we'll make autonomous cars.
29:43 And Charles made that famous statement
29:45 about the guy in the front seat.
29:46 So you went and hired the whole team from Carnegie Mellon,
29:50 the whole autonomous team from Carnegie Mellon.
29:52 We did.
29:53 Very talented team.
29:54 And then you had to cut that out.
29:59 That's one thing.
30:00 But also, where do you see that?
30:01 Because autonomous cars have the potential
30:03 to transform your business.
30:05 Very much so.
30:05 And for us, the promise of autonomous,
30:08 ultimately, it goes to what I started with,
30:10 which is lowering the cost of transportation
30:12 and making it available for everybody,
30:14 and also making it safe.
30:15 That is the promise of autonomous.
30:18 And we are quite supportive of the autonomous ecosystem.
30:24 We work with Waymo.
30:25 We work with a number of autonomous players
30:27 out there, Aurora, to essentially bring our demand.
30:32 Because listen, these autonomous players,
30:35 they're putting billions of dollars
30:37 into building the technology.
30:38 They need demand.
30:39 And that's where we come in.
30:43 I do think that there's--
30:44 I'm curious as to what you think.
30:46 You work with governments here in Andes.
30:49 The technology is slowly but surely improving.
30:53 I would tell you that I believe that autonomous drivers now
30:56 are better than the average human driver,
31:01 but not better than every human driver.
31:05 And I do think that society is quite comfortable with humans
31:10 making mistakes.
31:12 Humans are allowed to make mistakes all the time.
31:15 We're human, after all.
31:17 But robots are not allowed to make mistakes.
31:20 No mistakes.
31:21 So the standards that autonomous is going to be measured by
31:28 are very different than the standards that humans
31:31 are going to be measured by.
31:33 And that's both a societal challenge.
31:36 And for us, when we offer a ride to you on Uber,
31:42 we know that driver's safe.
31:43 We know we've done a background check on that driver.
31:45 There are things we know about that driver.
31:47 And we're going to match you up with a good driver.
31:51 And so we as a company also have to make sure
31:53 that if we match you up with a robot driver,
31:55 we match you up with a good, safe robot driver.
32:01 That definition is accepted publicly, licensing, et cetera.
32:08 So the government is taking care of that.
32:10 But with autonomous, the rules are still
32:12 very much undetermined.
32:13 I'm curious as to what you think.
32:15 How do you-- because you've been involved with public, private,
32:17 et cetera.
32:18 Well, let me say that, first of all,
32:20 after you figure out how to make a drive in San Francisco,
32:24 it'll take another 10 years to make a drive here.
32:28 The chaos is so much higher.
32:29 The training needs of that autonomous vehicle
32:32 is going to be much more.
32:33 So I'm not--
32:33 Extraordinary.
32:34 I'll worry about it after you guys
32:35 have cracked it in the US.
32:37 But I agree with you.
32:38 I think people have accidents all the time.
32:41 And India has 160,000 deaths per year due to automobile.
32:45 But even if there's one episode with an autonomous vehicle,
32:49 it goes all over, like happened in California.
32:51 Cruise, yeah.
32:52 But the other thing I want to ask you is, is it also a threat?
32:55 Because let's say if I'm Waymo or Cruise or Tesla,
33:00 I can also launch a service which is only autonomous.
33:04 So what does that mean for you?
33:05 I think it's both a threat and an opportunity.
33:07 It absolutely could be a threat.
33:09 But I think our hypothesis, it goes
33:11 to what you and I were talking about earlier, is,
33:14 what are you great at?
33:17 And I do think one is that anyone who builds out
33:22 an autonomous service, they're just not
33:25 going to have enough cars initially
33:27 to provide the fulsomeness of the service.
33:31 It's got to be available anytime, anywhere.
33:33 You want liquidity.
33:34 Yeah, so liquidity.
33:35 So having a hybrid service that has--
33:40 if you're making a hail, understands
33:42 is there an autonomous car near you,
33:44 is there a human near you, et cetera,
33:46 and provides you with a safe, reliable service,
33:49 we can essentially help those companies bridge
33:52 into the future.
33:54 And so I do think that--
33:56 and a lot of these companies-- listen,
33:58 this problem has turned out to be more
33:59 difficult than anyone imagined.
34:01 Remember, those days people thought by 2019, we're done.
34:03 Absolutely.
34:04 So I think that ultimately we can be a complement.
34:08 I agree with you.
34:09 I think the ability to bring it in gradually
34:12 is actually your strength.
34:13 Yes.
34:14 Because I had to go full or nothing,
34:15 and that's not going to work.
34:16 Absolutely.
34:17 Absolutely.
34:17 So again, we're working with the whole ecosystem,
34:20 but it's turned out to be a tougher nut to crack.
34:24 And we're working not only with passenger mobility.
34:27 We have Uber Freight.
34:28 So trucking, for example, is a very large autonomous use case.
34:32 It's simpler, highway driving, et cetera.
34:35 And the same thing with delivery, which is,
34:36 if you have a passenger and you have a robot car who's
34:40 conservative, is going to drive more slowly,
34:43 or not want to take that left turn,
34:46 a passenger is going to get impatient.
34:48 A Big Mac isn't going to get impatient.
34:49 They'll wait.
34:50 The customer will get impatient.
34:52 The customer may get impatient as well.
34:53 So we've covered all of the use cases of autonomous,
34:56 which makes us, I think, pretty good clients.
34:59 OK, great.
35:00 Yeah.
35:00 That's good.
35:01 We talked about DPI and how the more I hear about it,
35:06 the more I get excited about it expanding,
35:09 and anywhere out of time.
35:11 So this will be the last question for you.
35:13 It expanding all around the world.
35:14 How do you think governments should think about--
35:20 again, I'll come back to it.
35:21 It's very unusual for a government
35:23 to sponsor an open protocol.
35:25 So there are dangers there.
35:26 There are concerns there.
35:29 How do you think governments should think about,
35:32 what are the dangers there?
35:33 What are the issues?
35:34 And then as we're sponsoring DPI all over the world,
35:40 what are those key issues that we
35:42 have to make sure governments are satisfied with?
35:45 Well, I think first of all, in a digitally intensive world,
35:50 we need to have some rails that are available to all.
35:54 If you want a truly inclusive society,
35:57 if you want everyone to be in-- and you value the same thing.
36:00 You want to make Uber everybody's mobility.
36:03 Absolutely.
36:04 So you need to have these kind of things.
36:06 And what we're finding is that it's not just about technology.
36:10 It's about inclusive growth.
36:11 It's about economic growth.
36:13 India is now growing very quickly.
36:15 Part of it is because of the DPI.
36:17 So I think governments are getting it.
36:19 The question is how--
36:20 not only how.
36:21 The how also has been solved.
36:23 But politics is a very complex space, as you know.
36:28 And therefore, it's really--
36:30 that's the challenge that people have to deal with.
36:32 But I think it is going to come.
36:34 It's an idea whose time has come.
36:36 And with your support, it will go even--
36:37 Yeah.
36:37 How do you think private companies can help?
36:39 Private companies, by demonstrating or talking
36:42 about how well they're benefited from it,
36:44 we talked about all the things.
36:45 So we are very clear that this is not some kind
36:48 of a government services thing.
36:51 It's about enabling public rails for private innovation
36:55 and letting markets innovate and flourish in a way
36:58 that it creates competition, innovation, and so on.
37:01 So it's very clear.
37:03 So I think everybody, whether it's
37:05 an incumbent like you or the startup,
37:06 they're all going to benefit.
37:08 All these guys are benefiting from it.
37:09 Awesome.
37:10 Do we have time for a rapid fire or-- yeah?
37:14 All right.
37:14 So here's a rapid fire.
37:15 I've got some questions for you.
37:16 Are you ready?
37:16 All right.
37:17 Yeah.
37:17 All right.
37:18 Who has been the biggest influence in you other than me?
37:20 Well, I mean, my co-founder and leader, Narayan Murthy, is one.
37:28 And yeah.
37:30 Bill Gates also has been very supportive.
37:32 That's pretty good.
37:34 One superpower you wish you had?
37:37 I wish I was more ambitious.
37:39 [LAUGHTER]
37:43 That's quite the statement, especially with this crowd.
37:46 Yeah.
37:47 Why are you not on any instant messaging app?
37:50 I don't-- I find all of them are a complete waste of time.
37:53 So I just-- and if somebody wants to reach me,
37:56 they can, so.
37:57 Just don't build any instant messaging apps here, founders.
38:00 What accomplishment that you're most proud of?
38:04 I think the two big things being part of Infosys
38:06 and transforming India's private sector,
38:08 and of course, contributing to Aadhaar and building India's
38:11 DPI, both these things.
38:13 That's awesome.
38:14 People describe you in a lot of ways-- tech visionary,
38:17 digital evangelist, India's chief tech strategist.
38:21 Which out of these is closest to who you are?
38:24 I don't know.
38:25 Since I actually don't do anything,
38:26 probably the visionary part.
38:27 I like that.
38:28 I like that.
38:31 And then last one.
38:32 What's your favorite workday time waster?
38:35 What gets you distracted other than instant messaging?
38:40 Sleep.
38:41 Sleep?
38:42 Very good.
38:42 I'll take that.
38:43 Great.
38:43 I want to ask you, one person we both know is Barry Diller.
38:48 Yes.
38:48 He worked with Barry.
38:49 I know Barry with giving pledge.
38:50 So what have you learned from Barry Diller?
38:54 You know, the most important lesson
38:57 that I learned for Barry Diller is
38:59 that it's the job of the leader to lead
39:04 by doing the exceptional.
39:08 I still remember one advice that Barry gave me
39:11 is I went through a plan with my team.
39:14 I wanted to go through with a plan.
39:16 And he said, Dara, I didn't hire you to be average.
39:21 Because I didn't want to leave my team down.
39:23 He's like, your team's recommendation
39:25 is the average recommendation of all their teams.
39:28 You know what's wrong.
39:31 There are times when the leader go with the team.
39:33 And there are times when the leader has to be exceptional
39:35 and has to go off the norm.
39:37 So Barry's fearless.
39:41 And when I first started working with him,
39:42 I was a little fearful.
39:44 And all of us need a little fearlessness,
39:48 all these founders over here.
39:50 And he taught me to be fearless when times are tough.
39:54 How do you keep learning and adapting?
39:56 Like I saw you in the meeting today.
39:58 You're very intense.
39:59 You're very curious about things.
40:00 How do you do that?
40:02 I love listening.
40:03 I think that one of the really underrated skills--
40:10 there are all kinds of courses on presentation skills,
40:12 how to present.
40:13 I've never seen a skill in business school
40:15 on how to listen.
40:17 And I think listening is a really underrated ability.
40:20 Like it's--
40:20 Great point.
40:21 I take it in.
40:23 I'm a sponge.
40:25 So much of what I've learned in my life
40:26 is based on listening to others.
40:28 So we talked about autonomous cars.
40:31 When do you think we'll have a world without drivers?
40:34 Never.
40:35 Never?
40:36 OK, that's good.
40:37 OK.
40:38 And when you go in the Uber as a customer,
40:40 do you talk to the drivers?
40:42 Oh, yeah.
40:43 I definitely chat them up.
40:44 What do you ask them about?
40:45 Usually, I actually-- most drivers are immigrants like me,
40:49 so I love immigrant stories.
40:51 I came from Iran when I was nine years old.
40:53 Family lost everything.
40:55 We rebuilt our life in the US.
40:57 So I just ask them where they're from.
41:00 And usually, then they tell me their stories.
41:03 A couple of minutes before I get there, I say,
41:05 how's Uber going for you?
41:07 Do you like it?
41:08 Do you not like it, et cetera?
41:10 So I try to get my little bit of Uber goodness right at the end.
41:14 But usually, the best question is, where are you from?
41:17 And do you tell them what you do?
41:20 If I usually don't, some of them recognize me.
41:25 If they recognize me, I tell them who I am.
41:27 So you're an immigrant leading other immigrants.
41:29 Yes, yes.
41:31 And finally, what is so exciting about Uber in India?
41:35 I think that India is one of the toughest markets out there.
41:46 The Indian customer is so demanding
41:49 and doesn't want to pay for anything.
41:51 [LAUGHTER]
41:53 And I view if Uber can make it in India--
41:57 and I would say our team is really making it here.
42:00 This is the best of times for Uber in India.
42:03 I'm so proud of the team.
42:04 But India is the gateway to the world for us.
42:09 This is the toughest market to succeed in.
42:12 But if we succeed in here, that sets a standard for us
42:15 to succeed in so many other markets.
42:17 Great.
42:18 Thank you.
42:19 Thank you very much.
42:19 Thank you.
42:20 Thank you.
42:20 [APPLAUSE]
42:21 So good to talk to you.
42:22 Thank you.
42:24 Oh, I'm going to take a selfie.
42:25 Hold on.
42:27 I got to get this for--
42:30 yeah, can you guys say--
42:32 we've got to see you in the background.
42:34 All right.
42:35 Let's see us.
42:37 Let's see.
42:38 Yeah, OK, I guess--
42:39 say hi, everyone.
42:40 Thank you.
42:44 Great.
42:44 Send a video to Barry, too.
42:46 Yes, I will.
42:46 [LAUGHTER]
42:48 Great.
42:49 Thank you, Mr. Krishnashankar.
42:50 Thank you, Mr. Nidhikini, for that.
42:52 What an enriching conversation, ladies and gentlemen.
42:54 Let's see them off the stage with a huge round of applause,
42:56 please.
42:56 [APPLAUSE]
43:00 Just so much to learn from the conversation about--
43:14 just so many anecdotes, so many insights.
43:18 I'm sure all of us are going to remember
43:20 this conversation for a long, long time to come.
43:22 But ladies and gentlemen, this is not all that we have for you.
43:25 There's something really exciting coming up.
43:27 We have a very special announcement.
43:30 But before that, may I please request all the photographers
43:33 to take their positions at the designated photo points?
43:35 Very quickly.
43:41 All right.
43:42 I would like to invite Mr. T. Koshi, MD and CEO of ONDC,
43:47 to please join us on stage.
43:48 [APPLAUSE]
43:51 As you know, ladies and gentlemen,
43:52 Open Network Digital Commerce is an initiator
43:55 which is aimed at creating a unified digital commerce
43:58 platform for India.
44:00 Thank you so much, sir, for joining us this afternoon.
44:02 I also request Uber's India and South Asia president, Mr.
44:06 Prabhjit Singh, to please join us.
44:08 [APPLAUSE]
44:12 Mr. Prabhjit Singh is responsible for the growth
44:15 and expansion of Uber's mobility business in India, Bangladesh,
44:19 and Sri Lanka.
44:21 And now, ladies and gentlemen, Uber and ONDC
44:24 are today formalizing an MOU to explore an integration
44:30 to expand the range of mobility offerings on the Uber map.
44:35 It's a very special agreement with ONDC
44:38 that will strengthen Uber's mission of bringing
44:41 safe, affordable, and reliable rides to all Indians.
44:45 [APPLAUSE]
44:48 [END PLAYBACK]
44:51 [APPLAUSE]
44:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]