> They use micro-services designed to the point where teams can't reuse pre-existing services. They are rewriting the same functionality over and over, and over and over again, as separate teams don't even have a clue what has already been written.
That's quite an exaggeration. Sure, there is duplication, because Uber has chosen one side of the trade off (duplication) as better than the other (coordination, blocking). I can tell you we don't have 21 versions of the same thing.
By the way, what are the chances of building a 500+ person team without hiring a few duds? With such a large team you'd expect a regression toward the mean.
Uber only has one product?
- UberX
- Pool
- Commute
- Hop
- Rush
- Eats
- Taxi
Each of those products is customized in the city or region that it operates in. For example, airports are FIFO queues [1]. At certain airports (e.g. SFO) you can choose from pre-filled destinations like "Departures Level 2, Door 10". Forward dispatch preemptively matches drivers to their next client to minimize downtime [2]. Riders who are late to the pickup get charged on a time basis [3]. You can schedule rides in advance [4]. Sure, a dedicated team could replicate some of these features, but those are just the features that launched. There are TONS of features that launch in only one city, or only to a subset of drivers, or whatever.
Which is more likely? That every tech company like Twitter, Square, Slack, Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, Dropbox, Github, Instacart, Stripe (all "one product" companies) are mismanaged or that you don't understand the complexity of running an actual large growing business?
That's quite an exaggeration. Sure, there is duplication, because Uber has chosen one side of the trade off (duplication) as better than the other (coordination, blocking). I can tell you we don't have 21 versions of the same thing.
By the way, what are the chances of building a 500+ person team without hiring a few duds? With such a large team you'd expect a regression toward the mean.
Uber only has one product?
- UberX - Pool - Commute - Hop - Rush - Eats - Taxi
Each of those products is customized in the city or region that it operates in. For example, airports are FIFO queues [1]. At certain airports (e.g. SFO) you can choose from pre-filled destinations like "Departures Level 2, Door 10". Forward dispatch preemptively matches drivers to their next client to minimize downtime [2]. Riders who are late to the pickup get charged on a time basis [3]. You can schedule rides in advance [4]. Sure, a dedicated team could replicate some of these features, but those are just the features that launched. There are TONS of features that launch in only one city, or only to a subset of drivers, or whatever.
Which is more likely? That every tech company like Twitter, Square, Slack, Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, Dropbox, Github, Instacart, Stripe (all "one product" companies) are mismanaged or that you don't understand the complexity of running an actual large growing business?
[1]: https://newsroom.uber.com/australia/first-in-first-out-airpo... [2]: https://newsroom.uber.com/sri-lanka/forwarddispatch/ [3]: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-hit-penalty-ride-3-minutes-2... [4]: https://www.uber.com/info/scheduled-rides/