Scott Taylor: Five Things I Have to Say About Uber in Portland

Friday, December 19, 2014

B. Scott Taylor, GoLocalPDX MINDSETTER™

Uber is just a glorified gypsy cab company with an app.

The Portland City Council feels bullied by Uber. Boo Hoo. While trying to stop Uber from coming to a city is like trying to stop the sun from orbiting the earth, it might be a lot of drama over nothing. A shiny new toy is always popular at first, but when toys get a little dirty and stinky, kids lose interest. We will too.

These App Hacks crack me up. “Ubers,” as I call them, are just digitally organized gypsy cab peddlers, plain and simple.

I get it. I happen to love gypsy cabs. When I lived in N.Y. I used them all the time. The only difference is those gypsies had style and character.

They drove Chevy Impala lLow riders, Crown Vic’s, and mag wheels with dingo balls hanging from the windshield. If you were lucky you might see a Virgin Mary air freshener stuck to the dashboard.

Those drivers were hustlers, ballers. They knew they were breaking the law and they were willing to gangster up to make some cash. They took pride in their jobs and they didn’t take any stinking credit cards. The transaction was simple: pay a flat fee and they take you. Negotiated in advance and in person, old school. No paper trail. Done.

Uber is the new shiny toy

Louie from the show Taxi would be rolling in his grave hearing about all this Uber nonsense.

Uber is cool and feels kinda good right now, like a new car smell. The drivers are under a perceived scrutiny that seems to be keeping them on point, but how long that’ll last remains to be seen.

My feeling is that all things fade over time.

Ubers, with all their passion and dreams for the future, will grow impatient before long with having to play like adults in the real world. When all of their options become vested, they will jump ship. The founders will sell out to investment bankers or go public, and that will in turn torch the model. At that point this party will be over.

The fact is that something this simple and useful is bound for the wrecking ball of corporate bean counters.

Some might say this is a cash machine. How can anyone mess this up?

Look at Myspace and AOL, companies that had such a head start in the marketplace it was inconceivable they would fail to reach their full potential.

HomeGrocer.com had a great idea. They raised lots of money. Howard Shultz, founder of Starbucks, invested a bunch in the company. The only problem was they found out something they should have known before they bought all the shiny delivery trucks -- people like to go out and shop at stores and squeeze the melons for themselves. Uh-oh!

If you look closely the next time a gypsy moving truck is driving by, you can see the H.G.com faded logo on the side of it. That really happened.

So here is my take

First, I think it was fun to watch the city council get disrespected. They walk around Portland like Maoist town leaders enforcing some dictatorial philosophy they’ve all invented to feel powerful. Novick felt bullied. (I hate that word.)

Uber is a great idea, another reflection of the amazing time we live in: technology, ingenuity, all that stuff.

Oh, I almost forgot. What about the ancient art of hailing a cab and impressing your girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever or whomever that would be that cares, that you still have some mad gallantry skills? People are getting so soft it makes me crazy. WOW.

Ironically, it seems that this socialist, left wing city of lazies is flexing some capitalist muscle, and I kind of like that.

Its funny -- I have been trying to tell my liberal friends that less government and less regulation are good for us all. It breeds competition. Really, you have to give it a chance.

Who would have thought that our lovely city of left-wing, entitled, unemployed baristas would go rogue and turn coats to the very principles it has fought against all these rainy years? It’s always just a matter of time, isn’t it?

Originally from New York, Scott Taylor moved to Portland in 1996. He's an entrepreneur, Internet millionaire, former MadMan, author, eco-industrialist and disruptive force.