Uber CEO Sees Its Future Beyond Cars

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is looking at a future for Uber beyond ridesharing and cars.

“Cars are to us what books are to Amazon,” he said at a conference while outlining his grander vision for the platform going forward. That vision, he noted, will grow to expand to all types of transportation methods — like buses and bikes, for example.

In fact, Uber could someday, according to Khosrowshahi, evolve past being a service provider alone and into a model where it serves as a marketplace for transportation providers of all stripes.

That effort, Khosrowshahi, noted is already underway through a variety of expansions and extensions.  In San Francisco, for example, Uber is testing its own bike sharing service already — and eying public transportation as their next natural area to get into.

“I want to run the bus systems for a city,” Mr Khosrowshahi said, according to reports by The Financial Times. “I want you to be able to take an Uber and get into the subway . . . get out and have an Uber waiting for you.”

The move, according to reports, signals that though Uber has changed chief executives, it has not swapped out the grand ambitions of its controversial former chief executive Travis Kalanick.

Kalanick famously believed that Uber’s future was make to transportation “as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone.”

But to get to that grand future, Uber must first weather a present where it generated $7.4 billion in revenues and $3.5 billion in adjusted net losses, in results that were reported on earlier this week.

Khosrowshahi faces the duel challenges of every increasing competition from rivals and getting Uber’s losses under control while continuing to pursue the cutting edge — like self-driving car technology.

Uber’s new CEO will make his first trip to Asia as the head of the firm, with official plans to visit Japan and India. India will be of particular interest, as Uber has sustained heavy losses in the market. The heavy losses that Uber is sustaining in India are something that has drawn investors’ irritated attention.