both russian and other nations, scientists often stay for long periods in the cold. this place on earth, doing experiments out research spaces the word yet on how the local while i feel about the diverted tv attention. without the said the news, a shipping up on this the final day of 2020 to do try on join me again at the top and i'll make sure you don't miss any of the stories that matter. this is our team with ah,

with the who's one whistle blower has had more of an impact on international transportation than any other single person in the last decade. when he disclosed over 100000 documents,

showing the dark side of one of the most popular rightshare companies in the world . hello, i'm john, curiosity and you're watching the whistle blowers the. 2 2 2 2 2 2 whistleblower mark began disclosed more than 124000 documents, detailing how ober flouted laws in countries across europe. duped police exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments in order to aggressively build its global empire. the 52 year old irishmen served as uber as chief lobbyist for europe, the middle east and africa from 2014 to 2016, and oversaw government relations and public policy in more than 40 countries. he was responsible for, according governments, in more than 40 countries, to convince them that over was the next big thing. investment opportunities abounded people around the world wanted to get in on the ground floor. executives threw themselves at the company,

hoping to work for what they thought was the next google or apple and over presented itself as a life changing opportunity, especially for low income people with access to a car. they could work for themselves as many hours a day as they wanted. the sky was the limit to what they could accomplish. but it wasn't all that easy. and the picture wasn't really that rosy. the company began facing push back, especially from taxi drivers, protest erupt in berlin, london, paris, and athens courts in germany, restricted some of movers services, and in greece, the company was banned altogether. mcgann was put in charge of a team that was to confront these challenges. he argued that over was not anti regulation. it was a tech company he said, using data to match supply with demand. but in reality, it was much more than that began later said, quote the mantra that people repeated from one office to the other was the mantra that came from the top. don't ask for permission,

just hustle and list drivers. go out, do the marketing and quickly people will wake up and see what a great thing over is, unquote. in reality, over was running rough shot over the status quo. gig work in many countries offered no benefits, long hours, low pay and grinding work conditions. ober wasn't the great job opportunity at market itself to be the opportunity that would lift people out of poverty and to make matters worse, the company's leadership knew that from the beginning. finally, earlier this summer, mark began provided 124000 pages of internal documents to the guardian newspaper, which in turn shared them with the international consortium of investigative journalists. and with the most important newspapers in the western world. the documents which cover the period from 2013 to 2017 laid bare the company's tactics to establish footholds and to win market share, even if that meant violating the law. now we want to bring in an over expert who's knowledge of the economics of transport. competition and regulation allowed him to

demonstrate that uber is incapable now or in the future of ever earning profits. his super analysis through mid 2017 was incorporated into is transportation law journal article called will the growth of hoover increase economic welfare. i want to welcome hubert her in welcome to the show. you're an expert on uber and on transportation. tell us, in brief, where you think cooper stands right now as a company in our society. is it something indispensable? and that will be with us for a long time. or is it the type of company with a business model that is out moded or just can't last for very long. goober is phenomenally unsuccessful against any measurable objective criteria. you can think of economic, financial, transportation. it's racked up $31000000000.00 and losses. it took 11 years to

produce the very 1st dollar a positive cash flow. no one at goober or following goober can produce a prop, plausible story. how those massive years of losses can suddenly be turned around and become years larger and sustainable profits. it's now producing less taxi service that much higher prices than traditional taxis did. the ones that drove out of business before it started all of its claims that its stock would be highly valuable because it would achieve amazon type, profitable growth in its core business. which is to say urban transport and then profit explained into lots of other businesses have been proven to have been total nonsense over keeps claiming that we have problems in the past. but those were fixed 4 years ago when we change ceos. but in those 4 years, hooper has done nothing to fix its awful basic economics are all right,

sharing companies operating on this same broken business model lift is concentrated in the domestic us in a narrower set of markets newburgh. but it's the identical business model. yes. and it's, it's losing money and has no plausible story. and even better example was d d in china, which actually achieved the virtual monopoly market dominance that ober was trying set out to achieve 10 years ago. and it still can't make money. so there is no evidence anywhere on the planet that this kind of business model for me is just pure standpoint. finances can, can producing my research, which started 67 years ago was,

was basically focused on that question. goobers underlying business model was always incapable of either improving the transport service in big cities or generating the kinds profits that investors needed. it's claims about technological advances were never demonstrated and we're always false. it's business model is actually less efficient and higher produces at higher cost. then the, all the traditional taxi business model that it never had the kind of big scale and network economies that allowed other venture capital backed firms to quote, grow into profit ability after initial losses. now the old taxi industry had lots of problems that as everyone knows, but overs business model didn't fix any of the overall business model couldn't profitably produce lots of additional drivers at low fares on saturday night when

peak demand hit or when all of ooh, burst early popularity and growth was driven by billions and billions in unsustainable investor substance. it's trying now, those subsidies basically run out and it's raised fairs enormously, b. but there's no evidence that the mass market that uber and these other companies are pursuing will ever pay the true cost of the service. you could be a tiny, tiny niche serving wealthy people. ah. but the mass market, that was the heart of the business model can't be serv, properly. it's up to extent that it's improved rich reduced its losses. let me not say from progressive ability. it's almost

entirely driven by squeezing driver compensation has nothing to do with scale economies. or improved efficiency, it is simply cutting driver pay. what's wrong with the business model, and is there a solution? they've been producing those 31000000000 in losses over time. if there was a solution. i think they would have found it by now. i think they would have found that years ago, i don't think there's a solution, but i think the evidence that they can't produce money, you know, suddenly make this service profitable? is the real demonstration, ah, a niche high priced taxi service that is limited to the pockets of highest demand and city is not a viable business. they're trying to scale back to that, which again reduces the cash string but doesn't make it

a profitable business. if you research goober, you won't find anyone who says, oh yes, here is what i could do to become sustainable. probably no one has made the other than just sort of scratching your belly and announcing wishful thinking. no one can lay out. here's how they improve the economics, here's how they improve revenue. here's how they improve efficiency and productivity to make it work. and again, if there was a way they would have done it, is it only a matter of time before ober, and these other similar companies just collapse? well, the, the anomaly here is that ober had an unprecedented level of investor funding in its earliest years. i think it was over a pre i p o funding. i may not get them remember the number exactly right. which

1600 times more funding. then amazon, before research amazon in facebook and companies like that. lost money at 1st, but they quickly got to becoming cash flow positive and they funded their growth out of user revenue. ober was never able to do that. all of those subsidies, again, were designed to sort of create the impression back in 2014, 2017 o over has found a way that no taxi company had found in a 100 years to, to produce service way more service, higher quality service and it much lower prices. that was all part. it was just, there were subsidizing all the trips. they were subsidizing drivers. they were subsidizing everything. they were using those subsidies to fool investors in the

thinking that it had amazon type growth economics. and oh, yeah, we lost money last year, but just like amazon noticed, that will, will soon be, you know, spouting more money than we can count the subsidies eliminated competition from all of the prior traditional lakia. so there was no alternative the subsidies funded all the massive political lobbying and p r programs that, that lead politicians to eliminate all the industry oversight that have protected consumers, you know, enforced labor laws and lead the mainstream media over the greatest thing since sliced bread. my friends all love it, and it's all this technology inefficiency, really wonderful. but those subsidies, the power in the early popular meant the mainstream meeting never actually

investigated. and yes, they've all been proven to be complete garbage subsequently. but no one's gone back and written. oh, all those stories we told you about ober in 2016, 2018. they were totally wrong. how does zuber squeeze its drivers? well, step one, you create the kweisi monopoly. and again, think of ober and lift if you're looking at the u. s. situation as a do awfully. that's driven the traditional operators out of business. so we're the only game into ober aggressively lie 2 drivers. it's earlier there were press releases liberally over press releases saying hooper drivers in new york or $90000.00, complete dishonest. and, and all sorts of other things in the were at p c,

fines for some of the statements. but so all of a sudden these drivers are now work driving for go back 8 years or whatever they're getting. okay. they're getting better pay than the old company because of those subsidies. hooper's now owns the market. it simply turns around a customer. you know, how much of each customer dollar does the driver get its been cut back and cut back and cut back, and the drivers have absolutely no recourse. they, they lied to drivers. oh, you'll have total flexibility as an independent contract. only drive when you feel like, well, no, that was a lie too, because the drivers who didn't respond to the movers demand for drivers when they needed them, simply got fire. you know, and you can't operate. it was always why you can't operate

a large scale transportation company, or probably any other kind of company on purely casual workers who show up when they feel like that was always nonsense. and ober knew throughout this that you know, the mainstream media and it's wealthy users who liked it, the most didn't hear what drivers were being picked. they didn't care that. they'd been squeezed down to the minimum wage level. they didn't care that watch them were sleeping in cars in order to make ends me an wall street actually thinks those are wonderful, that kind of transfer of wealth from labor to capital, even if it's the most marginal labor in an urban marketplace to silicon valley, investors that's how capitalism ought to work. they think it's wonderful. so no one was going to push back. you know, whenever you know,

those politicians who were being handled buckets of cash by uber lobbyists and who gutted all of the protections that had existed for decades and decades, went out, you know, the democratic process somehow. wait a minute. this isn't working when you know minimum wage doesn't cut it. let's put some basic protections in. let's be fuck. goobers, exploitation false claims about independent contractors. as you saw with california propositions when who they spend a limited cashed beat those back, you know, ober had more lobbyists in california than the entire banking goober, had more lobbyists in nevada than the casino in this was not free markets at work. this was a silicon valley funded company where the investors were looking for the kind of

riches amazon and facebook generated going to politicians with lots of cash st. kalese paved the way. so we have limited power over workers can sure. thank you hubert, but don't go away. we're going to a short break. and when we come back, we answer the question, how vital have mark mccann's revelations been de huberts work, analyzing goobers less than transparent business practices? you're watching the whistleblowers stay tune. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ah, ah ah,

ah ah! in 1898, the island of quite a retail became a u. s. colony, but still retained its own cultural identity. we can speak in favor of interplanetary, be thrown into prison to day, close to half its population. liberty. moreover, residence in puerto rico have no representation in congress and con, vote and u. s. presidential elections. so like, okay, we're gonna make you american citizens, which you didn't ask for, even if we were office citizenship had, and we would prefer around when one say gonna was in his twenties, he chose to fight for his homelands independence. we felt that we could generate more of a spirit of resistance rather than of submissive acceptance. oh,

reality that we fell asleep. shockingly unfair, my sorry that i decided to fight for my country. no, i'm not. could have done things differently. yes, absolutely. do i now think that violence is not the means to achieve anything? absolutely. 2 2 2 ah, welcome back to the whistle blowers, i'm john kerry aku, were discussing mark mcgann, the whistleblower who exposed illegality at ober. we want to welcome back our we're ober expert hubert, her. an welcome back hubert. were discussing mark mccann's revelations here on this program. how vital were his revelations, to your own work, the guardian series that included mc gans statements. ah, we're factually accurate. but they were simply reminding the public of stuff that had been widely reported 56 years ago. you know,

the magnitude and importance of all of those lobbying all those things. i quoted you about the magnitude, a lobbying in california in nevada that been in the press at the top. ah, every one knew that dozens of major politicians had been working actively to help huber in return for those donations. ah, programs like grey ball explicitly designed to obstruct long foresman that had been on the front page of the near dots. ah, open efforts to intimidate critical journalists on its ongoing programs to pay academic to produce totally indefensible findings that no one would ever critique properly. but it could then incorporate which p r programs that had been reported years ago. so nice to have a,

a reminder of all that stuff. ah, but especially in the us, it's not going to overcome the magnitude of the lobby in cash and the legal changes. no one cares. what do you know about uber in the developing world? it's position in those kinds of countries is somewhat limited. ah, i'm not sure of. it's how it's south american coverage would really split out between the large wealthier city is the san palos and santiago's, and one us irish is bogota. the raw versus less develop parts of those countries are stuff elsewhere. they fail. hooper failed in china. they failed

russia. they failed and salvaged asia. so there are other local companies following this ah, with probably a little more sensitivity to the labor and transport issues in those things. but as i mentioned in terms of didi in china, none of them are well over ever break up urban transport. it has humongous economic problems. that's why the new york city subway in the denver bus system and services, whether it's in mom, buy or moscow, are not private sector. businesses funded by investors hoping to get fabulously rich their publics, their quasi public services. the benefits produced by urban transport be they

expressways or transit buses and taxis is always been small. part of that are fundamentally the economics are awful. and over as i said over, didn't solve any of those problems. it's urban transport. why? anyone thought that over after 100 years of every urban transport service being a public sector, operated and funded service was suddenly away for silicon valley. investors to get rich is incomprehensible. but that's what happened. oh, we have an air we have technology. technology can solve every problem known to man and everyone in the urban transport industry in every country in the world, in every city. and everyone was too stupid in the last 100 years to see that if you

just put it on an app, the economics will be totally transport the totally stupid people were the ober investors who bought that. and all of the politicians and media observers who swallowed that hook, line, and sinker, without thing. if you go back and read all the stories about rubers growth, no one ever talked to anyone who knew anything about urban transport. it was all technology stuff. technology is cool, but technology cannot and has not transformed urban transport into something that will spit off returns for speculative investors. we've covered so much here, any final comments to wrap up what we've discussed. i'm, i'm always asked to speculate on the future. and i hate doing that, ah,

if people say, well, what's gonna happen? one, if nothing else in the world change that the investor cash could probably last another for 5 years. there is no political force anywhere in the more developed world to say this was a mistake. we have to restore the kind of taxi industry we had in 1990. we have to roll back what uber did, there's to it, there's no support for that. not because it's a bad idea, but politically there's no support for that to the extent. so if everything else there will be muddle along, maybe being cash break even and constantly trying to shrink back with service in cities, continuing deteriorate. prices continue to go up. the issue for ober is the stock

price. if it's investor suddenly wake up to morrow and said, this is never going to be worth any. we're not gonna ever expect become profitable . we're not gonna experience amazon growth and bail on stock. and i don't think that again, all these folks have drunken of coolie to not be able to look think about that critically. but if you look at the collapse of the broader tech bowl, which is happening, that's caused a lot of people in other contacts to say, oh, this technology stuff was not as wonderful as the press releases set. oh, these companies that grew fast without any sign of profitability, that was really dumb and none of them turned into successes nor, you know, nonsense amazon. 1520 years ago. if they're that and

pressured by higher interest rates, an overall decline in stock. the stock market are you no longer have mass, so federal programs basically designed to increase stock market speculation in flight. those kinds of bubbles if that kinds of bursts from those kinds of external forces. i think that is more likely to be what drives changes. and i hear her and thank you so much for joining us. that's all we have for you today. this has been the whistleblowers. i'm john kerry, aka. we'll catch you next time. ah. 2 2 ah, ah, with,

because these are the fee, i don't to sweden see or hold on house. he switched fund out. washington for the about sean, on out recently fun claudia with my job and do a maintenance insurance. my main thing you do when you come to live with partition, you show a teacher who gets a sure one, your only work she like we do is get a minute extra to remind you those now about which bush doesn't that, but i'm wishes to get a minute in those new when we stole christiane, go to other but i should characters and in fact is until you finish. this is like soon bad and also to washington duct here. don't always fun to assist. t says,

i'm so lazy this in the sand to the so long as all you could do instead, deutschland, and vanish, boom, ventral by it. no problem. let me look on these ones. when i spawns in dawson with, ah, breaking news, this our ur alerts are declared throughout the entire territory of ukraine with glass reported in que. yeah. park called on the other major cities also had on the news hour today. russia calls the with to the minister agreements, a formalization of, but trail officer next french president confessed that he still was used to give you crane more time to prepare for war and palestinian authority. lush said what they describe as israel's ethnic claim.