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 pushback, 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. mcgann leader 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 over. it 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 over analysis through mid 2017, was incorporated into his 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? ober 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 cooper 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 property explained into lots of other businesses have been proven to have been total nonsense ober keeps claiming that we had problems in the past. but those were fixed 4 years ago when we change ceo's. but in those 4 years, hooper has done nothing to fix. it's awful basic economics are all right. sharing

companies operating on this same broken business model list 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 monday. so there is no evidence anywhere on the planet that this kind of business model for mr. pier standpoint, finances can, can produce my research which started 67 years ago, which 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 of profits that investors need it. 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 modeled it. 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 over the 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. 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 served 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. for 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 their 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 the pre i p o funding. i may not get them. remember the number exactly right. was $1600.00 times more funding then amazon,

before it's like amazon and 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 price that was all bought. it was just, there were subsidizing all the trips. they were subsidizing drivers that 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 traditions. 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, enforce 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 is 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 going 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 in ober aggressively lie 2 drivers in it's earlier. there were press releases liberally over press releases saying ober drivers in new york or $90000.00, complete dishonest, and all sorts of other things in the were f t. 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 who birth 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 o'beirne demand for driver when they needed them, simply got fire. you know, and you can't operate. it was always a 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 care what drivers were being paid. they didn't care that, they'd been squeezed down to 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 ubers 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. uber had more lobbyists in nevada than the casino industry. 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 in facebook generated going to politicians with lots of cash saying, please pave the way. so we have unlimited power over workers and consumers. 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 begins. revelations been to huberts work, analyzing goobers less than transparent business practices. you're watching the whistleblowers stay tuned. 2 2 2 2 2 2 ah, lisa canter, russian state little, never. i've stivers, unfortunately, most landscape div us. mm hm. the american house house lamps and maybe close in 55. we did. okay, so 9 is 25 must be the one else policy with we

will van in the european union, the kremlin media machine, the state on russia for date and square r t spoke neck, given our video agency, roughly all band on youtube and pinterest, and we put the question, did you think even close to chat with an 1898 the island of pleasure. leach, i became a u. s. colony, but still retained its own cultural identity. we can speak in favor of independence, re be thrown into prison today. close to half its population with moreover, residence in puerto rico, have new representation in congress and con, vote and u. s. presidential elections like okay, we're gonna make you american citizens,

which you didn't ask for, even if we were offered citizenship with that. and we would prefer a wrong one. sierra was in his twenties, he chose to fight for his homelands independence. we felt that we could generate more with spirit resistor rather than of submissive acceptance or reality that we felt was like, shockingly unfair. my sorry that i decided to fight for my country. no, i'm not. could i have done things differently? yes, absolutely. do i now think that violence is not the means to achieve anything? absolutely. with

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ah. 2 welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john kerry. aku, were discussing mark mcgann, the whistleblower who exposed illegality at uber. we want to welcome back our were over expert hubert ran. welcome back, hubert. were discussing mark mc gans revelations here on this program. how vital were his revelations, to your own work? the guardian series that included mc gans statements were 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 of lobbying in california in nevada that been in the press at the top. everyone knew that dozens of major politicians had been working actively to help hooper in return for those donations programs like gray ball explicitly designed to obstruct law enforcement that had been on the front page of the new york dots open efforts to intimidate critical journals on it's ongoing programs to pay academic to produce totally indefensible findings that no one would ever critique properly, but it could then incorporate in which p r programs that had been reported years ago. so nice to have a reminder of all that stuff. but

especially in the us, it's not going to overcome the magnitude of the lobby in cash and 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. i'm not sure of, it's how it's south american coverage would really split out between the large wealthier city is the sum, paolo's and sandy argos. and one was irish as over top of the world versus less developed parts of those countries. stuff elsewhere. they fail ober failed in china . they feel russia, they failed and salvage asia. so there are other local companies following this

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 the 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 has 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 ober, 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 transformed. 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 thinking about 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, may be 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 going to ever expect become profitable

or not good experience, amazon and bail on stock. and i don't think that again, all these folks have drunk enough coolie to not be able to look think about that critically. but if you look at the collapse of the broader chapel, 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 release the sac. oh, these companies that grew fast without any sign of profitability, that was really dumb and none of them turned into successes. no, no, nonsense amazon. 1520 years ago. if there are that and pressured by higher interest rates and overall decline in stock, the stock market are you no longer have mass. so federal programs basically

designed to increase stock market speculation and inflict 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, look at you next time. ah. 2 2 ah, what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy foundation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic,

development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very difficult time to sit down and talk because these are the federal discrepancy all gone. most mission, fernando ocean, front of our sean on else please be fun. claudia with john and i was gonna tell the guys i spoke with a maintenance your engine remains in your deal when you come to the park teach you should teach to go get a new owner of sheila. the deal is get a minute. looks that on the minute, those now bob with our mission is to get a minute. those new when we store grease ga. gov to other,

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a no, it is breaking news this. our naughty international blasts are reported all across ukraine. explosion seen in the nation's capital, where a hotel has been dominated with unconfirmed report saying it's been housing foreign advisors. more than 18 russian soldiers are returned from ukrainian captivity where they were in, quote, mortal danger. according to the ministry of defense, the madness set to receive treatment and rehab on home soil. the western dr. interim leader of venezuela one y doe has been voted out by venezuelan lawmakers and he will be gone next week.