Driving hard

TRAVIS KALANICK, Uber’s hard-nosed chief executive, seems to relish taking on regulators and rivals. “I realise I can come across as a somewhat fierce advocate for Uber,” Mr Kalanick recently quipped at a celebration for the taxi-hailing company’s fifth birthday. “I also realise some people have used a different ‘a’-word to describe me.” Mr Kalanick’s brashness has helped Uber become the most valuable American company of its generation. If it succeeds in raising a further $1.5 billion from investors, as reports indicate, its implied valuation will soar to a staggering $50 billion. That is higher than 80% of the firms in the S&P 500 index, many of which are decades old. Uber’s value has grown faster than those of Facebook and Twitter in their early years (see chart).

Uber now operates in 311 cities in 58 countries, providing more than 1m rides each day. Consumers like Uber, and rival services like Lyft in...

from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1Qrdkdw