Uber Tries to Learn from the Obama Campaign [The New Yorker]

From a profile of Uber, which recently hired David Plouffe, formerly one of President Obama's chief political strategists

"Investors recently valued Uber at nearly twenty billion dollars, which struck some people as an absurdly high figure. But others, including Andrew Ross Sorkin, have written that Uber could, in fact, be worth more than that—not only because transportation is a big business, but because the company has the potential to do much more with its matchmaker app. Since Uber doesn’t own a fleet of cars or employ its drivers, it could, in theory, deploy its app for any number of other purposes. First it could displace the taxi industry. Then it could take on delivery trucks, moving vans, and more. Earlier this week, the company started testing out a home-delivery service in Washington, D.C."

Uber Tries to Learn from the Obama Campaign