Garrett Camp posts Uber’s first pitch deck on its ninth anniversary

On a holiday to Paris during New Year’s Eve in 2008, two friends – Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp —conceptualised the idea of Uber. Travis, who had founded and exited Red Swoosh, and Garrett, who had founded StumbleUpon, were said to have spent close to $800 hiring a private driver.

It was the frustration of paying such a hefty amount that got the duo to think of the idea of hailing a cab at the click of a button. In the past nine years, since Uber started as UberCab in August 2008, the company has come a super long way. Today, the San Francisco-based cab aggregator, worth $50 billion, is present in 84 countries and 720 cities across the globe.

Yesterday, Garrett took us back in time by publishing Uber’s first pitch deck on Medium. This is how the post started:

“Since we just passed the ninth anniversary of the idea of Uber (originally UberCab, in Aug 2008), I thought it would be interesting to share the very first pitch deck we created in late 2008. Thank you to the entire Uber team for turning a simple idea into a platform that has improved so many people’s lives :)”

And without much surprise, the Twitterati have given their interesting take on the deck. Johnnie Manzari, a Human Interface designer at Apple, points out:

Clearly, times have changed since Uber put out this deck. In the past nine years, Uber has seen explosive growth and can be called one of the most successful startups in the world. However, the year of troubles hasn’t ended for Uber.

Since Travis resigned as the CEO in June, the company has been actively looking for a new CEO — there have been several contenders, but nothing has been finalised as yet. Also, earlier this month, Benchmark Capital, an early investor in Uber, fought a nuclear battle. Benchmark sued Travis for fraud.

According to a report in Axios, the following is the key contention:

Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, to entrench himself on Uber's Board of Directors and increase his power over Uber for his own selfish ends. Kalanick's overarching objective is to pack Uber's Board with loyal allies in an effort to insulate his prior conduct from scrutiny and clear the path for his eventual return as CEO—all to the detriment of Uber's stockholders, employees, driver-partners, and customers.

Despite the sexual harassment cases, lawsuit with Google, Travis resigning as CEO, a drop in valuation from $68 billion to $50 billion, Axios states that Uber’s gross bookings saw a 17 percent jump and the number of trips taken saw a whopping 150 percent rise and there was also a drop in its adjusted loss. The drivers have earned $50 million in tips. It is, therefore, safe to assume that despite the media and public backlash Uber is facing, the unicorn’s core business hasn’t been affected much.