Uber ‘got lucky’ and some unicorns will die this year predicts venture capitalist Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley (l) with Malcolm Gladwell at SXSW today
Prominent US tech investor Bill Gurley has said Uber “got lucky” because millenials “don’t give a shit about cars” and said a “complete absence of fear” in Silicon Valley would lead to some prominent startups failing this year.
Speaking at SXSW overnight in an interview with New York Times journalist Malcolm Gladwell, Gurley, whose investments include Stitch Fix and Vessel, said another of his companies Snapchat, was transitioning to be a media company.
On issues in Silicon Valley and the startup market he said it was in a “risk bubble” with companies paying above the odds for startups, predicting there would be “a lot of dead unicorns this year” referring to companies whose valuation have soared after fundraising rounds.
Referencing the dotcom crash of 1999 he added: “They (companies) are taking on, in these startups, a level of risk never taken before. In ’99 there were certain risks taken, but there weren’t people putting $1bn in companies that are only 4 years old.”
“In Silicon Valley there are now more people employed by money-owing companies than there ever have been before,” he added.
Gurley also has a stake in ride sharing app Uber, which he described as “the biggest job creator in the world right now” describing its impact on large parts of society in San Francisco, where it started as “transformational”.
“There are about 300,000 Uber drivers right now and we’re adding 50,ooo per month on a global basis,” he said.
“People like it because of offers a flexible lifestyle. It’s self levelling. It is going to have a dramatic impact on drink driving – studies are already starting to show that.”
On the rise of Uber he admitted it had “got lucky” because of the attitudinal shift with millenials who “don’t give a shit about cars” adding: “I used to cut out pictures of cars and put coins in a box to save up for one, today they don’t care they turn 16 and don’t get a drivers licence.”
Turning to Snapchat, which recently launched its Discover platform to surface snackable media content to users, he said publishers were “thrilled” with it.
“It was a messaging company until recently when Evan (Spiegel – CEO) launched Discovery,” he added. “They potentially are a media company when they weren’t 12 months ago.”
“There are publishers thrilled with Discover – some people have built a media type that lives in their site as they view it as a higher grind on which to stand. If product is strong enough then publishers will do what they want to do.”
The Discover platform launched last month in Australia.
Alex Hayes in Austin
SXSW, Malcolm Gladwell, “risk bubble”, Uber, Bill Gurley, “transformational”…ugh,
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#loveuber
#shutupbill
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Leaving aside the content, there are about ten (at first count) typos / grammar mistakes in here that makes the article difficult to read… Was a sub-ed employed? Could one be in future? Thanks.
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Another statement about Millenials not caring about cars.
Read it folks, the car industry and the associated advertising is in serious decline. Like real estate, a change is a coming, make your plans.
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Hi Ed,
Thanks for the comment – that’s the perils of writing on the fly between sessions.
All amended now.
Cheers,
Alex- editor, Mumbrella