Uber's Brilliant Strategy to Make Itself Too Big to Ban

07-08-2014 • http://www.wired.com, By Marcus Wohlsen

But with its ten-figure cushion, the San Francisco-based ride-hailing startup can be more cunning about how it tries to get huge. Uber wants to grow as quickly it can, and right now, it's chasing that goal by undercutting the competition on price—even if it loses money in the process. This isn't a novel approach among tech startups, for which profits aren't valued nearly as much as popularity. But for Uber, playing in the new realm of the so-called sharing economy, the stakes are higher, since so many entrenched interests are trying to regulate it out of existence. With not just success but survival on the line, Uber has even more incentive to expand as rapidly as possible. If it gets big enough quickly enough, the political price could become too high for any elected official who tries to pull Uber to the curb.