{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Two by Two (Private)","title":"Three times Uber said no to leaving India","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3493,"description":"In February of 44 BC, Mark Antony offered Julius Caesar a crown in front of a Roman crowd, and Caesar pushed it away. Antony offered it again; Caesar refused again. One more offer came from Anthony and Caesar refused it for the third time, yet again. Rome cheered. \nUber has been offered a way out of India three times in eight years. By SoftBank and Ola in 2018, by a phantom acquisition-merger with Ola in 2022, and by Rapido this May, and three times it has refused. Each time the objection was the same: Uber would not become a minority shareholder in a business someone else runs.\n\nPraveen tells the eight-year story through two conversations recorded before the Rapido talks with Uber: Two by Two's own September 2025 interview with Prabhjeet Singh, then president of Uber India and South Asia, who explains the \"number one or number two\" doctrine, declines to disclose India's numbers, and describes a market where \"a certain dollar amount has to be redistributed\"; and Nikhil Kamath's August 2025 interview with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the Uber explicitly acknowledged Rapido. \nUber calls India a must-win market. \nThe question we ask in this episode is what does Uber really want in India\nReferences \n\nUber India has run the race and stayed the course. Can it change the game? : Episode 58, the full conversation with Prabhjeet Singh.\nUber, Ola, Rapido — the 3 wheels of India's post-Covid auto race","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/-lz2oYAFcDWjwwtYqQohhLTL1KGPvzWQf77IkxVkbQs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yYWMx/YzE0YTZjYTBjZGJk/MmJjYzI3NzYwZjI0/MTRkYy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}