[on Uber’s Early Organizational Structure] “Uber always thought about it as a twin turbine plane: maybe for a short period of time, you could operate on one engine. But if you want to operate at full efficiency, you need both engines working in tandem and working effectively together.” Brian Tolkin, (@briantolkin)
We’re super excited to be joined by Brian Tolkin, one of Uber’s first ~100 employees who built their “Product Ops” organization and then went on to lead Product Management for UberPOOL and all shared rides on the platform. We dive into the nitty gritty of how Uber built their “twin turbine” engine of decentralized real-world Ops and centralized Tech Product, and how the organization evolved as it scaled. We also cover Brian’s new role at OpenDoor, and the even tight ops + product coupling they’re building now in real estate.
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Link to the Acquired LP show page
Links from the Show:
Ben Evans: The End of the Beginning (video)
Show Bookmarks:
[01:51] Brian’s backstory / “How I started at Uber”
[03:42] Uber’s Operating Model in its Early Stages
[06:29] Uber’s “Playbooking” aka Best Practice Sharing
[09:10] Uber’s Early Thesis on Product Market Fit
[13:30] Early Team Constructs and Focuses
[17:50] The Start of the Product & Ops Team
[21:10] “Platforms and Programs”
[24:21] The Product & Ops Team Today
[26:15] The Twin Turbine Plane
[28:03] Taking Uber Global
[31:37] UberPool
[36:28] Brian’s Move to OpenDoor
People Worth Knowing:
Ben Evans
Brian Tolkin
Jeff Holden
Travis Kalanick
Companies Mentioned in Episode:
Amazon
Andreessen Horowitz
Cabulous (RideGuru)
DiDi (China)
Grab (SE Asia)
Groupon
Hailo (London)
Ola (India)
Juno
Lyft
OpenDoor
TaxiMagic
Uber
UberBlack
UberCab
UberPool
UberX
Episode Specific Terms:
Bi-Directional Communication Gap
Centralized “Growth/Marketing/Funnel/Onboarding/Pricing” Teams
Decentralized Teams
Flywheel
Funnel Optimization
Highly Distributed (as an Operating Model)
Knowledge Base
Local and Viral Network Effects
Local Operations vs Centralized EPD
Onboarding
Platforms and Programs
Playbooking
Scale
Two-Pizza Teams
Uber Launch Team “Launchers”
Ben and David’s Affiliations:
Wave Capital, @WaveCapitalVC
Pioneer Square Labs, @psl
What is ACQ2: The Acquired Interviews?
ACQ2 is Ben and David's conversations with expert founders and investors. Acquired the stories of great companies — and ACQ2 dives deeper into the lessons we can learn from them, often with the protagonists themselves.