Top all-time · #18609
Len Sherman
Personal blog · len-sherman.medium.combusinesseconomics
Len Sherman's personal blog at len-sherman.medium.com covers business and economics. Since 2025, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 5 times, most often “How Uber Became a Cash-Generating Machine”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-14, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this Medium blog for its data-driven analysis of Uber's pricing and profits, including a study of Uber's opaque algorithm and individual price discrimination, with charts and figures.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- How Uber Became a Cash-Generating Machine3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-06-25
What Hacker News says?
While I agree, Uber's cut has reached predatory levels. They take 50% of the fare in some markets. They're significantly overcharging riders and underpaying drivers. https://len-sherman.medium.com/ubers-long-and-winding-road-t...
Comment linking /ubers-long-and-winding-road-to-50-take-rates-1aaf4a574ae0
on “Uber shuts operations in Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect”Submitted How Uber Became a Cash-Generating Machine as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe author of the study has written a blog post with lots of data, analysis, and visualizations: https://len-sherman.medium.com/how-uber-became-a-cash-genera... I found the author's blog post more informative than the newspaper article.
Comment linking /how-uber-became-a-cash-generating-machine-ef78e7a97230
on “Second study finds Uber used opaque algorithm to dramatically boost profits”Submitted How Uber Became a Cash-Generating Machine as a story · 2 points
HN discussionit would be great if this were the case. unfortunately, Uber has been documented to practice individual price discrimination at a massive scale, using factors like if you’re in a low-income vs high-income neighborhood, individual rider “price sensitivity”, etc, in addition to market conditions (surge pricing), and as a result they have netted billions in profit [1]. i would guess this is why Uber AI researchers are…
Comment linking /how-uber-became-a-cash-generating-machine-ef78e7a97230
on “The behavioral cost of personalized pricing”