Costco employees

By Eliot Brown WSJ Sun., May 12, 2019 Now that both Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are trading on public markets, the ride-hailing companies are under pressure to achieve years of rapid growth. First they will have to figure out how to hang onto drivers like Carl Wagoner, a Lexington, Ky., minister and potter who last summer drove for Uber to make extra cash. The gig proved less lucrative than he thought—around $5 an hour after gas, he calculates—given that he avoided the higher-priced, late-night bar crowd. He quit within six weeks. “Just wasn’t worth it,” he said. Uber and Lyft are banking on a future where evermore riders surrender their cars and rely on ride-hailing. But that vision assumes the companies will accomplish a trickier task—finding and keeping the millions of drivers needed to whisk them around. By relying on a workforce of independent contractors, the companies are dealing with drivers who can simply turn off … [Read more...] about Uber and Lyft face tough test of finding and keeping drivers

By Christopher Mims WSJ Sat., May 11, 2019 Amazon.com Inc. has a Facebook Inc.-size problem: It’s become such a gigantic, sprawling, powerful business that its inevitable missteps are beginning to erode trust in its products and services, good will in Washington, and its ability to achieve globe-spanning dominance. Let’s pause to reflect that the company that has made one-day shipping of tens of millions of items the industry standard is also the global leader in cloud computing services, owns the Whole Foods grocery stores (and is building a second chain), helps police departments identify criminals, is building its own air cargo fleet, has an $11 billion-a-year advertising business, is working on a plan to give everyone on Earth internet from space, has put always-on microphones in at least 1 in 10 U.S. homes, built an Oscar-winning film and TV studio from scratch, and is competing directly with UPS, FedEx, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, the … [Read more...] about Amazon’s Size Is Becoming a Problem