Uber Should Become the Amazon of Routing
Amazon Web Services is essentially plumbing for the internet. Uber should create a driving twist on AWS.
More than a decade ago, Amazon.com Inc. started letting other businesses rent its computer horsepower by the hour and store digital files on Amazon’s computing infrastructure. This side hustle is now one of the most important innovations of the internet age—and a highly lucrative one. Amazon Web Services, or AWS, may not be as widely known as Amazon’s online shopping mall. But it has become essential plumbing for the technology industry, and it’s a key ingredient in Amazon’s appeal to investors.
That brings us to Uber Technologies Inc. Amazon began AWS partly because it needed flexible computer resources for its digital mall and figured other companies had similar needs. Uber has spent a decade honing technology for its own needs. Could that be the seed for its own AWS?