Uber's 2008 pitch deck showed three outcomes: best case $1 billion in revenue, realistic case $20-30 million profit from 5% of top cities, worst case staying tiny in San Francisco. The founder avoided the typical startup trap of projecting everything to the upper right with false certainty.
In 2008, Uber was just getting started. They were raising only $200,000. They have a slide that says potential outcomes and they say best case scenario becomes a market leader with over $1 billion in annual revenue. Realistic scenario gets 5% of the top cities and we make around $20 or $30 million a year in profit. Worst case, we stay a 10-car, 100-client services business and just save some time for San Francisco-based executives. Versus when you see a slide deck from a pitch, everything is like up to the right. You're like, dude, I don't trust you now because you are saying something outlandish and you're saying it with a huge high degree of Certainty.
