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Comment by calcsam | Hacker News Reader

If you read the original article in the Information, 20% of people who sign up to drive Uber are approved to do so, and 20% of those are still driving after a year. Still bad, but very different from a 4% retention rate.

https://www.theinformation.com/how-uber-will-combat-rising-d...

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I'd say that's just flat out dishonest reporting on CNBC's part.

Good link, just flagged the article

To me it's good news that Uber is selective

Edit: (the link provided is subscription only)

This is not a reason for flagging the article, as it's interesting either way - it's potentially a reason to ask the admins to change the link.

I would be happy to ask the admins to change the link to the Information page, although point is that this link is locked for me! Assuming that quote from The Information (re: 20% accepted and and 20% stay) is true, I agree that CNBC phrase "Only 4 percent of people who sign up to drive for the ride-hailing service are still driving a year later" while being factually correct sounds misleading, even though they directly link to the riginal content!

> 20% of people who sign up to drive Uber are approved to do so

That's bizarre since the only qualifications are that you have a car, have insurance, and don't have a terrible driving record. A bad driving record is OK, they'll rent you a car with insurance, and they'll even take the rental cost out of the paycheck. (Not saying it's a good deal, but the fact that they have an 80% rejection rate is crazy considering)

I guess there's some adverse selection since what percentage of the people with good standing in the above categories have better options than Uber? Probably a decent amount.

Uber rejects 80% of its applicants? That seems hard to believe. Could you post an short excerpt from the paywalled article?

If you kindly find a way to post the (paywalled!) original article in the Information it would be much easier to continue the discussion! Thanks!

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