Many will rightly look at this as a wonderful example of the sort of energetic immigrant entrepreneurialism that they believe to be of great benefit to America. But, as it happens, there is a very real and substantive downside to it as well:
The Uberpreneur: How An Uber Driver Makes $252,000 A Year. Uber may not just be a disruptive platform for transportation, but one for small businesses.
“Absolutely,” Uber spokeswoman Kristin Carvell says. “One of the greatest things about the Uber platform is that it offers economic opportunity for a variety of drivers — full-time, part-time, veterans, teachers, artists, and students — in more than 260 cities around the world. Supporting and fueling the local economy is important to Uber and our driver partners help us to achieve this goal.”His passengers seem to agree. Gavin’s ratings are 4.85/5.00 on Uber Black, 4.87/5.00 on UberX and 4.95/5.00 on Lyft, which he also uses. Those ratings have held up over time; Gavin drove over 3,829 passengers in the past 18 months.
These passengers include “executives who people pay thousands of dollars to meet at networking events,” Gavin says. He’s met Vogue fashion editors and Silicon Valley’s top brass, including legendary investor Shervin Pishevar.
“I’ve had a lot of amazing drivers, but Gavin is one of the best,” Shervin told me. “I was in his car with my daughter when I saw his jewelry designs. I thought they were wonderful and gave him a lot of encouragement to pursue his dreams.”
It’s these tactics that translate to sales. In the past year, Gavin designed many jewelry pieces for passengers, averaging $18,000 in transactions per month. Adding the $3,000 monthly gross earnings from Uber, he made $252,000 last year. Gavin used the income to expand his business, buying three more cars and hiring six new drivers.
It’s an absolutely brilliant idea. This guy is advertising far more effectively than any social media or Madison Avenue campaign, taking advantage of the direct one-on-one time he has with his riders to let them know about his business, which quite clearly is a genuine interest to a sufficient percentage of them. This guy is a bona fide entrepreneurial genius.
However, it’s not all rosy good cheer and future GDP growth on the horizon.
But Gavin’s growing business doesn’t tell the full story. As he’s become more successful, he hasn’t forgotten about his fellow Filipino immigrants. “I reach back to my roots,” he said. “When hiring new drivers, I find underemployed Filipinos and give them the jobs first. Most don’t know much about smartphones — and that’s okay. I teach them about Uber and Lyft. I teach them how to use the internet so it can help their lives in other ways, too. I let them use the cars to run errands and pick up their children. It’s not about squeezing every dollar from them. It’s about empowering the community that you came from.”
So much for American meritocracy. Gavin is so grateful for the opportunity that America has given him that he’s actively helping his fellow Filipinos in preference to Americans, even when they are massively less-qualified.
This is precisely why the civic nationalist notion of only bringing in the best and most productive foreigners is as harmful to the nation, and arguably more insidiously so, than importing a parasitical class of welfare recipients.