Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service/ride-hailing (48% of revenues), food delivery/package delivery/couriers via Uber Eats and Postmates (34% of revenues), and freight transport (18% of revenues). Uber sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand at the time of the booking and are quoted to the customer in advance, and receives a commission from each booking. It has operations in approximately 72 countries and 10,500 cities and, with 131 million monthly active users and 5.4 million active drivers and couriers worldwide, it generates an average of 23 million trips per day. Like other ridesharing companies, Uber classifies its drivers as gig workers and independent contractors, where allowable, which is the subject of legal action in several jurisdictions. Ridesharing companies have disrupted taxicab businesses and allegedly caused an increase in traffic congestion. Ridesharing companies are regulated in many jurisdictions and the Uber platform is not available in several countries where the company is not able or willing to comply with regulations. Uber specifically has been criticized for various unethical practices such as ignoring local regulations; many of these were revealed by the leak of the Uber Files, which documented controversial activity between 2013 and 2017 under the leadership of Travis Kalanick. History In 2009, Garrett Camp, a co-founder of StumbleUpon, came up with the idea to create Uber to make it easier and cheaper to procure direct transportation. Camp and Travis Kalanick had spent $800 hiring a private driver on New Year's Eve, which they deemed excessive, and Camp was also inspired by his difficulty in finding a taxi on a snowy night in Paris. The prototype of the mobile app was built by Camp and his friends, Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan, with Kalanick as the "mega advisor" to the company. In February 2010, Ryan Graves became the first Uber employee; he was named chief executive officer (CEO) in May 2010. In December 2010, Kalanick succeeded Graves as CEO and Graves became the chief operating officer. Following a beta launch in May 2010, Uber's services and mobile app launched publicly in San Francisco in 2011. Originally, the application only allowed users to hail a black luxury car and the price was approximately 1.5 times that of a taxi. In 2011, the company changed its name from UberCab to Uber after complaints from San Francisco taxicab operators.