Old measurement methods no longer work
It is an example, and nothing more. What the example is trying to make clear is that you should never judge a new company (Uber) based on old measurement methods. What was once called 'the taxi market' is now something completely different. The article uses the term Total Available Market (TAM). That TAM has now changed radically, thanks to Uber.
Another example. Amazon. Again, $300 billion market capitalization, hardly any profit. Jeff Bezos started with an online bookstore, then smashed chains, acquired specialists, set up marketplaces, sells everything that is for sale and is now busy becoming one of the largest content creators in the world. Amazon spends more on creating media content (television, series, documentaries) than traditional players like ABC ($4 billion) and NBC ($4.3 billion). Amazon Studios: $4.5 trillion. The only player that invests more is Netflix (6). But Netflix does nothing else than this.
Amazon has built this position very quickly. Not a hospital cfo email list hair on Bezos' head would have thought it would go this way ten years ago, but the company has developed the capacity to do so. Part of that has to do with people, with marketplaces, with layered systems that can respond to each other autonomously and at different speeds.
Ignorance
Drawing: Sterre Steins Bisschop. Click for an enlargement .
Creating something new from ignorance
Earlier I wrote about trumpeter Eric Vloeimans who gave a concert with the trio 'Olivers' Cinema', on an evening in 2012 where accordionist Tuur Florizone and cellist Jörg Brinkmann played together for the first time. And why it was a fantastic concert that evening. There was no business plan beforehand, there was no vision or mission set, there was no strategy-of-the-evening determined. There was playing, with a minimal set of agreements, but a maximum quality that was on stage.