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What Uber Freight’s move to Chicago means
John Paul Hampstead, Associate Editor • 5 hours ago
Uber Freight, the digital freight brokerage division of Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER), announced Sept. 9 that it
is moving its global headquarters to Chicago from San Francisco. Uber Freight will maintain offices in San Francisco and Amsterdam.
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In our view, Uber Freight’s move to Chicago is significant for two reasons. First, Uber is making a long-term commitment to growing its digital freight brokerage business. Second, Uber has realized that it will need the expertise of a large number of logistics professionals in order to manage its increasingly complicated operations, which have expanded to Europe and may soon include flatbed.
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Just as importantly, Uber Freight seems to have realized where that growth will come from over the next few years: Chicago’s deep bench of freight brokerage talent, which is available at a scale that is unique in North America. Official statements characterized Chicago as a “tech hub,” but while that may be true to a certain extent, it is not the case that more high-end tech workers are available in Chicago than San Francisco. What Chicago has to offer is an army of freight brokers who can grind on a floor and generations of leaders who have rapidly scaled logistics businesses.
In our view, by moving from San Francisco to Chicago, Uber Freight is embracing its destiny as a serious, technically sophisticated logistics company. The move accords with our thesis that digital freight brokerages will grow to resemble traditional brokerages more closely by finding ways to use people to create value for their customers.
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