Uber Once Called UberPool Riders 'Masters' And 'Minions'

There's "Heaven View" (weird), "Greyball" (strange), "Hell" (great idea), and probably an entire laundry list of strange Uber codenames we still haven't learned about. Here's a new one, courtesy of an excellent report today from BuzzFeed's Priya Anand: The company used to refer to the first passenger in an UberPool ride is called "a master," while extra riders picked were known as "minions." Even better!

We've known for a long time that Uber spends a ton to subsidize rides on its service, in an effort to gain more control of a particular market. But Anand's piece offers the most illuminating look to date at exactly how far Uber's willing to go to drive out competition: Based on a slew of internal documents leaked to BuzzFeed, the story reports that Uber spent as much as $1 million per week in San Francisco to artificially lower the cost of a ride in the city, in an attempt to destroy Lyft's competing service.

Given Uber's penchant for weird codenames, though, this bit jumped right out:

If it's working as designed, Pool is efficient — a way for drivers to spend far less time searching for fares, and for Uber to maximize drivers' time. But for Pool to work, every "master" — the company's internal code name for the first passenger in a Pool ride — requires second and sometimes third riders called "minions." Pool also requires a critical mass of passengers and drivers to be able to match masters and minions headed on similar routes. For each trip in which a master isn't matched with at least one minion, Uber loses money.

Uber told the news outlet that masters and minions are referred today in more straightforward terms: "primary" and "secondary." I'd love to see the meeting notes that led to the change.