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If you’ve spent any time on major social networks recently, you’ve likely seen a popular quote—originally from a TechCrunch article—pointing out how some of the world’s biggest companies operate without owning traditional assets: “In 2015, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles; Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content; Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory; and Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.”
That observation is accurate, though not entirely new. In December 2014, consumer technology analyst Jan Dawson discussed the emergence of what he called “the digital layer,” which transforms—but does not replace—analog products and services. Dawson used Uber as an example of a business firmly rooted in the physical world that leverages digital technology to connect customers with suppliers.
Uber’s rapid rise is a clear demonstration of that idea in practice. What’s less widely known, however, is the important role played by Twilio, the cloud communications platform that enables Uber to send real-time updates and communicate with riders and drivers.
It’s understandable that this relationship isn’t common knowledge—Twilio’s business model often works behind the scenes. A 2014 Business Insider piece even ran with the line “you don’t know you’re using Twilio.” Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s CEO, told TelecomsTech that the fact many people rely on Twilio daily without recognizing it is exactly how they want it to be.
Twilio has a roster of high-profile customers, from Coca-Cola to Sprint and Box, but Uber wasn’t built on Twilio from day one. Both firms being based in San Francisco helped, and Lawson recalls how quickly Twilio’s services moved from “interesting” to “wow” as demand surged.
“I don’t know that anybody knew what Uber would become by now,” Lawson says. “We were the first market for Uber and pretty immediately it became clear that the service was a fantastic one.”
He adds that as Uber’s model evolved—allowing people to put their cars on the network and lowering prices relative to traditional taxis while increasing the visibility of vehicles on the road—the service reached a new scale and level of adoption.
For Uber, real-time cloud communications does more than let riders contact drivers or send a message that a vehicle will be five minutes late. It also smooths international expansion.
Lawson explains: “Before Twilio, telecommunications was a geopolitically bounded industry. Every country you did business with had its own set of carriers—its own world. That meant when you expanded into a new country, you had to do business development with the local carriers to communicate with customers.”
With Uber operating in dozens of countries, there isn’t time to negotiate with every local carrier, buy local phone numbers, integrate those numbers into PBXs, and provision them in data centers. “I think this is a big part of what we offer Uber: the ability for them to grow at the rate of their ambitions and not be held back by communications infrastructure,” Lawson says.
This shift from traditional, “dumb” telephony infrastructure to programmable, real-time communications is central to Twilio’s mission and Lawson’s vision. “We believe the day is coming, in the not-too-distant future, when all of our communications will be as contextual and as relevant as the communications woven into the experience of using a product like Uber,” he says.
As Dawson observed, the power of the digital layer lies in its ability to replace one layer of the value chain while leaving the underlying structure intact. It’s a selective disruption: transformative but not entirely destructive. Twilio aims to keep redefining communications infrastructure in that vein, enabling businesses to deliver more contextual, integrated communication experiences without forcing them to rebuild their entire operational foundations.