At the time, Uber was still a small company. Today, New York is one of its biggest markets.
Uber announced on its blog Monday that the company has delivered 30 million rides in New York City since 2011. To put that number in perspective, that's over 82,000 Uber rides per day.
The ride-sharing company also says the reason Uber has given so many rides is due in part to the company's expansion beyond Manhattan, including other boroughs of New York.
"By increasing reliability in areas traditionally underserved by public transportation, more and more people are able to access and explore the outer boroughs," Uber marketing manager Kimiko Ninomaya says in the post, adding that the company's New York-based drivers have made more than $750 million driving for Uber.
The company hasn't risen to prominence in New York without its share of stumbles, however. In November at a dinner in New York, an Uber executive named Emil Michael suggested the company could theoretically dig up personal information on reporters who are critical of the company. BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith reported on those comments. The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission briefly suspended 5 of Uber's 6 New York City bases in January - an essentially toothless punishment handed down because Uber refused to give the TLC its ride data. New York politicians have been trying to get Uber to cap its controversial surge pricing policy too.
BuzzFeed also reported that a New York City Uber executive had tracked one of BuzzFeed's tech reporters without her permission, a breach of Uber's privacy policy (the policy was later posted to Uber's website in light of these incidents). The executive in question, Josh Mohrer, was investigated for spying on the BuzzFeed reporter, and according to Uber has since been disciplined for his actions, but he kept his job.
But even with its fair share of controversy, New York is among Uber's largest markets, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.
In an internal Uber presentation from early 2014 obtained by Business Insider, the company indicates that Uber generated $26 million in New York City in December 2013, or an annual run rate of $312 million. The data is just from December 2013, but even so, the data within the document gives every indication that Uber is far from being done growing.
The run rates from New York and other major markets would generate about $1 billion a year, and that doesn't even take into account Uber's growth in 2014. Year over year from New Year's Eve 2012 to New Year's Eve 2013, Uber's growth rate was a whopping 369%.