Summary List PlacementSince Dara Khosrowshahi took over as CEO of Uber in 2017, making the ride-hailing giant profitable has been one of his top priorities. Though the company has earned an annual profit during his tenure once, in 2018, it was driven by one-off proceeds from a joint venture it formed in Russia and the sale of its Southeast Asia business. (The company's day-to-day operations lost money that year.) Since the company went public in 2019, it has lost money in every quarter, leading some to question whether Uber can reverse that trend. Uber thinks it can. Despite the challenges presented by the coronavirus, the company expects to hit a measure of adjusted profitability (earnings before interest payments, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) by the end of this year. To move Uber closer to that goal, Khosrowshahi has been slimming the company down and narrowing its focus on the services and markets he believes have the most potential. These are the pillars of Khosrowshahi's cost-cutting strategy.SEE ALSO: Tesla bounced back better than ever after the worst mistake Elon Musk ever made Reducing discounts and incentives

In its early years, Uber focused on growth above all else. To attract as many riders and drivers as possible and fend off competitors, Uber offered low prices, discounts, and bonuses. But as Uber and Lyft have solidified their positions as the US' ride-hailing leaders and attracted more financial scrutiny following their 2019 IPOs, both companies have raised prices, lowered driver pay, and cut back on discounts and incentives. "The era of growth at all costs is over," Khosrowshahi said last year. Exiting markets where it can't win

To limit the number of price wars Uber has to fight, Khosrowshahi sold the company's Southeast Asia business in 2018 and has pulled its delivery service out of countries, like Egypt and Ukraine, where he doesn't see a path to becoming a leader. In some cases, Uber has invested in competitors that are in a better position to succeed. That gives Uber the potential to benefit from the growing popularity of on-demand rides and deliveries across the globe, while limiting costly battles with well-funded rivals. Read more: Read the pitch deck that Uber founder Garrett Camp created for the ride-hailing giant back in 2008 – before the company became the $120 billion giant it is today

Selling off or shutting down secondary businesses

In 2019, Khosrowshahi laid out a vision to turn Uber into the "Amazon of transportation" — the go-to option for people who want to travel nearby or order food, groceries, or other items from a local business. At times, the company has also expanded beyond transportation into areas like credit cards and short-term staffing. But of late, Uber has scaled back its ambitions. In 2020, the company sold its bike and scooter business to Lime, its autonomous-vehicle unit to Aurora Innovation, and its flying-taxi project to Joby Aviation while taking stakes in each of those companies. Bringing in outside investors to fund long-term projects

While the vast majority of Uber's revenue comes from ride-hailing and food deliveries, the company also has a logistics app that allows shippers to find truck drivers who can haul their goods from their warehouses to stores. Last year, Uber sold part of its logistics business, Uber Freight, to Greenbriar Equity to help fund the division while it's still losing money. Uber used a similar strategy with ATG, its autonomous-vehicle program, before offloading the unit. Read more: Travis Kalanick believed mastering self-driving cars was a matter of life-or-death for Uber. His replacement just sold the ride-hailing giant's autonomy unit.     Shrinking its workforce

Uber has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs over the past two years. Last spring, the company cut more than 20% of its employees, citing the impact of the coronavirus and uncertainty around when its ride-hailing business would fully recover. That followed a series of workforce reductions in 2019 that were aimed at making Uber more efficient. Correction: A prior version of this story said Uber hasn't made a profit in a single quarter. The company was profitable in 2018. A prior version of this story also indicated that Uber is no longer operating in Egypt. Though Uber removed its delivery business from Egypt in 2020, its ride-hailing business still operates in the country. Are you a current or former Uber employee? Do you have a news tip or opinion you'd like to share? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com, on Signal at 646-768-4712, or via his encrypted email address mmatousek@protonmail.com.

Read more: Read a leaked copy of Uber's employee handbook that reveals how its CEO has reshaped its culture Google paid a star self-driving engineer $120 million. Then he quit, joined a rival, and headed to prison. Uber salaries revealed: From $85,000 to $330,000, here's how much the ride-hailing giant pays some of its employees The DC to Silicon Valley pipeline: Meet the former Washington power-players who joined the ranks at tech companies like Amazon and Airbnb