Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014 • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#11

Post by forrestthewoods » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 5:47 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #6

Wait, so Uber spent $900 million dollars? I thought that considering they offload so much of the costs of running of the business( EDIT: through having drivers buy the cars, for example), they wouldn't have such high operating costs. Though according to this[1] article, Uber's at 3000 employees worldwide. What are those employees doing? EDIT: For reference, Greyhound's 2014 operating costs were 600 million pounds (50…

Subsidized ride fares. Especially when entering a new city for the first X months.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#12

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 5:50 AM UTC

empressplay wrote: post #8

So what's the model? Put the taxis out of business and then jack up the fares to what the taxis were? Who's winning, then, exactly? Not the consumer...

In theory if they can lower the costs substantially through innovation over the current taxi model they can grow the market out of private car usage. This would mean all parties (except car manufacturers) will benefit.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#13

Post by venomsnake » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 5:57 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #9

everly wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the data they possess on usage rate during surge pricing will be extremely useful for making those projections.

Yes it should be possible to modelled this out from the surge data. Of course you have to be careful doing this sort of modelling since you might find your model won’t support a $50 billion valuation.

No it should not. Because surge pricing requires supply crunch. But the moment they jack day to day prices you will have supply glut. And creating an Uber like app for just one city is not that hard.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#14

Post by rtpg » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 5:58 AM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #10

rtpg wrote: post #6

Wait, so Uber spent $900 million dollars? I thought that considering they offload so much of the costs of running of the business( EDIT: through having drivers buy the cars, for example), they wouldn't have such high operating costs. Though according to this[1] article, Uber's at 3000 employees worldwide. What are those employees doing? EDIT: For reference, Greyhound's 2014 operating costs were 600 million pounds (50…

Despite popular belief, apps and communities don't run themselves. Uber is scaling at an ungodly speed, and they're hiring a ton of people to do so. Seriously, look at how many jobs they're hiring for right now: https://www.uber.com/jobs/list (then realize they're doing this in hundreds of cities simultaneously, in addition to the hundreds they're already in). I'm actually blown away that they're losing so little , g…

1200 job openings... that's impressive.

I agree that you need people to expand, but it never hurts to question how many people you actually need. Nobody denies that megacorps probably have many redundant positions, it's not possible for a company with 3000 employees to have them either.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#15

Post by austenallred » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:00 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #14

austenallred wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite popular belief, apps and communities don't run themselves. Uber is scaling at an ungodly speed, and they're hiring a ton of people to do so. Seriously, look at how many jobs they're hiring for right now: https://www.uber.com/jobs/list (then realize they're doing this in hundreds of cities simultaneously, in addition to the hundreds they're already in). I'm actually blown away that they're losing so little , g…

1200 job openings... that's impressive. I agree that you need people to expand, but it never hurts to question how many people you actually need. Nobody denies that megacorps probably have many redundant positions, it's not possible for a company with 3000 employees to have them either.

My understanding from talking with people close to the company is that they have a process for opening one city. It's a specific number of people in exact positions (15, if I remember correctly)? They go out and clone the exact process/number of people in each new city.

It starts with one person who is responsible for spearheading the operation; that person is supposed to find, hire, and manage the other 14.

It's like Uber is opening up franchises of itself. The model has been nailed, so it's just a matter of cloning/duplicating that model.

I'm not certain on all of the details, but I find it absolutely fascinating.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#16

Post by onewaystreet » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:03 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #14

austenallred wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite popular belief, apps and communities don't run themselves. Uber is scaling at an ungodly speed, and they're hiring a ton of people to do so. Seriously, look at how many jobs they're hiring for right now: https://www.uber.com/jobs/list (then realize they're doing this in hundreds of cities simultaneously, in addition to the hundreds they're already in). I'm actually blown away that they're losing so little , g…

1200 job openings... that's impressive. I agree that you need people to expand, but it never hurts to question how many people you actually need. Nobody denies that megacorps probably have many redundant positions, it's not possible for a company with 3000 employees to have them either.

It may actually hurt. Uber is in the growth business. They aren't bootstrapping. It may not be worth the time for them to think whether or not they really need to hire someone for x position in x market when they have hundreds of positions to fill in dozens of markets.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#17

Post by aikah » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:04 AM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #3

icpmacdo wrote: post #2

I dont think Uber is going anywhere soon. It has such a strong brand. Everyone I know trusts uber a lot more than there local cab companies.

I do wonder what will happen once Uber starts charging market rates. Right now, your ride is subsidized by Uber. Once it comes time to turn on the profits, you'll have to pay more - substantially more in some markets. Will you still use Uber? Probably. But many who started using Uber instead of, say, taking their own car or using public transport, just might go back.

> I do wonder what will happen once Uber starts charging market rates.

That's an excellent question and the answer is it wont be cheap. That's why, in countries where Uber operates, a clear legal framework is needed so that Uber doesn't end up with a monopoly. If Uber is allowed to operate somewhere then anybody should be able to do that without the need for an army of lawyers and lobbyists or it's just replacing the old boss with a new boss and in the end nothing's going to change for the consumer. That's what I hate with the whole situation.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#18

Post by scurvy » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:06 AM UTC

icpmacdo wrote: post #2

I dont think Uber is going anywhere soon. It has such a strong brand. Everyone I know trusts uber a lot more than there local cab companies.

That's odd to me. Everyone I know thinks that Uber is shady and uses Lyft. Very people use Flywheel in SF as it just gets you a cab. But at least a cab driver (generally) knows where they're going, rather than relying on GPS because they're from the East Bay and don't know the city at all.

Uber's app history of tracking people is also not great. I use Lyft when I can. Last time I used Uber was in New Orleans, and even then I used the mobile web version.

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#19

Post by dpflan » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:10 AM UTC

Uber is certainly aggressive and maintains their attitude throughout. I would like to see Lyft's financials compared to Uber's considering Uber's global dominance target and Lyft's decision to focus on US domestic [1].

Source:

[1.] http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28566633/lyft-forgoes...

Re: Leaked Uber financials from 2012 to 2014

#20

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 6:10 AM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #13

danieltillett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it should be possible to modelled this out from the surge data. Of course you have to be careful doing this sort of modelling since you might find your model won’t support a $50 billion valuation.

No it should not. Because surge pricing requires supply crunch. But the moment they jack day to day prices you will have supply glut. And creating an Uber like app for just one city is not that hard.

Surge pricing allows you to model the price elasticity of the service. You can do all sorts of experiments and regression analysis on this data. If I had access to the data I could tell you exactly how elastic the pricing is.

The problem is not that you can't extract the price elasticity from the surge pricing of an Uber-like service, it is that you might not like the answer. Down rounds are not nice to founders.