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New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

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Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#51

Post by concede_pluto »

dkimmer wrote: post #40

When it comes to Uber's future, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that none of the "scandals" we've heard so much about matter. Not the culture, not the lawsuits, not even the firing of the CEO. None of those things would be able to sink the company, assuming that the company has a strong business model. And that's where we get to the bad news: Uber doesn't HAVE a business model. Nothing about Uber mak…

> who would pass up a private car ride from San Francisco to Palo Alto for $45 when a taxi would cost $125?

A SF taxi charges double the meter for a ride to Palo Alto because without a Palo Alto taxi permit they have to drive all the way back to SF (or at least SFO) without a paying passenger.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#52

Post by mahyarm »

smileysteve wrote: post #44
mahyarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profitability is usually a good idea before you IPO.

Why do you need to raise money if you are profitable?

Employee & investor liquidity, who are the majority stockholders of these kinds of companies. And the value of a stock does far better when something is profitable vs not. Past history shows it's usually a bad idea to be a public company and be in the red for many quarters.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#53

Post by smileysteve »

mahyarm wrote: post #52
smileysteve wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to raise money if you are profitable?

Employee & investor liquidity, who are the majority stockholders of these kinds of companies. And the value of a stock does far better when something is profitable vs not. Past history shows it's usually a bad idea to be a public company and be in the red for many quarters.

If you're profitable you can disburse dividends to all of the non public shareholders on a regular or irregular basis.

Going public is a really expensive way to do that with a profitable company (why spotify is trying to do it in an irregular way)

> Past history shows it's usually a bad idea to be a public company and be in the red for many quarters.

Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Marc Benioff would strongly disagree.

Under this reasoning if you're profitable, you may not want to go public. Now you have to worry about public perception and hostile outlets affecting a major asset.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#54

Post by _5ysi »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #50
_5ysi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreeing with capitalism is different from disagreeing about what it is. If autonomous vehicles are within the realm of possibility, they are going to be enormously successful and beneficial to humanity. Well functioning capitalism is about giving everybody a chance to participate (or not) in a piece of the new pie.

No, actually some of the biggest free marketers possible don't agree that predatory pricing is possible under capitalism. Google predatory pricing friedman (you won't get a quote from friedman but his name gets all the good stuff) and you'll find lots of people arguing that predatory pricing is a myth. You can also google friedman monopoly and find huge proponents of capitalism arguing that monopolies are only possib…

We are talking past each other. I think that autonomous cars are a great idea and would like to invest in autonomous car companies more directly than is currently possible. I gather from reading about predatory pricing and your prior comment that you think Ubers' business model is a dud and that automating these jobs is bad.

This variance is the essence of capitalism though. In a well functioning capitalist society I am free to make a stupid investment in Uber and you are free to wisely not. Its about having a degree of private wealth ownership and freedom and choice in your investments. This is what I meant by well functioning: the choice of investing directly in Waymo, Uber, etc is not really there yet for average citizens.

> Capitalism is supposed to work this way? VCs investing billions of dollars in an unprofitable company which continues to be unprofitable for years after the fact. [...] (1) achieving autonomous vehicles and ending the jobs of tens of thousands of people [...] A company which only exists in the first place because they trampled all over local laws.

Yes the freedom to make dumb investments...yes replacing error prone human labor with safe, tireless machines using greed and ambition as motivation...yes the freedom to open a business without bribing government officials. Yes, these are all basic tenets of capitalism.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#55

Post by tryingagainbro »

moxious wrote: post #27
uberemployee wrote: post #15

Guys this is somewhat fake news. The question was what his thoughts were on IPO. He basically said it's up to the board, but 18 to 36 months seemed reasonable. It wasn't like he's actually planning on IPOing in 18 months, it was an off-the-cuff response and gave a ballpark figure. That's all, don't read too much into it he hasn't even officially started yet.

It was known previously that elements on the board wanted IPO, and this is something you'd have to get ultra clear before you'd be given the job. I hope. So while the timeline can't be precise, I'm guessing this isn't floating a trial balloon, this is whats happening. There are a lot of people waiting for their liquidity.

probably most want the IPO, including, and maybe especially, employees. Shares in a public company are much more liquid.

Love or hate Benchmark, they bet on them and now they want to cash out. An IPO might make their stake worth 2X so can't blame them for advancing their interests. If someone offered then an out at $100B valuation they'd sell, I'm sure.

Personally I think that as a public company they will be under more scrutiny and cannot do "startup" things...like breaking taxi laws around the world.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#56

Post by mahyarm »

smileysteve wrote: post #53
mahyarm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employee & investor liquidity, who are the majority stockholders of these kinds of companies. And the value of a stock does far better when something is profitable vs not. Past history shows it's usually a bad idea to be a public company and be in the red for many quarters.

If you're profitable you can disburse dividends to all of the non public shareholders on a regular or irregular basis. Going public is a really expensive way to do that with a profitable company (why spotify is trying to do it in an irregular way) > Past history shows it's usually a bad idea to be a public company and be in the red for many quarters. Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Marc Benioff would strongly disagree. U…

Most shareholders don't like dividends because of the tax treatment compared to stock buybacks. It's still less liquid than a public market.

As far as those other examples, I don't know their full histories. From my memory amazon has had a break-even policy on purpose which investors are ok with. FB was profitable for about a year before IPO and its stock went to half of IPO for a year because people were worried about it's numbers until they got a lot of a money through mobile.

Re: New Uber CEO Says Company Could Go Public in 18 Months

#57

Post by [deleted] »

mahyarm wrote: post #38
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real news is this is precisely why TK was ousted. He was categorically opposed to taking Uber public, and that went against the wishes of big investors who want an IPO payday.

Profitability is usually a good idea before you IPO.

[deleted]
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