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Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

bloomberg.com

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Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#41

Post by rhino369 »

pishpash wrote: post #21
StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don't understand the endgame here. Apparently, it WOULD BE possible to completely kill off the legacy taxi industry given 10 years or so of artificially subsidized pricing. So I understand the concept of disrupting a previous oligarchy, replacing it with a new monopoly, and then profiting through rent seeking. But where are the barriers to entry that would allow Uber to solidify as that new monopoly? Ther…

Uber's endgame has been making an Uber of everything (e.g. Uber eats), i.e. a platform for the so-called 'sharing economy.' They obtain this by network effects. That and self-driving cars, I don't know. They're basically an R&D operation funded by investors. It may or may not pan out.

But the network effects aren't very strong. My wife and I used different taxi hailing apps, it doesn't matter.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#42

Post by xorcist »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #22
StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don't understand the endgame here. Apparently, it WOULD BE possible to completely kill off the legacy taxi industry given 10 years or so of artificially subsidized pricing. So I understand the concept of disrupting a previous oligarchy, replacing it with a new monopoly, and then profiting through rent seeking. But where are the barriers to entry that would allow Uber to solidify as that new monopoly? Ther…

I honestly think the original vision was something similar to Amazon: bleed money when they are an online bookstore, make it all back when they swing for the fences and go for replacing all of retail. Likewise, Uber might lose money as a taxi service, but the idea would be to make it back in self-driving tech that replaces all transportation with 5 lanes of self-driving Ubers zipping about in all directions. The prob…

It doesn't make sense. If the endgame for Uber is self driving cars they'd have much longer runway if they were a startup doing only that, instead of bleeding money on both ends. They were originally an app company from the time when an app gave you easy access to capital. It's more likely the self driving thing was something they had to do to keep the high valuation as a tech company. It was probably an easy pick since it's something in vogue not too far from their normal business.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#43

Post by sctb »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Better source, and one that the article references: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-th... At this point, two things are clear to me: 1) Uber will IPO, there's just oo much money and influence behind it to stop that. 2) I'd be really worried if I was an employee about my options and also about my job. Employee's now ahve two large worries hanging over their heads..... What about my job and wh…

Thanks! We've updated the link from https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/29/ubers-losses-grew-to-1-5-b....

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#44

Post by Judgmentality »

__sha3d2 wrote: post #29
chollida1 wrote: post #2

Better source, and one that the article references: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-th... At this point, two things are clear to me: 1) Uber will IPO, there's just oo much money and influence behind it to stop that. 2) I'd be really worried if I was an employee about my options and also about my job. Employee's now ahve two large worries hanging over their heads..... What about my job and wh…

> And to top it all off, the biggest thing driving their valuation recently, self driving cars, appears to be in serious jeopardy, can anyone make a credible case of Uber having self driving fleet in the next 5 years? Uber currently sends teams to major cities all over the world to build maps for self driving cars. They outfit cars in those cities with 6 figure camera rigs and enable 'passive collection', where maps…

And if those maps were built with illegally obtained lidar technology (or just if the judge thinks they might have been), they become fruit of the poisonous tree.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#45

Post by [deleted] »

Judgmentality wrote: post #44
__sha3d2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to top it all off, the biggest thing driving their valuation recently, self driving cars, appears to be in serious jeopardy, can anyone make a credible case of Uber having self driving fleet in the next 5 years? Uber currently sends teams to major cities all over the world to build maps for self driving cars. They outfit cars in those cities with 6 figure camera rigs and enable 'passive collection', where maps…

And if those maps were built with illegally obtained lidar technology (or just if the judge thinks they might have been ), they become fruit of the poisonous tree.

[deleted]

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#46

Post by fpisfun »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #25
StevePerkins wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously don't understand the endgame here. Apparently, it WOULD BE possible to completely kill off the legacy taxi industry given 10 years or so of artificially subsidized pricing. So I understand the concept of disrupting a previous oligarchy, replacing it with a new monopoly, and then profiting through rent seeking. But where are the barriers to entry that would allow Uber to solidify as that new monopoly? Ther…

I would LOVE to develop an Uber clone and pitch it to Governments around the world. We could even link them up so you have one unified account for people who cross borders. The government and taxpayer could then take any profit (or operate at a loss / break even if they want to subsidise costs for their citizens). The customer acquisition / marketing costs would be almost zero if the government mandates it as the onl…

Have you seen software developed by the government? Outside of things like NSA spying, military things, etc, it's generally terrible, I doubt there are many governments that could pull this off

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#47

Post by delecti »

ianai wrote: post #38

Anecdotally, Uber seems to have a large foot print. If it were to fail I wonder how much the economy would be affected? Ie would it start an end of much of the sharing economy - and thus trigger some market corrections?

I suspect there are enough competitors (Lyft, Eat24, etc) that would pick up the slack almost immediately.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#48

Post by fpisfun »

xorcist wrote: post #42
sjm-lbm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think the original vision was something similar to Amazon: bleed money when they are an online bookstore, make it all back when they swing for the fences and go for replacing all of retail. Likewise, Uber might lose money as a taxi service, but the idea would be to make it back in self-driving tech that replaces all transportation with 5 lanes of self-driving Ubers zipping about in all directions. The prob…

It doesn't make sense. If the endgame for Uber is self driving cars they'd have much longer runway if they were a startup doing only that, instead of bleeding money on both ends. They were originally an app company from the time when an app gave you easy access to capital. It's more likely the self driving thing was something they had to do to keep the high valuation as a tech company. It was probably an easy pick si…

It's also something that would potentially kill their initial business so they had no choice I think but to go into it

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#49

Post by michaelbuckbee »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Better source, and one that the article references: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-th... At this point, two things are clear to me: 1) Uber will IPO, there's just oo much money and influence behind it to stop that. 2) I'd be really worried if I was an employee about my options and also about my job. Employee's now ahve two large worries hanging over their heads..... What about my job and wh…

A third worry: Uber's brand on your resume. At every turn there just seems like increasingly shady stuff coming out of there: covering up data breaches, covering up IP theft, etc.

Re: Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares

#50

Post by dalbasal »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

Better source, and one that the article references: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-th... At this point, two things are clear to me: 1) Uber will IPO, there's just oo much money and influence behind it to stop that. 2) I'd be really worried if I was an employee about my options and also about my job. Employee's now ahve two large worries hanging over their heads..... What about my job and wh…

What happens to stock which isn't part of the IPO? Ie, all the stock owned by employees, investors, etc? Does it become instantly tradeable?

I would imagine that considering the long road, a lot of people are really ready to sell. There are lots of owners that will have achieved 50X or more return, even at a low market cap. Former employees with option strike prices @ £20m, early investors that got in @ £150m....

That means far too much of their net worth is in Uber. They need out regardless of fundamentals. They've probably felt this way for a while. Meanwhile all the shifty news about workplace bullying, an ousted ceo, legal battles.

I guess this applies to all IPOs. Why don't prices plummet as soon as all the people who want out can get out?

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