Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 256 posts

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

#191

Post by gaius »

ProAm wrote: post #179
maxxxxx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"license their logistics software to a lot of companies." It's quite tricky to package an internally used system into something that can be sold and used by others. It most likely takes years to get to any significant amount of sales.

Every taxi company on earth would buy this immediately.

Every taxi company on earth would buy this immediately.

Every taxi company on Earth (well, at least in the UK) has an app of their own now, even if it's just a white-label with their branding applied. They all let you book a journey and tell you the name of the driver and the reg plate of the car, and have a nice animated map of how far away the car is. No-one will buy it.

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

#192

Post by ProAm »

maxxxxx wrote: post #189
ProAm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For ride hailing?

And that would justify a 50 billion dollar valuation? They would need to create multi-billion dollar market to make it worthwhile. And also learn selling to businesses.

Oh the valuation doesn't mean anything except to new potential investors. It's essentially a made up number that means nothings especially since they are not earning a profit and don't look to any time soon.

But that aside, yes a pivot would require them to do things differently, just as in your example learn selling to businesses However every taxi company in the world would jump at this opportunity immediately. The same industry that refused change for decades and had their parade rained on when Uber came around would greet this change with open arms. Especially if Uber were to 'go away' as a result.

There are going to be down rounds for Uber in the future no matter what, valuation means nothing if your business won't survive.

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

#193

Post by watwut »

ProAm wrote: post #186
jdmichal wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is... Overly optimistic at best. You're assuming every taxi company on Earth: * Thinks they have a logistics problem in the first place. * Thinks that software can solve that problem. * Are in the market for software to solve that problem. * Think that Uber's software is the software that would solve that problem the best. That's a hell of a lot of assumptions, each of which is fairly easy to pick apart.

I politely disagree. Taxi companies hate ride sharing companies. As an industry that refused change for decades saw a software company come in and eat away market share quickly. If Uber were to 'go away' and allow the taxi company to use the ride hailing software they would be all over it. [1][2][3][4] And this is just the taxi industry, there are plenty of industries that would love to use a logistics software to he…

Ubers big magic is subsidising rides. You can do ride hailing app without uber.

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

#194

Post by bogomipz »

T2_t2 wrote: post #182
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10

Uber had $6.6bn on hand at the end of June [1]. That means they are down to $5.1bn. Absent cost-cutting, that implies a 9 to 12 month runway. Even if SoftBank injects $1bn, that could only mean a few months’ runway. A large fine in the Waymo case [2] could literally bankrupt them. [1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/23/uber-is-still-burning-cas... [2] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/waymo-uber-tr...

Except... Growth. The (buzzword warning) hyper-growth startup model is in essence 2X revenue, 1.5X costs. Repeat until inevitably profitable - and I say inevitably because with enough time, 2X revenue, 1.5X costs gets to profitable. The only variable there is having a long enough runway. Uber seem, from the financial data I have seen, to be sticking to that playbook down to the 3rd decimal place (exaggeration for eff…

>"The (buzzword warning) hyper-growth startup model is in essence 2X revenue, 1.5X costs."

Can you elaborate on this? What is the relationship between those figures? I am guessing there is a third component that those are multiples of?

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

#195

Post by ProAm »

gaius wrote: post #191
ProAm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every taxi company on earth would buy this immediately.

Every taxi company on earth would buy this immediately. Every taxi company on Earth (well, at least in the UK) has an app of their own now, even if it's just a white-label with their branding applied. They all let you book a journey and tell you the name of the driver and the reg plate of the car, and have a nice animated map of how far away the car is. No-one will buy it.

They are trying in the US as well but most the apps are garbage and no one uses them. Uber (and Lyft) are ubiquitous now and I think there would be a much higher adoption rate if they licensed it. Most companies also do not want to be in app development, if you could just buy software that works and focus on the core of your business companies would be much happier. This happens in giant enterprise-y businesses today. They consistently overpay on software that just works and lets them get along with their actual work.

But as I mentioned above the taxi industry is only the first immediate one I'd tackle, there are plenty others.

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

#196

Post by technotony »

bogomipz wrote: post #194
T2_t2 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except... Growth. The (buzzword warning) hyper-growth startup model is in essence 2X revenue, 1.5X costs. Repeat until inevitably profitable - and I say inevitably because with enough time, 2X revenue, 1.5X costs gets to profitable. The only variable there is having a long enough runway. Uber seem, from the financial data I have seen, to be sticking to that playbook down to the 3rd decimal place (exaggeration for eff…

>"The (buzzword warning) hyper-growth startup model is in essence 2X revenue, 1.5X costs." Can you elaborate on this? What is the relationship between those figures? I am guessing there is a third component that those are multiples of?

Growth rate... which he implies is large.

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

#197

Post by ProAm »

watwut wrote: post #193
ProAm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I politely disagree. Taxi companies hate ride sharing companies. As an industry that refused change for decades saw a software company come in and eat away market share quickly. If Uber were to 'go away' and allow the taxi company to use the ride hailing software they would be all over it. [1][2][3][4] And this is just the taxi industry, there are plenty of industries that would love to use a logistics software to he…

Ubers big magic is subsidising rides. You can do ride hailing app without uber.

Of course you can but most taxi companies do not want to be in the app development business. And most other ride hailing apps are not very good. They'd rather focus on their main line of work which is transportation. People know Uber, that app works, people would use it if it was available.

The subsidizing is what made them a household name, along with the ease of use.

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

#198

Post by madeofpalk »

ProAm wrote: post #197
watwut wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubers big magic is subsidising rides. You can do ride hailing app without uber.

Of course you can but most taxi companies do not want to be in the app development business. And most other ride hailing apps are not very good. They'd rather focus on their main line of work which is transportation. People know Uber, that app works, people would use it if it was available. The subsidizing is what made them a household name, along with the ease of use.

I understand that there are taxi companies worldwide and I'm sure they operate different by different types of people, but I still think you're overestimating these taxi companies and what they want.

I worked for a very big "Old Media" company in Australia when we rebuilt one of their key properties. Their "definition of success" was to _not accelerate the rate of decline_ of page views. Since then I've realised that these types of businesses are ran by people who are motivated differently than 'us'.

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

#199

Post by deferred »

hkmurakami wrote: post #135
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe if you're in senior management. Frontline devs or middle management? Honestly they're some of the best talent in the valley esp if they joined in 2014 when Uber was the top destination ($19B valuation timeframe)

Seemingly not even sr management gets dinged for this. Cruise (GM) just named Susan Fowler’s former boss from Uber their new CTO.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15819808

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

#200

Post by kjksf »

busterarm wrote: post #178
ihsw2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to drag the entire ride hailing industry underwater long enough to drown out competitors, and the trick is to do this without drowning themselves in the process. This is the nature of "predatory" pricing. There is something to be said for volume and if a couple competitors die in the process then Uber's volume can only go up. Unfortunately their competitors have found a variety of ways to keep from being…

I'm somewhat reminded of Jack Tramiel's pricing scheme in the mid-late 80s with Commodore. Great, popular machines beating everyone on price until they couldn't afford to anymore. They didn't capture the market and they failed.

They did capture the market.

Commodore 64 was a profitable bestseller.

Tramiel left Commodore while it was still very successful, founded new company, bought Atari and tried to replicate Commodore 64 success with Atari ST.

Commodore failed because they failed to transition from Commodore 64 to a better specced machines, despite having a technological marvel at their hands (Commodore Amiga).

Post reply on HN