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Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

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Re: Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

#4
Are they profitable? Last I heard they were losing quite a bit of money. [1] And even if they manage to squeak out a GAAP profit, I'm not sure if the business is sustainable. Given that a lot of the capital and operations costs end up on the books of drivers, it's harder to do the math for an end-to-end costs-vs-benefits comparison.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/uber-results/uber-narrows-lo...

Re: Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

#6
Decades ago companies competed in being the first to bring the product to the market, so enough prospects would try theirs first and become loyal users. These days the competition is about being the first to sell your story to the retail investor before the hype cools down and people get disillusioned about the entire business model (see GRPN, SNAP, etc).

I'm truly wondering how sustainable is this and how hard the market correction will be...

Re: Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

#7

So are these companies rushing to IPO before a 'potential' recession occurs? Does anyone else not feel confident about this? It seems fear driven and not very calculated. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture..

Launching before a recession is more ideal than before as funding would be easier to secure from the public vs private institutions especially if they continue losing money at this rate.

Re: Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

#8
I'd confidently state that I love capitalism, but I'm not very happy with the idea that Uber could turn 17 billion dollars into 7 billion dollars and then hand the bag to retail investors.

The thing I tell myself is that the money is all going to the same place anyway. Yeah, Uber is going to cash out and bomb from their IPO price, and everyone who buys will lose. But anyone who would buy Uber is going to do any number of equally irrational things with their money, not to mention the fact that no matter who "owns" the money it will either be sitting in a bank or another asset, so it doesn't really matter.

http://fortune.com/2018/03/06/how-much-money-uber-spent/

Re: Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

#10

I'd confidently state that I love capitalism, but I'm not very happy with the idea that Uber could turn 17 billion dollars into 7 billion dollars and then hand the bag to retail investors. The thing I tell myself is that the money is all going to the same place anyway. Yeah, Uber is going to cash out and bomb from their IPO price, and everyone who buys will lose. But anyone who would buy Uber is going to do any numbe…

Many Fidelity mutual funds managing assets of retail investors hold (private) Uber stock.
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