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Lyft Files S-1

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Re: Lyft Files S-1

#231

Post by throwaway-1283 »

icedchai wrote: post #203
throwaway-1283 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how these companies will stop losing $1b+ a year each year. The public markets will not be too kind. The end game was supposed to be autonomous taxis (cutting the driver out). I don't see how that's going to happen before they run out of money unless they 1) significantly raise prices or 2) take increasingly bigger cuts from drivers. Personally I will be shorting as soon as I can.

The public will eat this stuff up if there's huge YoY revenue growth like they've shown in the S1. You see this all the time with public SaaS companies. Sure, the losses also increase... but nobody seems to care.

Nobody seems to care...until the company literally runs out of money. The difference between a SaaS and a Lyft is that Lyft has huge operating expenses. Burn rate is order of magnitude higher.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#232

Post by meowface »

mopeloi wrote: post #218
meowface wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb does this too. They give all of their employees an annual stipend to travel via Airbnb, so that they can regularly experience the app from the perspective of a guest. I think they also provide benefits for employees who host guests, for the same reasons. When you think about it, it seems so obvious that companies should do things like these, yet it still seems so rare. It's easy to fall out of touch with your…

Wouldn't the equivalent be incentivizing employees to rent out their own place on Airbnb? I'm sure that plenty of Uber and Lyft employees are customers without it being a Big Deal.

Yes, that'd be the equivalent to this specific situation. Airbnb incentivizes that as well. I don't remember the exact details, but in an interview with one of the founders, he said they have a program for employees who host Airbnb guests.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#233

Post by JumpCrisscross »

prostoalex wrote: post #198
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Painful amount of dilution Lyft had a modern secondaries policy. Many early people sold shares.

Secondary sales is existing shares changing hands, there's no dilution.

> Secondary sales is existing shares changing hands, there's no dilution

Sorry for being unclear. I was positing an alternative mechanism, apart from dilution, through which the founders could have ended up with a small share of the company.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#234

Post by throwaway-1283 »

iMuzz wrote: post #230
throwaway-1283 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how these companies will stop losing $1b+ a year each year. The public markets will not be too kind. The end game was supposed to be autonomous taxis (cutting the driver out). I don't see how that's going to happen before they run out of money unless they 1) significantly raise prices or 2) take increasingly bigger cuts from drivers. Personally I will be shorting as soon as I can.

Be wary of shorting such a high profiles stock!

Everyone who shorted Snapchat made millions.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#235

Post by freewilly1040 »

jandrese wrote: post #99
morningmoon wrote: post #46

"We have incurred net losses each year since our inception and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future. We incurred net losses of $682.8 million, $688.3 million and $911.3 million in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively."

It's pretty impressive that they've managed to lose that much money despite the fact that they are just running a website and an app. Yeah, that's oversimplifying it, but it's not like they own factories or storefronts or need to buy access to expensive services or something. The vast majority of their "employees" are independent contractors with no healthcare or retirement benefits who get paid by the ride (so Lyft…

Simple to use != simple to implement.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#236

Post by meowface »

throwawaymath wrote: post #189
meowface wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb does this too. They give all of their employees an annual stipend to travel via Airbnb, so that they can regularly experience the app from the perspective of a guest. I think they also provide benefits for employees who host guests, for the same reasons. When you think about it, it seems so obvious that companies should do things like these, yet it still seems so rare. It's easy to fall out of touch with your…

Do you have any idea what the stipend typically is?

A quick Google search says it's $2000/year. Don't know if that's accurate.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#237

Post by [deleted] »

diminoten wrote: post #216
qxi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not employ an hybrid architecture of bare metal for base load augmented by cloud-based infrastructure for peaks, constructed via a polyglot union of taped-together tools and lubricated by the daily tears of a hundred college hires only to regret it after the engineers who designed it have successfully used it as a springboard for promotion and departed with their accumulated arcane knowledge (and vested shares) f…

Oh come on, you know the performance profile of a streaming service is wildly different from a mobile ridesharing app... Their surges are nothing like yours.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#239

Post by T_D_K »

trimbo wrote: post #65

It looks like they spend a bunch of pages on rider retention and gloss over what I think is the primary issue for the gig economy: provider retention. It's just like Groupon, you can't have a good sell-through product indefinitely if the service providers aren't happy and churn at a high rate. Sooo... what's the churn for the drivers?

I'm not sure how that's a big deal for Lyft. It seems like a pretty healthy supply and demand curve -- if the number of drivers drops, it becomes more profitable to be a driver. And there's always people looking for supplemental work, who'll go where the money is. I suppose the part I'm missing is the reduction in riders if there's not enough drivers, but that is apparently not a huge issue (according to their rider-retention numbers).

Do you disagree?

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#240

Post by peteradio »

eropple wrote: post #227
peteradio wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you had 8m per month?

Respectfully, having read your other comments: I'll answer that question if you demonstrate to me an understanding of the difference between $300M/3 years capex and $8M/month/3 years opex. If you do that, though, my answer will be "right, so we're done here."

I'm mostly just having a laugh so I won't be able to explain the difference. If the money works in ways a lay man is familiar I'd expect I would be able to afford the necessary man power and equipment so far under 8m per month after equipment purchase that I don't really need to know the details of the finance opex/Capex difference. I really appreciate you taking the time to bring up your good points.
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