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Lyft Files S-1

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Re: Lyft Files S-1

#271

Post by robryan »

dwild wrote: post #204
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.

> I don't see how these companies will stop losing $1b+ a year each year. The public markets will not be too kind. Are you saying taxis can't exist? As far as I know, any taxi dispatcher take a similar cut (30%) as them and their cost seems way higher (no automation at all, require people on phone, etc..). Theses loses are either because they are considered unlawful somewhere (I never heard of this issue with Lyft bu…

If Lyft and Uber eventually have to raise prices to be similar to a regular taxi or even higher that could hurt them in a lot of markets.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#272

Post by webninja »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #199
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.

Right? Even if autonomous taxis _is_ their endgame, why couldn't companies that actually produce the cars do it cheaper? Almost all of them are heavily investing in it right now, some are even partnering up with companies that know how to do a lot of it. I don't see how this works out for Lyft or Uber. To me it just looks like they'll both eventually run out of money and get squashed. Maybe I'm missing something?

FYI, Toyota bought a 500m stake in Uber. Some of these car companies just consider the internal combustion engine to be their core competency; then just outsource everything else. Usually to India, Japan or H1B bodyshops.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#273

Post by [deleted] »

spamizbad wrote: post #244
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…

What sort of promotion metrics did your peers experience? Are we talking lateral moves, with more interesting technologies, or are we talking about movement into leadership with significant pay bumps? Also: based on this experience, what's the best technology to invest in and then abandon completely because nobody else wants to deal with it?

[deleted]

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#274

Post by ericd »

fierro wrote: post #154
geezerjay wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point isn't it cost-effective for Lyft to just build its own infrastructure?

if I have one job in this life, it's to hang out on hacker news and repeatedly post about how it's not cost effective to run your own infrastructure. 8MM/month doesn't even come CLOSE to needing your own infra. - person who knows how hard it is to run your own infrastructure

We ran our own at a significantly smaller scale, it didn't take us nearly as much time to maintain as it saved us in terms of money over cloud.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#275

Post by ericd »

codegoblins wrote: post #270
stepanhruda wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What value is exactly a baseball player creating? Lyft has provided WAY more value to society over its lifetime.

Drawing viewers' eyes to lucrative television timeslots for advertisers, selling tickets to local stadiums, and selling merchandise such as jerseys and figures.

Those are all wealth transfers, though, not really value creation. The only value creation by the baseball players is the entertainment provided (which is definitely not nothing).

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#276

Post by meowface »

azylman wrote: post #269
meowface wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have some friends at AirBnB and I've heard it's much more modest, like $300/yr or something. My experience with these type of "dogfooding" credits is that companies are much more generous when they're smaller, so it could be that older employees get more than newer employees.

That makes sense. $300 is enough to cover Airbnb housing costs for at least a few days in pretty much any location around the world, so they probably still get value out of it.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#277

Post by ericd »

jjeaff wrote: post #131
teej wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders (theoretically) created $20B in value and you think $90M is sufficient compensation? $90M is definitely enough to be more than comfortable the rest of your life. But a $5B payout would have meant they could start a VC firm, invest in the next several generations of startups, partially self-fund something ambitious like a Space-X, start funded non-profits, etc.

You can do all of those things and more - easily - with $90m.

Elon invested more than $100M in SpaceX and they came very close to death before they finally succeeded with their last rocket. So it's not clear that you can do all of those and more, easily, with $90M.

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#278

Post by spookthesunset »

ericd wrote: post #274
fierro wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if I have one job in this life, it's to hang out on hacker news and repeatedly post about how it's not cost effective to run your own infrastructure. 8MM/month doesn't even come CLOSE to needing your own infra. - person who knows how hard it is to run your own infrastructure

We ran our own at a significantly smaller scale, it didn't take us nearly as much time to maintain as it saved us in terms of money over cloud.

I promise you weren't actually doing your costing correctly to arrive at that conclusion. Engineers always badly mis-underestimate the costs of things and "rack & stack data center management" is way more costly than you are actually accounting for. Especially in terms of opportunity cost and, well, just wasted resources that aren't actually adding value to the company.

There is way, way, way, way, way more to a running a successful business than "saving money".

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#279

Post by spookthesunset »

peteradio wrote: post #240
eropple wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"If the money works in ways a lay man is familiar"

Considering how most layman are completely wrong in their understanding of finance, I'd say that isn't a good endorsement...

Re: Lyft Files S-1

#280

Post by BenMorganIO »

munchbunny wrote: post #217
asdfafd2sdf wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were probably downvoted for using the term 'pick your brain'. I am sure they want their brain 'picked'.

Sure, it's an overused term, but the ask is pretty clear. "I'm doing something and it looks like you've done it before, can I get advice?"

Agreed. I think it's healthy to ask these things and I believe it leads to a positive and supportive community.
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