Uber S-1 • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber S-1

#101

Post by inverse_pi » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #46

panarky wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't imagine how Uber is worth anything If the operation doesn't make an economic profit, and if there isn't sufficient moat to defend the operation until it can become profitable, then I agree with you it's not worth anything. But in fact, Uber does have a massive moat -- its network of drivers and riders in thousands of cities around the world. No competitor is even close. It takes tremendous capital expenditure…

> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…

it's economically unreasonable to drive for more than one apps simultaneously. Now, it could be economically reasonable to drive for more than one apps at many points in the past.

If Lyft and Uber are so easily exchangeable, why is Lyft is still a minority in the US while spending more money?

There's something more interesting here.

Re: Uber S-1

#102

Post by gonehome » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:07 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #46

panarky wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't imagine how Uber is worth anything If the operation doesn't make an economic profit, and if there isn't sufficient moat to defend the operation until it can become profitable, then I agree with you it's not worth anything. But in fact, Uber does have a massive moat -- its network of drivers and riders in thousands of cities around the world. No competitor is even close. It takes tremendous capital expenditure…

> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…

Agreed - Facebook has a network effect/moat because a new service that's better in every way is useless if your friends aren't on it. Getting the network to migrate is hard and when this does happen FB is quick to buy the threat (Instagram, WhatsApp) or compete and kill them (Snap).

Nobody holds an allegiance to Lyft or Uber - they pick whichever is currently a better deal for both driving and riding. Uber's recent loyalty program is the first thing that slightly moves this in favor of continuing to use Uber, but it's only a little incentive. Large swings in price still favor switching.

Their only moat comes from being able to undercut competitors with VC money in any market they appear in until the competitor is dead and Uber can then raise prices to be profitable.

It's probably a winner take all market. A SDC competitor would be a threat, but I'd be both impressed and surprised if Google could pull that off.

Re: Uber S-1

#103

Post by yalogin » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

Feels more like Uber and Lyft reached a point where they cannot raise private capital anymore and so jumped onto the public markets to fool random investors. If they cannot be profitable now, what makes them think they will be profitable with SDCs?

I challenge the fundamental premise that SDCs will make them profitable. There is no stickiness to their business model. Moving on to another ride sharing service is frictionless today. Most people I know use both Lyft and Uber. So if tomorrow SDCs become popular and offer a cheaper rate, people will move to them in droves. Nothing stopping them. We know Uber and Lyft are way behind on SDCs compared to Google on that front. It also looks like GM and Ford could there before these two. So what makes them a good investment either in the short or long term?

Re: Uber S-1

#104

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

ctlby wrote: post #89

nostrademons wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing for Lyft-the-corporation but a bad thing for anyone who bought into the IPO. Any sort of financial engineering tricks that goose the accounting numbers without affecting the long-term health of the business are basically a transfer payment from people who buy in at the inflated price to entities who sell at the inflated price. It's rational for the company to try to pull them; it's also rational for…

> It's rational for the company to try to pull them Aren't there issues with follow-on offerings? By taking the entire IPO pot for itself, the company will probably struggle to find investors if/when it needs to come back to the capital markets--which seems like an eventuality with Lyft.

Potentially, but for high-growth unprofitable companies management is usually betting that they can either use the extra money raised to fix the fundamentals of the business in time for the next capital raise, or else they need to dump their stocks on the public market and get out because there won't be a next capital raise. I'd bet that #1 is more common in the management team's head, but #2 is more common in reality.

Re: Uber S-1

#105

Post by watwat1 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #92

aphextron wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autonomous cars won’t be proprietary to each manufacturer or company. Once someone has perfected their system, everyone else will drop what they are doing and simply buy it like an OS. It’s all in the software; hardware required (cameras, radar, GPUs) is already cheap and ubiquitous. My money is on Tesla or comma.ai for this.

Why Tesla? They seem to be near the bottom of the pack when it comes to self driving capability.

You clearly don’t own or have ever ridden in a Tesla.

Re: Uber S-1

#106

Post by xiphias2 » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

mckenna wrote: post #79

Horrible numbers! They cannot get the unit economics to work. In order to make up for that fundamental flaw, they are trying to throw a number of things at the wall(UberEats/UberFrieght/SD/Bikes/etc) and see if something sticks. Each of those other bets seems poor, thus far. They better focus on getting their original business in shape(call a cab via an app). I would be curious to know if they tried to raise prices i…

The real problem that I see with using Über in South America is that the service is not improving.

- The time estimations are way off

- The app doesn't know one-way roads well, although they should have a lot of training data on the routes I go on

- They allow drivers haggling for the price by forcing users to pay with cash instead of credit card.

- The app doesn't know about the road tarifs sometimes, and the driver is not allowed to ask that money from me, which makes an awkward situation

- Sometimes I'm getting 30 year old cars, which the Taxi companies filter for

I would happily pay more than the current price, but I need more reliable service, which the software could provide. Right now Taxis with all their problems are still competition.

Re: Uber S-1

#107

Post by dman » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #47

rory096 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lyft now at $61/share, ouch, there just is no other way to put it. THey pulled a lot of financial engineering tricks to boost their IPO price and well the results speak for themselves:( I don't understand why this is seen as a negative. An IPO is a share issuance — the higher the price per share, the more money they receive in exchange for the same percentage of the company. Post-IPO "pops" represent money left on…

It's a good thing for Lyft-the-corporation but a bad thing for anyone who bought into the IPO. Any sort of financial engineering tricks that goose the accounting numbers without affecting the long-term health of the business are basically a transfer payment from people who buy in at the inflated price to entities who sell at the inflated price. It's rational for the company to try to pull them; it's also rational for…

Think about morale at Lyft. You have employees locked in who cant sell for first couple of months. They are seeing their networth plummet everyday.

Re: Uber S-1

#108

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

yalogin wrote: post #103

Feels more like Uber and Lyft reached a point where they cannot raise private capital anymore and so jumped onto the public markets to fool random investors. If they cannot be profitable now, what makes them think they will be profitable with SDCs? I challenge the fundamental premise that SDCs will make them profitable. There is no stickiness to their business model. Moving on to another ride sharing service is frict…

[deleted]

Re: Uber S-1

#109

Post by joez » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #71

opendomain wrote: post #50

Is the Saudi family invested in Uber? There was a story that Uber was trying to cover up that the Prince that ordered the murder of the journalist Khashoggi - is this true? I know this is a tech forum, but I am not sure what to believe?

The Saudi family is invested in a lot of SV companies via Softbank's Vision fund (The Saudi fund also owns 5.4% of Uber, directly). I don't think Uber, specifically, had anything to do with Khashoggi murders (with regards to the coverup).

A Saudi Prince also invested in Lyft

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/23/saudi-prince-alwaleed-bin-ta...

Re: Uber S-1

#110

Post by flatline » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

partingshots wrote: post #18

So... Let me see if I have this straight: 1. Uber is unprofitable and the only way it can become profitable is to get SDC's 2. Uber is significantly (years) behind Waymo in the SDC space. 3. Waymo will launch SDC taxi services first meaning: - When it puts in an order for SDC components no one else is going to be buying in bulk and thus it can have effectively 100% of capacity of these specialized equipment makers -…

The assumption that SDCs are going to completely overtake the market is a huge one and is unwarranted. This puts all the cost of building and maintaining a fleet on Waymo, or whoever is first to market. While it cuts out the cost of a human driver, it's not at all clear to me that this is cheaper in net.

Furthermore, a completely robust SDC able to handle all climates and weather in which a human driver is at least nominally competent to drive is still likely a pipe dream. So this model may work well - if it works at all - for the Southern regions of the US, without coverage anywhere else.