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Uber S-1

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131–140 of 559 posts

Re: Uber S-1

#132
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…

Uber Eats is an amazing service.

Re: Uber S-1

#133
post #116

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 also a bad thing for all the employees and investors as they have 180 day lock-in before they can cash out.

I don't think how one dresses up financials will have an impact on the stock price 6 months out; there will likely 2 quarters of earning reports (at least 1) which will dictate the price then, not what was released now.

Re: Uber S-1

#134

Just a brief scan and it looks much healthier and diversified than Lyft. Of course far from a perfect business or anything. Their revenue is 5X Lyft's revenue. Doesn't look good for Lyft's stock to be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if after their first earnings release, Lyft stock goes below 40 USD.

Really? The numbers look horrible to me. Both LYFT/UBER have horrible numbers. I would prefer LYFT(@80% discount to IPO price) than UBER(@80% discount to IPO price).

Both of these stock valuations are being pumped and dumped onto public markets with clever tricks. Funny thing is, many of us won't even realize that some of our money will be invested in these stocks without our knowledge(ETFs/Funds tracking indices). Most 401ks market tracking Funds/ETFs will pick up these horrible stocks in time.

Tech wizards of silicon valley have managed to one-up wall street this time, by creating a 100B taxi app. With the 10B they raise from IPO, they will try more desperate measures to try and close the gap in price($100B-$120B) and value($25B-$35B).

Re: Uber S-1

#135
Some people are excited about Uber having a more diversified business than Lyft. Uber Freight, Uber Eats, Jump bikes and e scooters are some of their offerings. However, currently the revenue they generate (or don't) is completely dwarfed by the ride hailing service. If at some point in the future these other businesses turn out to be profitable, shareholders will insist to break them out of Uber to maximize gains. Ride hailing absolutely has to be profitable for Uber to succeed post IPO. At least for the foreseeable future Uber is exactly Lyft with minor garnishing.

Re: Uber S-1

#136

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.

My understanding is Tesla and comma.ai have taken a software focused approach with limited hardware. Others like waymo have taken a hardware approach with more sophisticated sensors. What makes you feel Tesla/Comma.ai will win?

Human drivers aren’t equipped with LIDAR.

Re: Uber S-1

#137
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…

At least on Android, for ~75% of mobile users globally, Google Maps is more important than Uber for getting from place to place. Every Android user has Google Maps. Virtually every Android user uses Google Maps. The same is not true for Uber. Uber has a shallow moat around an ugly castle.

and they were genius to acquire waze et al before anyone noticed they were going for the monopoly end game.

Re: Uber S-1

#138

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 -…

It's worth it until there is an alternative on the road. Eventually, most if not every company get replaced by a better one. Stock market IPOs are never about predicting what will eventually happen to a company. It is not different than say, Tesla. Everybody keeps repeating that the traditional car manufacturers will catch up with Tesla, but even till then Tesla is gonna do business. And as expected once the novelty of their products (EV and self-driving features) got somewhat out of the way, now it is being judged but the revenue and profit numbers it is pulling.

Re: Uber S-1

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're just making up numbers why not assume you'll only drop gross bookings by 0%, or increase bookings even! Anything can be made profitable if you just invent numbers.

They aren't pulled out of thin air. They're best estimates. If you disagree, what do you think their unit model would transform into if they acquired lyft for $20B in stock and raised prices by 10%? Why?

you cannot really play with it like that, users have an expectation how much something will cost and if they dont feel that its right you can drop a lot. from my own experience price increase if just on its own of 10% can decease sales by more then 20%. and i assume uber had such ideas and has been simulating them, and I'm sure they are testing it out with smaller but not noticeable increases. let's see how that works for them.

Re: Uber S-1

#140
post #61

While I admit that the losses are staggering, the growth rates are also astounding: Revenue 2016: $3.8bn 2017: $7.9bn 2018: $11.27bn Trips 2016: 1.8bn 2017: 3.7bn 2018: 5.2bn The internet is such a game-changer.

> The internet is such a game-changer. Yes but also portable, low-cost GPS enabled internet connected devices are a game-changer. I don't see how Uber or Lyft could exist prior to the iPhone pushing adoption of GPS.

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