Earlier quoted context omitted.
This exact comment chain seemingly occurs in every S1 post.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, companies going public used to already make at least _some_ money...
A more civilized age.
Uber S-1
141–150 of 559 posts
Re: Uber S-1
#142The cost of entry into this space is much greater than I think most people realize. It's not "building an app". It's building a balanced, efficient marketplace.
This means complex matching, pricing and routing algorithms that have been developed for almost a decade. It's also about working with regulations at the city level and building a reliable labor force of contractors to supply the marketplace in every new city before the launch date.
There is so many experiments and tweaks to ensure that both supply and demand side remain properly incentivized, not to mentioned fighting deeply entrenched Taxi companies from city to city, that I'm surprised Uber and Lyft have gone to IPO so quickly, other than for cash raising.
Re: Uber S-1
#143So... 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 -…
you forgot option B: raise prices, reduce costs
that is exactly what every company in the universe does in the quarter before being offered for sale or filling public offering. always assume the first company filling is the best as possible already.
Re: Uber S-1
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't imagine any scenario under which an 11 billion dollar money printing machine which is growing and costs 11 billion + 3 billion to run can turn cash flow positive?
When your business is selling $10 for $5 then no, I cannot see a way to turn cash flow positive.
They're not doing that. They got $11.27 in revenue for a cost of $9.65. The loss stems from spending an additional $4.67 on advertising and R&D.
Re: Uber S-1
#145So... 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 -…
According to the S-1, Uber has a $1bn profit. Where did you see it is unprofitable ?
Only because in Q1 2018 they sold a bunch of their operations to Yandex and Grab for $3B. They effectively lost $2B.
Re: Uber S-1
#146I wonder if anyone reading through this filing could speculate: Can Uber just raise their prices to reach profitability? If they lost $3B on $44.1B of Gross Bookings, it seems they could raise their prices by about 7% to hit breakeven. Would they really lose that much market share if they did that?
If Uber raises prices, they immediately lose customers to Lyft. It was always a race to the bottom and I don’t see why it would be any different now.
Re: Uber S-1
#147Earlier 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…
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.
Should've bought options to hedge.
Re: Uber S-1
#148I can't wait to see how a SDC deals with a passenger puking and passing out while getting a ride home from the club...
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Re: Uber S-1
#149Just 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). M…
Depending on the voting structure of shares, many funds will pass over a company. SNAP, for example, is only in 20-some ETFs: https://www.etfchannel.com/finder/?a=etfsholding&symbol=SNAP
Most people investing in Mutual Funds and ETFs aren't getting exposure to SNAP. That may be the case with LYFT and Uber as well.
Re: Uber S-1
#150Earlier 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…
maybe the drivers use every app, but as a user when I am traveling I only use one (uber)