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Uber S-1

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Re: Uber S-1

#191

Post by eggie5 »

nemothekid wrote: post #58
buryat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber Eats revenue in 2018 is $1.46B which is pretty impressive regarding other income: > Gain on divestitures increased by $3.2 billion from 2017 to 2018. This increase was due to gains on the divestitures of our Russia/CIS and Southeast Asia operations. Covered on page 85, basically spinoffs with other regional leaders

I'm surprised that Eats is doing more revenue than GrubHub and much more revenue than Caviar.

can you share the two numbers you are using for comparison?

The Q4 numbers I see:

Uber Eats: $165 million Grub Hub: $205 million*

* https://investors.grubhub.com/investors/press-releases/press...

Re: Uber S-1

#192

Post by withdavidli »

smallgovt wrote: post #54
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 -…

Can't Uber become profitable by raising prices and lowering costs? They have $40B in gross rideshare bookings and $3B in real losses for 2018. Let's assume 20% of their costs are fixed and 80% are variable. What might happen if they raise prices by 10%? Gross bookings drop by 20% / Revenue per booking increase by 10% => $35.2B in gross bookings Variable costs drop by 30% (due to lower driver acquisition costs since t…

Becoming profitable at the cost of growth. I think the market would punish that. The story of growth company is what drives high multiples to sales/profit. If that changes to a mature company analysts will start thinking about measuring by P/E.

Re: Uber S-1

#193

Post by albertshin »

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…

For the drivers, Uber (and Lyft) tie some hurdle rates (rides/week or hours driven etc) to cash bonuses reward their loyalty. It seems like they have some status levels as well (e.g. Uber Diamond Pro) that I guess probably leads to better economics / bargaining power for the driver. So on margin drivers will specialize in one type of service especially in consistently high demand areas (i.e. cities). Unclear which one is better but on surface it seems Uber has more of these in place than Lyft IMO.

For the riders, Uber Rewards and Uber Cash (that actually forces you to reload if you have below whatever your current ride costs) also make the product quite sticky and make the rider less inclined to take other options on margin.

Small economic tools like these that exploit our psychological biases (e.g. loss aversion, gamification) may go a long way in protecting the moat in this commoditized, competitive environment, and Uber seems to be ahead so far.

(Of course, whichever player comes out with SDCs wins the whole pie)

Re: Uber S-1

#194

Post by NicoJuicy »

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 -…

One company with a lot of capital clears the road in a blue ocean, the others pursuit.

Just like in cycling, fast followers have it a lot easier in getting a % of the market share.

Re: Uber S-1

#195

Post by empath75 »

panarky wrote: post #35
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 -…

> 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…

What moat? All the driver needs to do is load another app on their phone.

Re: Uber S-1

#196

Post by inverse_pi »

Marazan wrote: post #185
treis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1.5 billion on R&D, 3 billion on marketing. Uber don't get the income from the rides without the marketing so I don't get why you get to ignore that when working out if they are profitable or not.

Does marketing and R&D cost grow linearly with number of rides though?

Re: Uber S-1

#197

Post by will_brown »

panarky wrote: post #35
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 -…

> 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

What I don’t understand with the gig economy is why the gig workers organize and cut out the platforms.

Do the drivers need uber/Lyft? Do renters need Airbnb? Let these companies take on VC build the tech platform, launch, verify the market...then fuck them, leave them holding their own bag while the workers ride off in the sunset.

Besides the Founders and VCs, who wouldn’t love to wake up tomorrow morning and read about all the uber drivers organizing, launching their own platform and getting equity?

Re: Uber S-1

#198

Post by soapboxrocket »

antwerpen wrote: post #93
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…

> Uber does have a massive moat -- its network of drivers and riders The network of drivers would be rendered obsolete by SDC

Not necessarily, the capital costs of SDCs means that Uber has time to continue development since their costs for cars is essentially zero.

Re: Uber S-1

#199

Post by lapinot »

gonehome wrote: post #130
jboy55 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always felt SDC is the death of Uber. If you had 5 billion to invest in SDCs for a taxi service, why would you become a small investor in Uber, when you could probably build the app for $10 million and just roll your own? Also uber could become profitable if they charged more. I've actually started taking taxi's again, since they are marginally more expensive than Ubers/Lyfts. However, if you pick them up from an a…

I take Taxis from airports and from hotels for that reason (often faster than waiting for the uber to get through traffic). The exception is SFO where Taxis cost 2x what an UberX costs. The Taxi experience is still bad though - just yesterday in DC I had to listen to my driver 'joke' about why the Taliban should be able to fight for their country while also repeatedly pointing out and talking about women on the stree…

So you prefer being serviced by a machine that records everything you say, do, think, than bearing an interaction with a living human being which may or may not be quite different and interest, question, amuse or revolt you? I must say i don't agree with that, anytime i would prefer a place where people authentically and actually speak their mind and act spontaneously (not considering whether or not i actually think their behavior is stupid, alienated or impolite), instead of being corporate zombies, their soul already exhausted by the system, silent and jaded, having lost faith in any kind of joy in the productive part of life we call "work".

> Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Epictetus

Re: Uber S-1

#200

Post by empath75 »

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 -…

If Uber is a self driving car company that why do I have to pay for a money losing taxi company, too?
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