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Uber S-1

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361–370 of 559 posts

Re: Uber S-1

#361
Does anyone know how soon after an S-1 filing a company can issue their IPO? Is it basically up to them once they've filed or is there some vetting period at the SEC?

Will they be doing a road show next or is this something that they would have already done prior to the filing?

Re: Uber S-1

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion is when the parties coordinate on the price increases. If they both increase prices independently to achieve profitability, then I don't believe that to be illegal.

Even if they didn't collude, they'd be under suspicion of it. Depending on how DOJ wind blows, that could be a big and expensive distraction.

No. That's not how price collusion works. If Delta airlines started charging for 2nd baggage, and after their announcement United/American/Southwest follow suit, that's not a price collusion if it wasn't predetermined secretly through implicit and explicit signaling among the airlines. The other airlines had option of either increasing their margins by adding new fee, or keeping 2nd bag free and hoping to make more money with increased volume (profit = unit margin volume). They are free to choose former or latter in our capitalistic setup. If there aren't any easily available substitutes, and you don't expect some new entrant to come and distrupt you, first option becomes much more lucrative. Especially if you have negative unit margins, since with second option - negative marginshigher volumes = lots of losses

Re: Uber S-1

#363

I 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.

Now there is a well-defined valuation at which Uber can just outright purchase Lyft. $20B and going down.

Re: Uber S-1

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder about this too. What if I, as an index fund holder do not want the fund to buy up junk like lyft and uber?

The purpose of an index fund is to buy the entire market, under the assumption that an active fund will not outperform the market (after costs). If you want to avoid certain companies, you should buy an actively managed fund.

There are different types of index funds. There are market capitalization weighted index funds that fit your description of buying the entire market, but there are also small cap funds, sector funds, value funds, etc. You can avoid certain companies (e.g. FAANG stocks) by buying certain indexes (e.g. a value index).

Re: Uber S-1

#365

People here seem to think that Uber/Lyft do not have any competitive moat. I disagree. What we seem to forget is that just because a VC can burn boatloads of money to capture ridesharing market from Uber/Lyft doesn't mean that they would. From a game theoretic POV, Uber and Lyft have signaled that they're ready to fight for survival in markets they are established in. Unless as a startup founder you can demonstrate t…

What's SDC? I got nothing obvious from googling it.

UPDATE: Got it, self driving cars. I am not deleting the comment in case others were confused as well.

Re: Uber S-1

#366
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees saw their share price go from $44 in June (private markets) to a range of $62-68 during the road show last month to an IPO at $72, to close today at $61. Again, in less than a year, rose from $44 to $61 with a brief uptick to $72 in the middle. How is that plummeting?

Loss aversion tells us that gains and losses have different emotional impact. In particular, perceived losses supposedly have a strong negative impact on people. [1] If Lyft employees value their shares at the IPO price, they might be feeling a loss all the way from 72 to 61. [1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137544254_13

You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. It’s a net positive. Positive is good.

Re: Uber S-1

#367
post #365

People here seem to think that Uber/Lyft do not have any competitive moat. I disagree. What we seem to forget is that just because a VC can burn boatloads of money to capture ridesharing market from Uber/Lyft doesn't mean that they would. From a game theoretic POV, Uber and Lyft have signaled that they're ready to fight for survival in markets they are established in. Unless as a startup founder you can demonstrate t…

What's SDC? I got nothing obvious from googling it. UPDATE: Got it, self driving cars. I am not deleting the comment in case others were confused as well.

Self driving cars

Re: Uber S-1

#368
post #365

People here seem to think that Uber/Lyft do not have any competitive moat. I disagree. What we seem to forget is that just because a VC can burn boatloads of money to capture ridesharing market from Uber/Lyft doesn't mean that they would. From a game theoretic POV, Uber and Lyft have signaled that they're ready to fight for survival in markets they are established in. Unless as a startup founder you can demonstrate t…

What's SDC? I got nothing obvious from googling it. UPDATE: Got it, self driving cars. I am not deleting the comment in case others were confused as well.

use contextual clues ... Self Driving Car

Re: Uber S-1

#369
post #365

People here seem to think that Uber/Lyft do not have any competitive moat. I disagree. What we seem to forget is that just because a VC can burn boatloads of money to capture ridesharing market from Uber/Lyft doesn't mean that they would. From a game theoretic POV, Uber and Lyft have signaled that they're ready to fight for survival in markets they are established in. Unless as a startup founder you can demonstrate t…

What's SDC? I got nothing obvious from googling it. UPDATE: Got it, self driving cars. I am not deleting the comment in case others were confused as well.

Most people in the industry use 'AV', or Autonomous Vehicle.

Re: Uber S-1

#370
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In VC parlance, a "moat" means something much more than just needing money to enter the market, but an insurmountable barrier even with a lot of money.

The network effects are the moat, and it would take a lot of money to disrupt that. Any given market can't sustain more than a 2 or 3 rideshare services because splitting the network makes it too sparse for drivers and riders to match within a few seconds or minutes. Uber has the #1 or #2 spot in virtually every market. That's an economic moat if I ever saw one. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp

A moat has nothing to do with the venture’s current rank, and network effects (as above) are much weaker, what with drivers able to drive for multiple services, the ability to start a service in niche markets (eg wingz and airport rides), and the ability of customers to get a new app and probe multiple wait lists. Austin was able to sustain an extremely fragmented market when Uber left.

I hope your read that link, which concurs that being number 1 by a large margin is not itself a moat. A patent on the key technology is a moat. The unwillingness of everyone to switch is a moat. “They’re number 1” is not a moat.

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