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Uber S-1

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Re: Uber S-1

#401

Post by rorykoehler »

ManishR wrote: post #355

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…

Startups won't win this. Manufacturers will. They have brand, cars, and soon can license the self driving tech. How hard is it for a billion dollar company to roll out a ride hailing app? Think about where that leaves Uber. They have to buy the cars from said manufacturers. This already gives them a significantly larger cost base and let's face it, while they also have a brand it is no more powerful a draw than Mercedes or Toyota.

Re: Uber S-1

#402

Post by mrnobody_67 »

btmiller wrote: post #217
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is there a valid comparison between Uber and a company like Amazon? Amazon's loss leader strategy paid off and they're doing well now, so can Uber "become profitable whenever they want to" and be fine?

Amazon burned less than $100m... it was funded off of positive cashflow... inventory was shipped and paid for by customers, before Amazon had to pay the vendor. It was/is a marvellously capital efficient business.

Re: Uber S-1

#403

Post by halr9000 »

benburleson wrote: post #398
ManishR wrote: post #355

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…

They can't just raise prices willy-nilly; taxis still exist.

Most people I know hate taxis. Uber can nearly raise prices to parity with cabs.

Re: Uber S-1

#404

Post by tyrust »

SilasX wrote: post #389
tyrust wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Vanguard owns a piece of every listed company I doubt this is true, at least not across their primary stock market index funds. For example, VTSAX only holds about 3500 stocks [0]. I don't know how the fund usually treats new, large IPOs, but I highly doubt that they would just blindly buy it at "any price" EDIT: I just checked the holdings of VTSAX [1] and VGT [2], neither holds Lyft. [0] - https://investor.vanguar…

The link for VTSAX says the portfolio data is current as of 02/28/2019, which was before Lyft's IPO (3/29/19).

Good catch, guess we'll see when they update.

Re: Uber S-1

#405

Post by mrnobody_67 »

aphextron wrote: post #358
jjeaff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>They seem to be near the bottom of the pack when it comes to self driving capability. And yet they are the only company in the world to have shipped a workable level 2 system in mass quantities. Orders of magnitude greater than Cruise or Waymo's fleet size. That puts them miles ahead in terms of data collection, which is the real challenge.

Supposedly adversarial AI networks are solving for the data problem... AI generates the data to train the AI.

Re: Uber S-1

#406

Post by AlexandrB »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #255
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. http://www.rideaustin.com/ was launched in Austin a couple years ago when Uber and Lyft were temporarily kicked out of the city. The app had some growing pains but now I use them whenever I can in preference to Uber and Lyft because they pay their drivers more. If Uber and Lyft suddenly went away Ride could easily pop up all over. Of course, Uber and Lyft right now ARE so big because of all the advantages…

How is that a counterexample when they started when Uber and Lyft couldn't operate? Are there examples of local services that sprouted up and had to compete with Uber and Lyft and got off the ground?

No one can compete with Lyft and Uber because the latter are heavily subsidized - effectively providing $2 of service for $1 of revenue. Once they run out of runway - and the self-driving pipe dream hasn’t yet materialized - we’ll see a real competitive market emerge in the ridesharing industry.

Re: Uber S-1

#407

Post by harrygeez »

yomly wrote: post #382
CydeWeys wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that many people are ordering delivery McDonald's? Maybe McDonald's should start delivery services in some markets itself then?

They have 247 delivery in a lot of Asian markets - and I know first hand for at least more than 10 years in China so it's not like McD HQ don't have the business experience of launching the product...

Yeah I'm from Malaysia and we have McDelivery for as long as I can remember.

Imagine my surprise when I first went to Europe and found out that McDonald's is not 24/7 and doesn't do delivery.

Re: Uber S-1

#408

Post by wskinner »

rorykoehler wrote: post #401
ManishR wrote: post #355

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…

Startups won't win this. Manufacturers will. They have brand, cars, and soon can license the self driving tech. How hard is it for a billion dollar company to roll out a ride hailing app? Think about where that leaves Uber. They have to buy the cars from said manufacturers. This already gives them a significantly larger cost base and let's face it, while they also have a brand it is no more powerful a draw than Merce…

Here's a thought experiment: how hard is it for a billion dollar company to roll out a simple crud app? Easy, right? Now name a single major bank with an app that is better than "barely usable". Which is easier? A crud app or a ride hailing app?

Re: Uber S-1

#409

Post by rorykoehler »

wskinner wrote: post #408
rorykoehler wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups won't win this. Manufacturers will. They have brand, cars, and soon can license the self driving tech. How hard is it for a billion dollar company to roll out a ride hailing app? Think about where that leaves Uber. They have to buy the cars from said manufacturers. This already gives them a significantly larger cost base and let's face it, while they also have a brand it is no more powerful a draw than Merce…

Here's a thought experiment: how hard is it for a billion dollar company to roll out a simple crud app? Easy, right? Now name a single major bank with an app that is better than "barely usable". Which is easier? A crud app or a ride hailing app?

All my banks have good apps on par with the fintech startup apps I use (and actually I trust them more because they aren't moving fast and breaking things).

Re: Uber S-1

#410

Post by xiphias2 »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #391
xiphias2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m curious to know more about ridesharing in South America, specifically the haggle portion. If the credit card was allowed it seems like it would alleviate a decent amount of the issues you named in your post. Why would they disallow credit cards? Is it a cultural problem, infrastructure problem or something else? The other issues you mentioned seem to be tech related in that as companies that offer navigation serv…

I select credit card, but at some places the drivers wait 5-10 minutes, ask where I'm going and write that I should cancel the ride and they bring me for double the cash. At that point I also have to pay for cancelling the ride, and I'm also late, so I have ti accept their offer. They use the Uber messaging system and Uber doesn't catch these drivers (they should just filter for drivers that want users to cancel), although it would be very simple.
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