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Uber S-1

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Re: Uber S-1

#451

Post by rorykoehler »

bo1024 wrote: post #427
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…

> soon can license the self driving tech My personal guess is that "soon" for fully autonomous cars is not any reasonable definition of soon. Even if you accept the tech is close to okay in Arizona (I wouldn't), think about the weather and driving conditions in most of the worlds' markets for these global companies.

50% of the worlds population live in cities. Car ownership is more expensive and has less utility in cities too. I'm also certain that we will start retrofitting AV enabling tech into our city streets soon to speed up the process. AV's will be "good enough" for many use cases very soon.

Re: Uber S-1

#452

Post by lsc »

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…

so, as long as investors have appetite to lose money to buy market share? you are, of course, right.

But the business cycle goes up, and the business cycle goes down. (I mean, the general trend is upwards, but if you don't think there will be big downturns inbetween, well...)

The problem is that yes, uber and lyft have dominance for as long as they are willing to run the business for less money than anyone else; This puts a pretty hard cap on how profitable they can be.

(I mean, for an example of a competitor who might be willing to do it for very little over break-even, I've talked with several people who would be interested in setting up a competitor that was operated as a driver's cooperative. I mean, even that isn't workable when uber and lift are losing money, but it would work at profit levels that uber and lyft would consider break-even; such a cooperative could work really well as a break-even business, while investors in both uber and lyft would be super disappointed with a break-even business)

Compounding this, the ridesharing space is one that is massively price sensitive. Uber and lyft are so cheap that I've gotten rid of my car, and I use them all the time.

But if they raise their rates significantly? I'm gonna go buy a honda and drive myself; They get to duke it out for driving me around when I'm drunk, but we're talking less than 5% of my rides.

I suspect I'm not super unusual in this regard.

Re: Uber S-1

#453

Post by hhs »

sfifs wrote: post #400
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…

> no VC will fund their rapid growth (small offerings will still find a niche, assuming they don't get gobbled up And yet Grab and Didi drove Uber out of South East Asia and China, Ola is giving Uber a run for its money in India and now GoJek in turn is challenging Grab. In my recent trip to Tokyo we were mostly advised to take regular cabs Vs Uber in contrast to a year ago. That's literally half the world where they…

Useful points with Grab and Go-Jek. There's a neat backstory to the founders. They used to be classmates and good friends. Last month's Fortune article offered some context - if interested, it's here: http://fortune.com/longform/grab-gojek-super-apps/.

Re: Uber S-1

#454

Post by gigatexal »

inverse_pi wrote: post #91
gigatexal wrote: post #19

What’s there to see? What’s their value add? They’re not going to be profitable until driverless cars are a legit thing or they pivot into something with higher margins. This IPO will make incumbent banks a cool mint and early engineers paper millionaires but will hopefully blow up and let capital into companies that actually have a chance of staying solvent without successive massive influxes of cash.

> and early engineers paper millionaires actual millionaires not paper millionaires :). > but will hopefully blow up why do you wish others to fail so bad?

Uber is a cancer that has been amassing and burning that investment. Who knows? Lots of smart people at Uber maybe they can figure out how to turn a profit but I maintain that won’t happen until human drivers are not part of the equation or they pivot to something entirely different.

Re: Uber S-1

#455

Post by SRTP »

sfifs wrote: post #400
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…

> no VC will fund their rapid growth (small offerings will still find a niche, assuming they don't get gobbled up And yet Grab and Didi drove Uber out of South East Asia and China, Ola is giving Uber a run for its money in India and now GoJek in turn is challenging Grab. In my recent trip to Tokyo we were mostly advised to take regular cabs Vs Uber in contrast to a year ago. That's literally half the world where they…

Go-Jek is not challenging Grab.

They have a deeply inferior product, fail to catch up to Grab's breakneck innovation pace.

Also, being an Indonesian company, Go-Jek has a disorganized company culture that is not conducive to competing with a lean, well-oiled machine run by Singaporeans like Grab.

Re: Uber S-1

#456

Post by hellllllllooo »

lobotryas wrote: post #381
yalogin wrote: post #103

Feels more like Uber and Lyft reached a point where they cannot raise private capital anymore and so jumped onto the public markets to fool random investors. If they cannot be profitable now, what makes them think they will be profitable with SDCs? I challenge the fundamental premise that SDCs will make them profitable. There is no stickiness to their business model. Moving on to another ride sharing service is frict…

Are you kidding? True AVs will make Uber/Luft even MORE profitable because they won’t have to pay out or worry about human drivers. AVs are the end game for these companies.

True AV are not possible right now nor for the foreseeable future. The technology has plateaued progress has slowed after the first rounds of demo technology showcases by all the big players. New research breakthroughs are needed and more robust and cheaper sensors. Throwing more money/people at the problem doesn't solve this and betting on AVs to make Uber profitable is a very long bet.

Re: Uber S-1

#457

Post by jrmcauliffe »

cavisne wrote: post #444
sfifs wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no VC will fund their rapid growth (small offerings will still find a niche, assuming they don't get gobbled up And yet Grab and Didi drove Uber out of South East Asia and China, Ola is giving Uber a run for its money in India and now GoJek in turn is challenging Grab. In my recent trip to Tokyo we were mostly advised to take regular cabs Vs Uber in contrast to a year ago. That's literally half the world where they…

They did not get "out competed" in china, a country where competition has nothing to do with success. Likewise in Russia. Grab is the only company to out compete Uber so far.

Sure, if you want to define competition as the market you come from, rather than the market you're in.

Re: Uber S-1

#458

Post by hellllllllooo »

gigatexal wrote: post #454
inverse_pi wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and early engineers paper millionaires actual millionaires not paper millionaires :). > but will hopefully blow up why do you wish others to fail so bad?

Uber is a cancer that has been amassing and burning that investment. Who knows? Lots of smart people at Uber maybe they can figure out how to turn a profit but I maintain that won’t happen until human drivers are not part of the equation or they pivot to something entirely different.

That's a long way away. The self driving technology has plateaued after the initial controlled tech demos and isn't looking likely to be useful in the general way that Uber needs any time soon. Maybe they can get it working in some very favourable routes but not enough to balance the books. Some really hard problems still exist with algos and sensors and the costs will be high for a long time. If the bet is on autonomous vehicles it's a very long bet.

Re: Uber S-1

#459

Post by semi-extrinsic »

bo1024 wrote: post #427
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…

> soon can license the self driving tech My personal guess is that "soon" for fully autonomous cars is not any reasonable definition of soon. Even if you accept the tech is close to okay in Arizona (I wouldn't), think about the weather and driving conditions in most of the worlds' markets for these global companies.

I agree. The other day I was driving and thinking about this, and I started noticing "how many times during this drive have I looked another human (driver or pedestrian) in the eyes in order to determine their intentions?" It was a significant number even in a 15 minute drive.

I was still thinking about it during my bike ride later in the day, and I noticed that more than a dozen times I exchanged looks and nods with drivers to ensure they had seen me and that it was safe to do something.

No self driving car is able to look a human in the eyes and determine their likely course of action. And it most certainly won't be able to signal to the human a message as complex as "I have understood your intentions".

Re: Uber S-1

#460

Post by djakjxnanjak »

lsc wrote: post #452
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…

so, as long as investors have appetite to lose money to buy market share? you are, of course, right. But the business cycle goes up, and the business cycle goes down. (I mean, the general trend is upwards, but if you don't think there will be big downturns inbetween, well...) The problem is that yes, uber and lyft have dominance for as long as they are willing to run the business for less money than anyone else; This…

I’m skeptical about a non-profit service competing with Uber and Lyft. It would take a lot of money-losing ride subsidies to get the substantial market share required to get the necessary network effects.
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