Uber opens at $42 per share • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#251

Post by matthewaveryusa » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

throwaway082729 wrote: post #104

rtempaccount1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling though is that Amazon had a much larger moat to build, with distribution networks, warehouses, logistics etc. With Uber, what's their moat, so that when they raise prices to become profitable users don't just move away? Lyft/local taxi companies/public transport, all have the infrastructure to provide the service that uber provides.

Lyft has to be in business till then. Local taxi companies are more expensive than Uber and inconvenient. Public transport is barely used. Uber is providing a subsidized public service while employing a lot of people. The moat is there but the question is one of diversification and sustenance as a public company. In the coming days, there'll be a massive internal push to reduce costs, diversify and become profitable.…

Oh lyft will be in business until then. How do you think Google is planning on selling their Waymo rides?

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#252

Post by JCharante » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

lbotos wrote: post #196

jdironman wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until drivers can make money by having in-ride advertising screens. (I kid.)

They already can. I've seen this in 2 cities now. One of the reasons why I prefer Uber/Lyft is to _not_ see the cab ads display.

I've been in an Uber in Boston where this was the case. They had a tablet hanging off the front passenger seat that alternated between trivia questions and ads.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#253

Post by paulddraper » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #191

paulddraper wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't ride sharing seem like the way of the future in your opinion?

Who's doing ride sharing? Certainly not Uber

> Uber Technologies Inc. is a transportation network company (TNC) offering services that include peer-to-peer ridesharing, ride service hailing, food delivery, and a bicycle-sharing system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#254

Post by rococode » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

fooker wrote: post #179

almost_usual wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was also profitable and had about 10x the number of users compared to Uber pre IPO https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/ub...

Uber has paying users. Facebook had advertisement targets. Doesn't make too much sense to conflate the two.

I think the sensible conclusion here is that the two companies have such different business models and goals that it doesn't make much sense to compare them at all.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#255

Post by caprese » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #3

Some notes from watching Uber open: - if it closes below $45(its IPO price) it will be the first time since 2008 that the happened for a major IPO - TD Ameritrade executed more orders in the first 10 minutes of trading than they did for the first 2.5 hours with Lyft. - Uber is 9% of all trading at TD Ameritrade, retail loves this stock, - market is down today, which isn't helping Uber but its probably not much of a f…

doesn't matter, made $8,100,000,000 in a day

should really start looking at this from the underwriter and issuer perspective to understand the success story here. Retail buys ticker symbols that have been marketed to them. Everyone else dumps. Company made a ton of money and can do whatever it wants with it, they gain nothing from secondary market trading today. VCs, founders and employees can't sell for another 60-90 days, but founders can give themselves big bonuses (and employees too but I mean.. lets be honest)

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#256

Post by baq » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

fooker wrote: post #179

almost_usual wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was also profitable and had about 10x the number of users compared to Uber pre IPO https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/04/22/ub...

Uber has paying users. Facebook had advertisement targets. Doesn't make too much sense to conflate the two.

wait what?

facebook had paying users AND advertisement targets AND an ability for the paying user to precisely target an ad at the product AND an extremely powerful incentive for the product to not move to competition (product's friend network).

out of the above uber has only paying users - who are ready to jump ship to competition for a penny per mile.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#257

Post by austenallred » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #38

ufmace wrote: post #11

Did I miss something? I thought Uber was still a long way from being profitable and had no plausible plan for how to become profitable.

These days, being profitable is considered harmful. More profits = more taxes. Getting virtual “profits” into stock appreciation and structuring revenues to pay nearly zero tax is the name of the game today, and only big corporations can afford it. It is small and medium businesses that pick the bill.

It’s not about taxes. If you don’t have a way to reinvest your cash that means you’re out of ideas and are unable to grow.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#258

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

synlatexc wrote: post #214

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone joining in the last three years will not have enjoyed any sort of rocket-ship growth Uber was also somewhat unique among unicorns in uniformly blocking its employees from selling shares on the secondary markets.

I believe most companies do not allow this.

> most companies do not allow this

As someone who does work in the space, no, most companies permit transfers. There are mechanisms in place to reasonably limit them, e.g. rights of first refusal and transfer fees. But Uber was unique in the degree to which they restricted transfers.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#259

Post by stokedmartin » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

hunter23 wrote: post #184

chinesegoldfarm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but when you buy a share, you are part of only the 8B thats being raised with the other 180 million shares, or do you have a small part of the whole 80~b valuation?

There are 80 billion dollars worth of shares that exist. However only 8 billion of those shares were released for the public markets. The remaining 72 billion dollars worth of shares are held outside of the public markets (insiders, vcs, the company itself, etc.)

Till such time those 72b shares do not become public, are these technically still referred to as options? Also, for ex-uber employees who still own shares, how does one restrict them to not sell those in the public market assuming they are part of the 72b or will they only be part of the 8b?

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#260

Post by marnett » Fri, May 10, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #232

marnett wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon in 2016 was $502 a share, it is $1900 now Microsoft in 2016 was $51, $127 now Facebook was $97, $189 now We're not even talking about rocket-ship growth here. We are talking about option strike prices losing money in one of the most favorable economic time periods where massive, healthy public business did have monstrous growth. I would have at least expected price parity with other large companies - even that…

That can be a tricky comparison to make over time, due to share splits and merges. Apple has split 4 times, for example. Taking these numbers at face value, I can't know if they account for it.

Within the timeframe I listed [2016-2018] none of the companies I listed performed a stock split. Neither did Apple. Apple's most recent stock split was 2014.