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Uber opens at $42 per share

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Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#331

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

asdff wrote: post #215
atemerev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Uber isn't rolling profit back into the company like Amazon or others do, they are literally loosing money on every ride. There's no profit to hide from the taxman.

Right. Amazon is and has been accumulating a massive vertically-integrated empire of physical infrastructure they actually own or lease.

Uber is accumulating… uh. Microservices? Negative goodwill?

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#332

Post by acchow »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #329
busymom0 wrote: post #304

There's way too many comments in this thread comparing Uber's non-profitability to Amazon's which I think is quite silly. Amazon lost $2.8 billion over its first 17 quarters while Uber lost $4.5 billion in 2017 alone. Also comparing Uber to Facebook is quite silly too. Facebook had a lot more users than Uber but they are also different types of users. One is a free user with hope for targeted advertisement (in which…

Does Uber even want to encourage people to take more rides if each single one is at a loss? It's hard to envision the strategy going forward.

Yes, they want to eat up the whole market until all the competitors die. Then they can raise prices.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#333

Post by bduerst »

fooker wrote: post #281
rococode wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Precisely my point. Advertising is a high margin industry with poorly understood issues. Logistics is a low margin winner-takes-all industry which is fairly well understood.

Agreed, though I don't think any rideshare company currently is poised to be the winner of their markets, or at least the profitable ones.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#334

Post by Retric »

chollida1 wrote: post #230
Retric wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is currently well below it’s IPO price. Historically, that’s not uncommon.

> Uber is currently well below it’s IPO price. Historically, that’s not uncommon. The claim was that Uber might be the first major IPO to close below its IPO price that day. If its not that uncommon then please show me the other major IPO's that traded below their IPO price on the day they went public. I'll wait :)

Off the top of my head.

Alstom and CIT Group where both top 20 IPO’s of all time and they fell opening day. Several others where up and down at various points in the day. Which is more my point, being down at some point on opening day is fairly common.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#335

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

acchow wrote: post #332
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Uber even want to encourage people to take more rides if each single one is at a loss? It's hard to envision the strategy going forward.

Yes, they want to eat up the whole market until all the competitors die. Then they can raise prices.

With that strategy, Uber might run out of cash before the competition is crushed.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#336

Post by Retric »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #209
Retric wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is currently well below it’s IPO price. Historically, that’s not uncommon.

> Historically, that’s not uncommon. Really? I was under the impression that closing below your IPO price is quite rare indeed. Do you have other data? Edit: actually, just saw a NYTimes article with info that it is indeed rare: Since 2000, only 18 companies valued at more than $1 billion and listing on American exchanges have opened below their I.P.O. price. On average, tech stocks have jumped — or “popped,” in Wall…

I would call 18 common, relative to the number of recent IPO’s over 1 Billion dollars. It’s definitely not the majority, but it’s common enough to make leverage extremely risky.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#337

Post by ethbro »

throwaway082729 wrote: post #295
fooker wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Am I the only one that feels that Uber has a ton of valuable location data? Aren't rides to a particular location similar to FourSquare checkins? "How many customers are likely to come to your restaurant every Saturday night? How has that changed over time?"

Is that really monetizable?

I feel like Uber's biggest revenue generator would be putting a small smartboard in front of passengers and selling targeted ads.

Data isn't valuable. Using that data to create a product that people will pay for is (e.g. showing an ad to someone en route to the restaurants across the street).

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#338

Post by shmageggy »

busymom0 wrote: post #302
cubano wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is totally banking on driverless cars to lower to cost per mile to near nothing.

I agree that Uber is betting on driverless cars to lower the cost per mile. But I think Tesla will beat them to market much much before them considering Tesla already has the tech. Elon even hinted on the Tesla taxi fleet in the next couple years. Now I realize Elon's got poor judgement on timing but I still think they will be able to achieve that much earlier than Uber. And if they do, I honestly don't see Uber surv…

There's no evidence that Tesla has any distance on Uber, other than Elon's word which means jack. Waymo is thought to be the leader in this space.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#339

Post by swypych »

MAGZine wrote: post #222
intuitionist wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re joining a $60 billion company with thousands of employees expecting rocket-ship growth, that’s kind of on you, I think. You wouldn’t expect that from a public company; why would you from a similarly sized company that just happens to be pre-IPO?

How much has Google grown in the last three years? Or Facebook? Or Netflix? Or Atlassian? Uber not growing in value in three years, in the hottest economy, is a disaster

I suspect you mean stock price growth only, I think the hype of Uber is now catching up with them.

Uber most definitely grew over the last three years.

Re: Uber opens at $42 per share

#340

Post by freddie_mercury »

thatoneuser wrote: post #174
criddell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why so many people were/are so bullish on Uber. I understand that ride hailing is a big deal, but it doesn't feel like it's that hard to launch a new ride hailing company. I'm basing that opinion on what I've seen in my city. When Uber and Lyft left Austin, there were lots of alternatives that had existed or popped up to fill the space. Aside from brand recognition, what does Uber have that the…

Brand recognition is huge. It's easy on HN to abstract this away as a simple scheme, but your customers are entrusting their lives. Lyft and uber initially had to pay out of pocket hourly wages to get drivers on board. Yes you can pretty much have insurance a car and a simple app and recreate the service but there's much more in it for anyone but big players. And why would they try jumping in at this point?

I don't think brand recognition is huge. In my city I've seen people jump from Uber to Grab to GoJek in the space of 3 years as each new entrant slashes to win market share. No one has had any trouble switching.
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