Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#471

Post by speedplane » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:30 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #298

Udik wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask something that will sound incredibly naive? How complicated needs to be an IT infrastructure that lets you book a taxi via an app and pay the driver? Is it really something to throw billions at each year? Sometimes I feel these companies are throwing billions in IT simply because they're expected to be disruptive technology companies, and not for real technical reasons.

Uber as a product is very technologically complex, mainly because of the scale it operates at. You can read about some of their tech at https://eng.uber.com .

> Uber as a product is very technologically complex, mainly because of the scale it operates at.

Also because when Uber was young, it was not motivated to seek profits or consider expenses, it was just growth at any cost. Once that work culture is established, it can be hard to shake.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#472

Post by badestrand » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:39 AM UTC

kcanini wrote: post #448

matchbok wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would gladly pay a bit more to not have to deal with the annoyance of owning a vehicle. Parking in most cities is pain. Driving to restaurants or bars is a no-go with your own vehicle. The flexibility you lose with having to own a car is simply not worth it.

Counterpoint: I think most people would gladly pay a bit more to not have to deal with the annoyance of only being able to use strangers' cars, of variable cleanliness, only after waiting several minutes for them to show up, and not being able to store anything in them during multi-stop trips.

In Germany a few big car companies start with an interesting middle ground, a "car as a service" where you pay monthly, can always switch to a different one or give it back for some time, they also handle repairs, tire changes and everything else that might pop up.

It's quite affordable starting at ~$350/mo, so I am curious to see how people will accept it.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#473

Post by cloud226 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:45 AM UTC

I wonder how many people know this high loss mainly comes from IPO costs and compensations which is almost 4 billion. So stop analyze something you don’t understand lol

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#474

Post by dougmwne » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #428

dougmwne wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Edmunds' True Cost to Own calculator, A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. If you don't get free parking at work or home or if you have to pay tolls, that cost could increase significantly. A parking spot at a condo could rent for $200-$400/Mo. Parking downtown could be $12-$20 per day. That daily Uber ride sounds like a deal.

>A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. You can see my numbers here for my Civic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20650989 Mine was 8 years old when I bought it, but with low miles (about 60K). So I paid a bit of a premium - almost as much as the 2014 Civic on that page. I kept it till it was at 144K miles. Effective cost to own was under $300/mo. Comparing the 2014 numbers with mine: Insura…

One reason they include financing cost in the TCO calculator, even thought it's possible to buy a car in cash is due to the time value of money. Cars do not earn a rate of return, so any money you have in a car instead of investments is sitting idle. You subtracted your sale price from your purchase price, but that only counts the depreciation, not the opportunity cost.

For example, let's say you bought your car for 10k, then sold it 7.1 years later for 9k. You have 1k of depreciation. You also have $6,300 at 7%(a typical target rate) in lost income from not keeping that money in a productive asset for those years.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#475

Post by samfisher83 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:54 AM UTC

cloud226 wrote: post #473

I wonder how many people know this high loss mainly comes from IPO costs and compensations which is almost 4 billion. So stop analyze something you don’t understand lol

Even if you remove Stock compensation their net income and FCF is negative. Their driver compensation is already poor. With governments starting to crackdown on driver they need to reduce costs.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#476

Post by mav3rick » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

rainyMammoth wrote: post #8

Uber and lyft are both on the way down. The price at which they need to operate to be profitable is not a price that most americans are ready to pay. As simple as that. For now they delay this reality by subsidizing rides in order to generate business. In some cities like San Francisco, most incentives were removed and among my friends we all stopped using Uber (unless we really have to). It simply became way too exp…

Most cities in the US have terrible public transport. Also, people like to Uber back after a night out.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#477

Post by AdrianB1 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #470

AdrianB1 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you want to have a huge and complex system. If you have small and localized ones, it should be very cheap.

Apply for a job at Uber proposing a cut in engineering expenses with your plan and become instantly rich.

And never get hired because the people doing interviews have to protect their jobs :)

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#478

Post by Decathect » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

xster wrote: post #321

Decathect wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is accruing to people with power and capital. The people who produce automations are laborers like the rest of society, just with a temporarily elevated standard of living. As writing software is deskilled and supplanted, it'll be increasingly apparent that we were just a midterm necessary evil to the people signing our paychecks. To me, the central problem is wealth disparity as a proxy for power disparity: o…

Right (and slightly orthogonal, back to the mode of production topic), I think we can treat it in 2 ways: 1- We recognize this Bonds villain plan, we stop it and go back to our happy pastural life and everyone lives happily ever after; or 2- We grant ourselves this new productivity as a reward that frees us from labor (but in the process have to answer the hard question of how to deal with going from solving the conf…

First, I don't think the rich are cartoonishly evil, Machiavellian, or even particularly interesting. It doesn't take superhuman skill or sociopathy to live off other people's labor. They're just trapped in a game they can't help but win and are by definition incapable of walking away from.

Second, the idea that there is a 'we' encompassing the 1% and 99% or some future and even more fractional segmentation is unrealistic. There's already been millennia of slavery and serfdom: let's not repeat them by trusting that our seat at the table is somehow ordained and not the result of centuries of people fighting from chattel to power on our behalf.

If we can't achieve even the most basic, obvious reforms (a universal healthcare system, a livable wage, an end to global warming in our lifetimes) given the current power structure, then contributing to the further entrenchment of the wealthy isn't just counterproductive, it's suicidal.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#479

Post by tim333 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

apta wrote: post #320

dcchambers wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was never about the cost. It was about the ability to easily/instantly schedule a ride without having to call a phone number and wait for a ride which was notoriously unreliable, and not having to deal with cash or the classic line "my credit card machine doesn't work." Virtually all of the cab companies still around now have mobile apps and many of them have all the features…

Question is, which cab app are you going to download, especially when you're traveling? If you use Uber/Lyft (especially the former), you're practically guaranteed that you'll be able to use it at your destination.

I'd google "cab app in country ". Some places it's not Uber. Vietnam it's Grab, Germany I think you have to use a regular cab.

Re: Uber Posts $5.2B Loss and Slowest Ever Growth Rate

#480

Post by tim333 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

blackflame7000 wrote: post #101

It seems unfathomable the rate at which some of these companies lose money. When I think of asking an investor for money, I imagine having a to put together a pretty foolproof plan of action to get a return. How do companies like Uber, Tesla, or even Amazon early on convince investors to lose money year after year? Investors have never struck me as the patient type.

The theory is Uber / Tesla / Amazon will turn into global near monopolies and be worth loads of money down the line. Which kind of happened with Amazon. Most investors invest over a life time. They just don't trust startup idea X will turn into Microsoft which is why they are looking for a good plan to get a payback.