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Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

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Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#81

Post by lm28469 »

vkou wrote: post #45
ProAm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not successful though. WeWork is still valued at 47B technically speaking today. They are a company that only loses money, has a horrid culture and does some morally reprehensible things. Their true value is their logistics software. If they would lease/sell that to other industries they would be rich beyond belief.

What morally reprehensible things are done by WeWork?

Their business is sketchy and their CEO is double sketchy. Type "wework" or "adam neumann" in google and you'll find plenty of sources

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#82

Post by celticninja »

tempsy wrote: post #77
JohnFen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Uber counts as a successful company by SV standards, that's a pretty strong condemnation of SV standards.

It's not a SV company - it's an SF company.

If we assume the meant SF instead of SV, does that negate his point somehow?

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#83

Post by jariel »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

People are dumping Uber with over 79 million shares traded already. Compare that with an average of 10 million traded daily leading up to this. Also weigh this against the fact that Uber had a relatively small float from its IPO compared to the shares coming free now. They had about 200 million shares available on their IPO and 4x that coming off restriction which is a huge ration. They tried their best to boost thei…

I'm not sure this is fair.

Staff are not 'dumping' shares - they are getting some liquidity as all of their 'life savings' are in a single asset, which is not rational for anyone.

Given the magnitude of the new shares available, it's perfectly reasonable to expect a dip at this point.

The 'end of the lock out' I don't think is a hugely material event for understanding the real nature of Uber. Staffers actions are reasonable, given the mechanics of it all, there are no surprises here.

FYI Uber is still holding a very heady valuation.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#84

Post by AJ007 »

sschueller wrote: post #29

How much wealth was redistributed upwards? Who benefited from Uber other than the founders and maybe 1% of the entire business? I find it highly unethical for such a business to be able to ignore so many laws most of which protect the have nots to build a system that moves most of the profits to the haves. Then dump the broken business to IPO for fools to buy up and loose as well.

Riders and drivers who got subsidized rides and income, were probably the largest beneficiaries.

Uber employees, VC partners, on the Silicon Valley side. A lot of other tech workers have benefited from the upward price pressure exerted on developer salaries not just in Silicon Valley but around the world.

Who got screwed, if Uber’s valuation never recovers - late stage investors, companies doing similar things such as in food delivery.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#85

Post by dehrmann »

ProAm wrote: post #15

Is anyone really surprised? Years before the IPO we knew they were not profitable in the least. We knew VC cash was subsidizing rides. We knew that their future was purely dependent on a self-driving car fleet where they could ditch drivers (and their pay) completely. This on top of a horrible culture with pretty lousy ethics and morality. This is how this was supposed to play out and everyone here (on HN) knew that.…

This reads like the usual Uber criticism and doesn't touch on the lockup. The market knew the lockup was ending, so it should have been priced in. Dropping when the lockup ends should mean that markets underestimated how many insiders wanted to cash out, and employee sentiment is worse than market sentiment.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#86

Post by lm28469 »

notfromhere wrote: post #27
safog wrote: post #16

From Q3 results, it sounded like the company was profitable just on ride-sharing itself and was losing a ton of money on eats + cargo + autonomous vehicles R&D. I wonder what a fair valuation would be for just the ride-sharing business if they were to spin off / shut down every other part of their business and essentially become Lyft.

I wonder how much cost offloading was done to make ridesharing look profitable and everything look like a loss. Uber needs a positive narrative of some kind

aka Uber is selling a $5 pizza for $10 and recording $7 as "disruptive tomato sauce" r&d.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#87

Post by chollida1 »

pbreit wrote: post #23
xfour wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's their cash on hand position, I believe I saw that there's 13B, after adding 8B in the IPO, that seems like a ton of cash on hand for a business that isn't showing any signs of turning of profit. Could they not just without any further cash infusion continue to lose similar amounts for the next three years and be cash solvent. Does that then not give a big incentive to figure out how to become profitable in the…

The core business is very profitable. Loss-making is happening in their less mature product categories and expansion efforts.

> The core business is very profitable. Loss-making is happening in their less mature product categories and expansion efforts.

Not really. It is true that in their non GAAP accounting they broker out revenue by segment and showed that "Rides" made a profit of $631M but they also include categories for eats, freight and other bets that lost money.

But the kicker is that they introduced a category called "Corporate G&A and Platform R&D" which lost $621. If you look at this category which includes

> "Corporate G&A also includes certain shared costs such as finance, accounting, tax, human resources, information technology and legal costs. Platform R&D also includes mapping and payment technologies and support and development of the internal technology infrastructure. Our allocation methodology is periodically evaluated and may change."

SO basically they are saying Rids is profitable if you don't need to have a business to run it, ie no lawyers, HR, execs, payment systems, cloud infrastructure or employees to develop code.

TL/DR rids is profitable if you ignore the cost of running the Rides business and only look at the income that it brings in, which is true for any business that has income.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#88

Post by mdorazio »

kposehn wrote: post #43
pbreit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core business is very profitable. Loss-making is happening in their less mature product categories and expansion efforts.

You’re correct. Not sure why you were being downvoted.

Because (s)he is not correct. "Adjusted EBITDA" =/= EBITDA. Uber rides are only profitable if you use their bullshit non-GAAP numbers. If you do the accounting in the proper way they are not profitable.

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#89

Post by safog »

liveoneggs wrote: post #41
safog wrote: post #16

From Q3 results, it sounded like the company was profitable just on ride-sharing itself and was losing a ton of money on eats + cargo + autonomous vehicles R&D. I wonder what a fair valuation would be for just the ride-sharing business if they were to spin off / shut down every other part of their business and essentially become Lyft.

but I think lyft is losing even more money (scaled)

They claim they'll be profitable by 2021.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90420691/lyft-stock-skyrockets-a...

Re: Uber Sinks to New Record Low as IPO Share Lockup Expires

#90

Post by JohnFen »

celticninja wrote: post #82
tempsy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a SV company - it's an SF company.

If we assume the meant SF instead of SV, does that negate his point somehow?

Yes, I meant SF.

I do find it amusing that I was called out on this, though, since in the past I've been called out for not including SF as part of SV.

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