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Uber S-1

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261–270 of 559 posts

Re: Uber S-1

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - Facebook has a network effect/moat because a new service that's better in every way is useless if your friends aren't on it. Getting the network to migrate is hard and when this does happen FB is quick to buy the threat (Instagram, WhatsApp) or compete and kill them (Snap). Nobody holds an allegiance to Lyft or Uber - they pick whichever is currently a better deal for both driving and riding. Uber's recent l…

Quick note that Facebook, unfortunately, has no real competitor for the sheer number of things it does. As soon as one comes out built for non-technical users the way Facebook is - and hopefully is a nonprofit - I’ll go running to it and encourage my friends, too.

> non-technical users

what did you mean?

Re: Uber S-1

#262

So... Let me see if I have this straight: 1. Uber is unprofitable and the only way it can become profitable is to get SDC's 2. Uber is significantly (years) behind Waymo in the SDC space. 3. Waymo will launch SDC taxi services first meaning: - When it puts in an order for SDC components no one else is going to be buying in bulk and thus it can have effectively 100% of capacity of these specialized equipment makers -…

it's a very strong brand, as much as it gets a lot of hate here for the last two years of scandals, especially in developing markets noone cares about that. With right change of management and slow but steady rate raise it can be profitable.

Re: Uber S-1

#263
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't imagine how Uber is worth anything If the operation doesn't make an economic profit, and if there isn't sufficient moat to defend the operation until it can become profitable, then I agree with you it's not worth anything. But in fact, Uber does have a massive moat -- its network of drivers and riders in thousands of cities around the world. No competitor is even close. It takes tremendous capital expenditure…

>It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network What I don’t understand with the gig economy is why the gig workers organize and cut out the platforms. Do the drivers need uber/Lyft? Do renters need Airbnb? Let these companies take on VC build the tech platform, launch, verify the market...then fuck them, leave them holding their own bag while the workers ride off in the sunset. Besides the Founders an…

I think it would make more sense for them to unionize, rather than recreate the entire platform from scratch.l

Re: Uber S-1

#264
post #2

As always, the most interesting place to start is "Risks to our business": https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000119312519...

"Our business would be adversely affected if Drivers were classified as employees instead of independent contractors." They're upfront about it at the least.

Just like the WWE’s designation of their employees as contractors. SDC could make the point moot , but this is a salient workers rights issue that politicians have not picked up on.

Re: Uber S-1

#265
"We generated 15% of our Ridesharing Gross Bookings from trips that either started or were completed at an airport"

This just highlights the need for better public transportation from cities to their airports.

Re: Uber S-1

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is going to be competing with other taxi/ride share services with all the cost advantages of SDC vehicles while its competitors are paying human drivers (and have basically no fat to cut from their current pricing) It's going to be a very long time before self-driving cars are cheaper than cheap cars with human drivers. It's very possible that Uber might reach an acceptable level of self-driving capabilities befor…

Huh? How much does a full time driver earn? Let's say $30000 for the sake of argument. A car that is run as a taxi or rideshare service full time will last maybe three years. So that eould mean $90000 for the driver plus around $40000 for a decent car. A mass produced self driving taxi car that costs more than $130000 seems very unlikely.

If you want to make up unrealistic numbers, sure, then unrealistically a self-driving car is cheaper.

But with a self-driving car, operational costs like registration, maintenance, fuel/charging, and insurance, would all have to come out of Waymo's pockets instead of the driver's $30,000k. If the car is being driven 24/7, then maintenance costs will be much higher because of the increased wear and tear, and insurance for self-driving cars will be magnitudes higher than it is for human (commercial) drivers. Plus, there's the maintenance costs for the self-driving tech (LIDARs, software systems, etc.) The insurance alone would likely wipe out savings from eliminating human drivers, and the combined maintenance+insurance costs definitely will for the foreseeable future.

The average Uber drives a $30k-40k car (assuming it was purchased new). So you're looking at a $100k difference in costs in acquiring the car (using your $130k price). If the SDCs only last 3 years, that means you only have 3 years to make up the $100k difference, so each SDC would have to make $33k/year more than the comparable human-driven Uber car competitor to break even (since operational costs per car will cost the same or more as paying a human drive would have). $33k/year is roughly 3000+ additional rides/year assuming $10/ride average cost. Assuming 10 rides a day based on media reports, that would require Waymo to at least double the rides each vehicle does every day. And Waymo can't just increase the price on its SDC rides, since if it makes them much more than $10/ride, people will just drive cause it's much cheaper and faster, even including gas and parking.

And remember: in all of the numbers above, Waymo is bringing the costs in-house, except for the vehicles themselves, so there's no markup. Retail costs for similarly specced SDCs cars would be much higher because each respective vendors will want their profits.

So yeah, while I don't believe Uber will achieve self-driving, I think that it's going to be a long time before self-driving cars are cheaper than human-driven cars once all costs are taken into account.

Re: Uber S-1

#268
post #225

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…

Aren't most index funds, almost by definition, required to buy their shares? If Vanguard owns a piece of every listed company, they're going to buy Uber at pretty much any price, right?

>Vanguard owns a piece of every listed company

I doubt this is true, at least not across their primary stock market index funds. For example, VTSAX only holds about 3500 stocks [0].

I don't know how the fund usually treats new, large IPOs, but I highly doubt that they would just blindly buy it at "any price"

EDIT: I just checked the holdings of VTSAX [1] and VGT [2], neither holds Lyft.

[0] - https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/portfolio...

[1] - https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/overview/...

[2] - https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/portfolio/VGT/port...

Re: Uber S-1

#269
post #28

Note: - Expected to be teh largest IPO this year in the US. - 10th largest all time - trying to raise around $10B - 2018 Year Ended Revenue $11.27 billion - 2018 Year Ended Net Income $997 million - 2017 Year End lost $4.03 billion. - 10 billion trips in September 2018, up from 5 billion in September 2017 - Gross Bookings From Ridesharing $41.5 billion in 2018 - Revenue From Ridesharing Products $9.2 Billion in 2018…

> Adjusted EBITDA was $(1.8) billion in 2018 and $(2.6) billion in 2017

from what? investing unused VC money they expect to burn in the near future?
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