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Uber Valued at More Than $50B

wsj.com

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Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#32

Post by tdicola »

paulpauper wrote: post #16
DannoHung wrote: post #10

This seems ridiculous.

Looking back since 2008 or so, with the possible exception of groupon, I can't think of a single $5+ billion dollar web 2.0 company that has crashed and burned. A significant number of these web 2.0 companies seem to have defied the ‘crash and burn’ that characterized the first boom. Pets.com and Webvan were pretty much failures from inception, but sites like Pinterest and Airbnb keep getting more successful and more…

Yelp is not doing so well. They were valued at $5B, but since going public it's not been good: http://www.cnet.com/news/yelp-is-in-a-death-spiral-industry-... Their stock dropped 28% this week on poor earnings.

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#33

Post by kin »

Looking at it as it is, this can seem ridiculous. But, considering their domestic and international expansion it really isn't. Uber can pretty much replace cabs worldwide. When Uber has its driver API service fleshed out, you can expect tons of companies to be able to tap into that and essentially get anything delivered beyond Uber Eats.

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#34

Post by Animats »

Uber's revenue numbers are awful. "According to Bloomberg, Uber had revenue of $415 million (we assume net revenue after payments to drivers, not gross revenue) and an operating loss of $470 million." That's for 2014, and it's leaked data. But it's not good. Why are they losing money? They're an app and a server farm, some "driver centers", and an admin staff. It's not like Amazon, with giant warehouses full of expensive inventory. They're already scaled out; the expansion phase is over.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-leaked-financials-look-u...

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#36

Post by mikeyouse »

gdeglin wrote: post #28

Just one year ago, a NYU finance professor calculated Uber's risk-adjusted value to be 5.9 Billion. ( http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/uber-isnt-worth-17-billi... ). I wonder what he would say now...

Aswath literally wrote the book on corporate finance. The valuation was done mainly viewing Uber through the lens of a taxi replacement. I think his caveat at the end explains away the pessimism;

    This framework lends itself easily to other narratives.
    For instance, one of the more optimistic takes says that 
    Uber is in the logistics market, i.e. it’s a player in any 
    business that involves moving people or things from 
    one point to another. That would lead you to define 
    Uber’s market more broadly and come up with a much 
    higher valuation.

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#37

Post by bbali »

msoad wrote: post #7

Didn't somebody do the math and came up with $40B for entire taxi business globally?

Uber is best positioned to usher in self-driving cars. If they are successful at it, their market opportunity is much larger than the Taxi-cab industry.

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#38

Post by untog »

Animats wrote: post #34

Uber's revenue numbers are awful. "According to Bloomberg, Uber had revenue of $415 million (we assume net revenue after payments to drivers, not gross revenue) and an operating loss of $470 million." That's for 2014, and it's leaked data. But it's not good. Why are they losing money? They're an app and a server farm, some "driver centers", and an admin staff. It's not like Amazon, with giant warehouses full of expen…

They're losing money because they are aggressively expanding into new markets.

They're an app and a server farm, some "driver centers", and an admin staff.

And, you know, a lot of cars and drivers. Of course Uber would want to make sure we all remember they are not Uber property and employees, but they still have to spend a lot of money to get them on board.

Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B

#39

Post by cenal »

gdeglin wrote: post #28

Just one year ago, a NYU finance professor calculated Uber's risk-adjusted value to be 5.9 Billion. ( http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/uber-isnt-worth-17-billi... ). I wonder what he would say now...

Based on his way of assessing value Twitter is worthless. It has no profit. I think the real value in Uber is in how it has become so beloved by customers who hated using cabs. I know it's heavily impacted the way I drive. Living in Chicago I hated dealing with cabs, it made more sense to pay a slight premium to drive my own car and park in a garage. Now I can literally jump into an uber and be somewhere in minutes with a better experience and for less than a cab would cost me. That's awesome! That's powerful. That's going to change the entire transportation industry. Cabs are just the beginning.
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