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Uber S-1

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Re: Uber S-1

#321

Post by haditab »

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #306

My observations 1. Humans aren't gonna trust SDCs easily. The way I look at it, SDCs would be used only to transport freight for a few years before people can trust it enough for ride sharing. I personally believe that companies should focus on self-driving trucking rather than self-driving cars and pivot into ride sharing after a few years of successful freight transport. People would trust the leader in the self-dr…

> I personally believe that companies should focus on self-driving trucking rather than self-driving cars and pivot into ride sharing after a few years of successful freight transport.

Really? I work in the SDC industry and I have the opposite opinion. Unless the self-driving trucks are all driving on dedicated roads (which won't happen) I would not want to share the road with them while they 'experiment'. IMO, the greatest threat is not to the occupants of the SDC but to the other vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

Re: Uber S-1

#322

Post by aliston »

acchow wrote: post #279
dman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about morale at Lyft. You have employees locked in who cant sell for first couple of months. They are seeing their networth plummet everyday.

Employees saw their share price go from $44 in June (private markets) to a range of $62-68 during the road show last month to an IPO at $72, to close today at $61. Again, in less than a year, rose from $44 to $61 with a brief uptick to $72 in the middle. How is that plummeting?

They are going to get hammered on taxes, though. The IPO price sets the income they are taxed on while the price in 6 months determines what they actually take home. The result is that if you’re in California and the stock price falls to 30ish, you effectively take home nothing.

Re: Uber S-1

#323

Post by ithinkinstereo »

btmiller wrote: post #217
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…

Is there a valid comparison between Uber and a company like Amazon? Amazon's loss leader strategy paid off and they're doing well now, so can Uber "become profitable whenever they want to" and be fine?

Amazon was CF positive and invested it's cash heavily in capital assets (warehouse, etc.). Uber invested (burned) its money on subsidies. Not really a comparable.

Re: Uber S-1

#324

Post by panarky »

yashap wrote: post #216
partingshots wrote: post #18

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 -…

Let’s say Waymo get to legit, truly market ready SDC taxi tech 3 years before Uber, and they start expanding into Uber’s markets at lower prices. This is bad for Uber, but hardly the end of their business. People won’t immediately trust SDCs, so Uber will lose market share only gradually even if their prices are higher. Plus Waymo have to scale up massively to significantly compete with Uber - that’ll take time. If W…

The conventional wisdom is that self-driving cars will be much cheaper than rideshare, and the only question is when they'll reach level-5 autonomy.

But what if they're not actually significantly cheaper?

Let's say an Uber driver who works 60 hours gets paid $1,200 gross, or $20 per hour. Could the self-driving car drive the same trips with $1,200 lower cost?

Not a chance. Because the $1,200 paid to the Uber driver isn't just for the driver's time, it's also for the reduced resale value of the car, and for fuel, and tires, and repairs.

And those costs for the self-driving car will be much higher because the self-driving vehicle will be newer, and larger, and loaded with expensive computers and lidar.

The self-driving car will also require 24/7 realtime monitoring, and customer support, and a depot staffed with technicians, and a field service team.

The IRS rate for deducting business use of a vehicle is $0.58 per mile, not including the driver's time. I'd bet the cost of an autonomous car will be well north of that.

Re: Uber S-1

#325

Post by zepearl »

jboy55 wrote: post #295
zepearl wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always felt SDC is the death of Uber. But aren't SDCs currently something veeery remote (e.g. even Tesla cannot currently drive autonomously even on technically "simple streets" like highways) and especially only as long as no active offensive social behaviours start to emerge (e.g. gang menbers standing in the middle of the street to stop a SDC to rob/kidnap the occupant and/or destroy the car etc...)?

I agree its very far away, except for interstate driving. I can see an SDC-only lane, with a faster top speed. Residential, taxi-cab driving is so far away. Hey, if I step in front of this car, I don't get to sue a fairly poor driver, I get to sue a mega-corp for a tonne of money cause the algorithm should have stopped.

> Hey, if I step in front of this car, I don't get to sue a fairly poor driver, I get to sue a mega-corp for a tonne of money cause the algorithm should have stopped

Haha, that's an interesting grey zone I didn't think about (I'm swiss and usually non-direct/non-physical damages cannot be claimed here if they cannot be demonstrated/proven/tested). Hat off :)

Re: Uber S-1

#326

Post by CharlesColeman »

gonehome wrote: post #102
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It takes tremendous capital expenditure to build that network, and it will take tremendous capital expenditure to neutralize it. Does it, though? Every driver I've talked to basically drives for "all of them". Several told me they try to find whatever apps are local for driving and they setup those alone with Uber and Lyft and simply take whatever pays the most / is more frequent. Uber's software and network are so…

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…

> Nobody holds an allegiance to Lyft or Uber - they pick whichever is currently a better deal for both driving and riding.

That's not exactly true: I use Lyft exclusively because have anti-loyalty against Uber because of their greater level of past unscrupulous behavior and scandals.

Re: Uber S-1

#327

Post by YeahSureWhyNot »

panarky wrote: post #35
partingshots wrote: post #18

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 -…

> 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 is not that hard to gain foot in any market. just advertise lower rates to customers and higher pay to drivers and within a week u will have more than half of all uber drivers registered on your platform too. 90% of people driving for uber also have lyft account if lyft is available in their area. uber has 0 brand loyalty. it has failed to establish itself as a safe option. its just as shitty as the next option in eyes of most riders.

Re: Uber S-1

#328

Post by mruts »

mckenna wrote: post #252
thelock85 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen RideAustin? https://rideaustin.com

Love it. That's how it should be. Drivers should get max possible cut of the fares while the network operator works as a non-profit. 100B pump/dump is a scam. Think about all the indices-tracking-ETFs/Funds that will pick up this overpriced stock(our hard earned 401ks). Sigh. Silicon Valley should not have pumped up what was originally a good idea. This has a high chance of ending badly

What funds are those specifically? Certainly not the S&P 500. The Russell 3000, but they don’t have a choice.

The point of investing is deciding what you believe in (financially speaking)! If you don’t like Uber, make some money on it! You can’t short in an IRA, or sell naked options, but you can sell futures or buy put options. All of these would express a bearish sentiment on Uber. So don’t feel like you sre being screwed, go make some alpha!

For the record I agree with you, and will short Uber the day it IPOs. I’ve already made some good money on shorting Lyft and expect I’ll do well on the same strat with Uber.

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