41–50 of 57 posts
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At much as you may hate Uber it is an unstoppable juggernaut. Being profitable is not impossible and settling everything is just a question of money, and fairly small sums at that. It may not be worth $100B, but it is going to be worth a ton.
Is that true though? They are still subsidizing 60% of the cost on all rides no? Eventually there will be a reckoning and will really determine if this is a viable company.
Do not invest in Uber. It would be downright stupid to do so. What is their product? Providing rides? No, that's what drivers do. Ubers product is running a bunch of servers, a mobile app, and bearing the first-mover disadvantage of fighting with all the regulators about ridesharing. The problem with this is that those servers and that app? The thing that collects the money for Uber? No one needs Uber for that. Tomor…
Their market position is worth something, if played correctly. When you go to Target now, the only cleanser option is Comet. 30 years ago, there were at least 4 choices. The ride share industry will undergo a similar consolidation.
Stores have limited shelf space - online stores do not have that limitation, so there won't come a time when you have one app per category in an app store.
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18 months isn't much time to present financials that would support a high IPO price though, is it? I assume the current financials still show pretty big losses due to the subsidized pricing.
https://www.axios.com/exclusive-uber-financials-2475912645.h...
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The real news is this is precisely why TK was ousted. He was categorically opposed to taking Uber public, and that went against the wishes of big investors who want an IPO payday.
Profitability is usually a good idea before you IPO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At much as you may hate Uber it is an unstoppable juggernaut. Being profitable is not impossible and settling everything is just a question of money, and fairly small sums at that. It may not be worth $100B, but it is going to be worth a ton.
Their plan for profitability so far has been "invent a ground breaking technology that will change the world before we run out of money in a couple years". That sounds more like delusions of grandeur than unstoppable juggernaut. Hopefully that changes under Khosrowshahi. Uber may well yet become an unstoppable juggernaut, but they could just as easily flame in spectacular fashion.
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https://www.axios.com/exclusive-uber-financials-2475912645.h...
Right, so rosy language, but still $500 to $600 million of loss per quarter, presumably from subsidies. I guess you have to believe either in self driving cars happening somewhat soon, or cutting subsidies doesn't cut demand too much.
This is wonderful news. This is how capitalism is supposed to work. I wonder if the recent uproar around uber could have mitigated by publicizing this earlier.
Capitalism is supposed to work this way? VCs investing billions of dollars in an unprofitable company which continues to be unprofitable for years after the fact. A company which has two real paths to profitability: (1) achieving autonomous vehicles and ending the jobs of tens of thousands of people or (2) obtaining enough market power to raise prices from their current, subsidized level. A company which only exists…
If autonomous vehicles are within the realm of possibility, they are going to be enormously successful and beneficial to humanity. Well functioning capitalism is about giving everybody a chance to participate (or not) in a piece of the new pie.
When it comes to Uber's future, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that none of the "scandals" we've heard so much about matter. Not the culture, not the lawsuits, not even the firing of the CEO. None of those things would be able to sink the company, assuming that the company has a strong business model. And that's where we get to the bad news: Uber doesn't HAVE a business model. Nothing about Uber mak…
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/15/uber-lyft-take-down-not-just...
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Right, so rosy language, but still $500 to $600 million of loss per quarter, presumably from subsidies. I guess you have to believe either in self driving cars happening somewhat soon, or cutting subsidies doesn't cut demand too much.
From the article: "Uber's global ride-share business was margin positive last quarter"
So they probably mean gross margin. They did reduce the losses as a qoq comparison. But, it's still $645M lost in a quarter.
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Capitalism is supposed to work this way? VCs investing billions of dollars in an unprofitable company which continues to be unprofitable for years after the fact. A company which has two real paths to profitability: (1) achieving autonomous vehicles and ending the jobs of tens of thousands of people or (2) obtaining enough market power to raise prices from their current, subsidized level. A company which only exists…
Disagreeing with capitalism is different from disagreeing about what it is. If autonomous vehicles are within the realm of possibility, they are going to be enormously successful and beneficial to humanity. Well functioning capitalism is about giving everybody a chance to participate (or not) in a piece of the new pie.
>Well functioning capitalism is about giving everybody a chance to participate (or not) in a piece of the new pie.
Maybe... but everyone disagrees on what well functioning actually means.