Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 105 posts

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#51

Post by JumpCrisscross »

raiyu wrote: post #4
foota wrote: post #2

Is the share auction first come first serve? Or how is that done?

It's an internally sponsored secondary which means that the buyer has already been determined which in this case is Softbank and Uber will put together some requirements around which share holders can sell and what amount of their stake. Something typical is if you have been at the company for X number of years, you can sell X% of your vested equity. They will have a large bank or some other third party as the underw…

> They will have a large bank or some other third party as the underwriter for the deal

Secondaries aren’t underwritten; they’re brokered. Underwriters purchase the shares for their own account and then resell them. In a secondary, the buyer and seller negotiate directly.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#53

Post by Bogdanovich »

timewarrior wrote: post #34
rileymat2 wrote: post #33

If Uber was only a world wide Taxi company with virtually no capital costs, wouldn’t this be incredibly profitable alone? I am not clear on the impetus everyone sees for Uber creating self driving cars. If developed by another company, can’t they just add them to the service? Do they really want to be responsible for that capital?

Uber is valuable only because it has solved a two party network problem at a city level. You need drivers and you need riders. If you don't have any drivers riders won't come and vice versa. Two party networks are much more difficult to solve than one party network problems. Because with two party networks you have a chicken and egg problem. Anyone who has solved self driving, has near unlimited scale on the driver s…

"Building out autonomous technology and having global network is a huge advantage. Because the issue with autonomy and any software, is that you've got these edge cases [...]. If you have a network live and you developing autonomy, it's not gonna go from 0 to 1, it's gonna be hybrid networks, you can answer certain calls with autonomy (the weather is good, the roads are main line, there is no traffic, no accidents, that can be served with autonomous vehicle), versus another ride that will have to be served by person."

https://youtu.be/Mo2-4sXYZxU?t=29m37s

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#54

Post by thomasfoster96 »

paulsutter wrote: post #52

Tunnels are more important than Uber or self driving cars “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk

> Tunnels are more important than Uber or self driving cars

> “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk

Public transport solves all the problems tunnels solve as well. Tunnels don’t change the fact that cars (self-driving or not) are still an incredibly inefficient use of space when they’re all going in the same direction to the same place.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#55

Post by konschubert »

timewarrior wrote: post #34
rileymat2 wrote: post #33

If Uber was only a world wide Taxi company with virtually no capital costs, wouldn’t this be incredibly profitable alone? I am not clear on the impetus everyone sees for Uber creating self driving cars. If developed by another company, can’t they just add them to the service? Do they really want to be responsible for that capital?

Uber is valuable only because it has solved a two party network problem at a city level. You need drivers and you need riders. If you don't have any drivers riders won't come and vice versa. Two party networks are much more difficult to solve than one party network problems. Because with two party networks you have a chicken and egg problem. Anyone who has solved self driving, has near unlimited scale on the driver s…

I think the crucial point here is really that uber's two-party networks are city-wide. Yet because Uber is operating globally, it's falsely being valued as an international two party network.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#57

Post by paulsutter »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #54
paulsutter wrote: post #52

Tunnels are more important than Uber or self driving cars “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk

> Tunnels are more important than Uber or self driving cars > “Without tunnels we’ll be in traffic hell forever” -Elon Musk Public transport solves all the problems tunnels solve as well. Tunnels don’t change the fact that cars (self-driving or not) are still an incredibly inefficient use of space when they’re all going in the same direction to the same place.

The Boring Company agrees with you. Tunnels are not just for cars. They will be 200kph subways where you never need to change trains:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5915617137c58104451ac...

(Image of shared/public transport tunnel vehicle)

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#58

Post by timewarrior »

Bogdanovich wrote: post #53
timewarrior wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is valuable only because it has solved a two party network problem at a city level. You need drivers and you need riders. If you don't have any drivers riders won't come and vice versa. Two party networks are much more difficult to solve than one party network problems. Because with two party networks you have a chicken and egg problem. Anyone who has solved self driving, has near unlimited scale on the driver s…

"Building out autonomous technology and having global network is a huge advantage. Because the issue with autonomy and any software, is that you've got these edge cases [...]. If you have a network live and you developing autonomy, it's not gonna go from 0 to 1, it's gonna be hybrid networks, you can answer certain calls with autonomy (the weather is good, the roads are main line, there is no traffic, no accidents, t…

So Uber's new CEO is talking about the transition time and Uber's value during that time. Makes sense!

The original comment was wondering why should Uber invest in building Autonomous Driving at all.

And I am suggesting that once we have true autonomous driving (all conditions), and if Uber doesn't have it - Uber has not reason to exist at all.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#60

Post by timewarrior »

konschubert wrote: post #55
timewarrior wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is valuable only because it has solved a two party network problem at a city level. You need drivers and you need riders. If you don't have any drivers riders won't come and vice versa. Two party networks are much more difficult to solve than one party network problems. Because with two party networks you have a chicken and egg problem. Anyone who has solved self driving, has near unlimited scale on the driver s…

I think the crucial point here is really that uber's two-party networks are city-wide. Yet because Uber is operating globally, it's falsely being valued as an international two party network.

Bingo!

There is no future where Uber is profitable and there isn't someone with deep pockets who wants to undercut them starting with their most profitable markets.

Most riders don't have much customer loyalty, they just want the cheapest price. Drivers don't mind driving for multiple services.

When a deep pocketed competitor launches with zero market share, they can compete with lower prices. If Uber responds too early, Uber would need to cut down prices on their full market share. If Uber waits too long, the competitor gets more traction.

In the end it is a zero sum game for Uber, unless they could have used their money and focus to create Autonomous Driving Tech. Not sure if that is going to happen now! Their new CEO's mandate is to do the IPO and get investors their return ASAP.

My prediction:

In the next 2 years, Amazon will enter as an Uber competitor starting with Seattle and then slowly expand to Uber's most profitable markets.

Any bets :)

Post reply on HN