It'll be worth even more in the coming years, which is not hard to fathom when you look at Uber as a logistics company rather than a taxi-replacement.
Uber Valued at More Than $50B
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#52I love when the press accelerates startup success, even among the most successful companies of all time. They want everything to be an overnight success. There is no timeline where Uber could be justified as being 5 years old. For example, there is a Techcrunch article [1] about the company launching the initial product over 5 years ago (which I'm sure took some time to develop!). Uber's website says the company exis…
The first UberCab website appears in Archive.org at March of 2010 -- They might be ever-so-slightly older than 5 years, but it doesn't seem too misleading to call them a 5-year old company. Their Delaware date of incorporation is actually 7/2010.
The founding date shouldn't be when the website first launched, or when they incorporated (though both are good minimums). The founding date is when the founders got together and starting working on the idea full time.
This is a pet peeve of mine because often in the first year not much happens. For Uber, it seemed like they were building the app and preparing for a private beta. This doesn't mean the company didn't exist before the beta was launched or the app existed. This is important because many founders who don't know any better think that if their company isn't crushing it after a few months then they are doing something wrong.
It takes time to get stuff going, and when looking retrospectively if you skip over this time it creates a misleading timeline of how successful companies are created.
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What is their remaining market? Are there many countries/cities that still have easily disruptible taxi markets (e.g. "Medallions" or similar)?
4 hours ago:
Uber invests $1 billion in Indian market
http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/31/technology/uber-india-1-bill...
Yeah, there are some big markets out there yet.
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#54This may be just me..but I feel like Uber is being built up way too much. People outside SF see it as some shining beacon of Silicon Valley tech startups. If they make missteps and show weakness I wonder if it will shake people's perception of how strong the tech industry is now.
I'm concerned with what happens when Uber exits "rapid expansion" mode. Right now a lot of what they do is subsidised by VC cash in order to dominate the market. Once the competition is done, the cash will dry up, and we'll all be surprised at things getting more expensive.
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#55Uber'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…
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Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember following Groupon closely and feeling like Groupon was spending a bunch of money teaching people around the world how to use daily deals, only to have competitors come in make it a race to the bottom because the barriers to entry were so low. I feel like Uber is doing the same: spending a bunch of money teaching people how to hail a cab from their phone. When competitors like Lyft, Hailo, and Via enter the…
Groupon doesn't have a network effect. Uber has a VERY strong network effect. In fact, it has the type of network effect that can keep its advantage over competitors (see Facebook versus Google+).
What network effect? How does my friends using Uber force me to use Uber as well? I see it more like a toilet paper or shampoo thing: My friends might recommend Uber, but other friends would recommend Lyft, and others a local competitor. There is nothing that locks me in. We can disagree and I can live with them using Uber and me using some other service for years.
Unlike Facebook, Uber is easily replaced. I can't convince my friends to change to a Facebook competitor, but for Uber I don't have to. I don't lose out by using an Uber competitor. With Microsoft in the 90s I couldn't share or read documents if I used a competing OS. I literally had to use Windows.
Right now, Uber is paying lobbyists and lawyers squirming around the issues with braking taxi laws, labor laws, tax laws etc. And they are paying for marketing to teach us to order cabs using apps. And then, local competitors can make apps that are as good and the business model is easy to compete with.
If I travel to London I might not know what the local competitor of Uber is called and I may wanna go with Uber or a conventional taxi. But back in my city, Uber is just one of a bunch, soon one of many. That's, by the way, a difference from AirBnB who is only used by people who are out of town.
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#57Wonder when we'll see the first $1T startup valuation. Probably not too far away.
I don't think any business that achieves that sort of valuation should be considered a "startup".
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#58Uber'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…
As other comments have already said, Uber is still expanding. They are also spending millions on self-driving car R&D. http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-uber-a-friend-or-foe-of-carne...
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#59It'll be worth even more in the coming years, which is not hard to fathom when you look at Uber as a logistics company rather than a taxi-replacement.
I agree. I know people who crunch data for Uber and some of things they're doing are really valuable. All these rides - pickups, dropoffs, times of day, routes, etc. And this is just the tip of the iceberg what they're doing. These kinds of basic projects inspire more complex analysis I'm sure.
The information gathered will allow them to move into new phases of development. The cab hailing service is not the end game here.
Re: Uber Valued at More Than $50B
#60This may be just me..but I feel like Uber is being built up way too much. People outside SF see it as some shining beacon of Silicon Valley tech startups. If they make missteps and show weakness I wonder if it will shake people's perception of how strong the tech industry is now.
I remember following Groupon closely and feeling like Groupon was spending a bunch of money teaching people around the world how to use daily deals, only to have competitors come in make it a race to the bottom because the barriers to entry were so low. I feel like Uber is doing the same: spending a bunch of money teaching people how to hail a cab from their phone. When competitors like Lyft, Hailo, and Via enter the…
You also have existing taxi companies to compete against. Way before Uber was a thing, my preferred company in Stockholm had a simple hailing app, it was basically one button for "I want a cab, here, now". No tracking, no payments, nothing fancy, but still.
These days, Taxi Stockholm has a hailing app that is on par with Uber's app, and I just can't see how Uber can compete with that. I can use Taxi Stockholm and get a professional cab driver in a nice luxury car that is insured, regulated, cctv'd and has a trusted brand name, or I can use Uber and get a non-professional in a regular car, no taxi license plate, unknown insurance situation, for maybe a cheaper price.
Uber is fantastically successful in places where the existing taxi market sucks for whatever reasons, but there are plenty of places where it doesn't suck, and it's very questionable what Uber can bring to the table then. Or Lyft, Hailo, etc. Any technology they make can be easily copied by their competitors, but local vehicle fleets can't.