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Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

techcrunch.com

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Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#61

Post by timewarrior »

parito wrote: post #59

It's interesting to note that just recently we had an article about taking money from the countries with abysmal human rights record, especially when you don't really need that money to survive. Softbank is 50 % saudi arabia public funds money.

In this case, it probably doesn't matter.

Saudi Arabia is trying to buy all these assets to secure their future. Returns will likely be reinvested or stashed abroad!

However with the dismal future of oil based economies and the unstable situation in Middle East - only scenario their would be able to retain these assets would be if they are somehow able to transition into a functioning (hopefully democratic), educated and productive society - which would be awesome! It's better for them and the world. I would love it if they are able to use this money to achieve that!

If not they would descend into chaos and all assets would likely be seized by whichever country hosts them. E.g. Gaddafi!

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/28/us-treasury-bl...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/28/gaddafi-assets...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/27/gaddafi-family...

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#62

Post by fergie »

abvdasker wrote: post #47
dreamdu5t wrote: post #28

Investors have lost the plot. Uber is nothing more than a taxi company using VC capital to undercut competitors. There are no self driving cars. That’s just a story to get money and make the brand bigger than its product. Come back to reality. There is no futuristic mars colony with Uber robots driving everyone around. It’s just a bunch of taxi drivers with dispatch replaced by an app.

Please take your uninformed cynicism somewhere else. Uber's self-driving division is one of the 3-5 groups leading the pack right now (with Waymo obviously in front). It is anything but a scam, and even a basic attempt to Google Uber's self-driving program will show you videos of their very real results. Your premise that self-driving cars are just a publicity stunt for Uber doesn't even make sense given that the com…

Its fair to question just how far AI driving can possibly go at the moment. Most of the AI we have today is being used for classification and recommendation in fairly low-stakes environments (advertising, (search, social)). It _is_ a big jump from that to powering large metal boxes that move at high speed around built up areas. Yes, of course AI driving is coming, but in the next 3 years? Almost certainly not. And then there's the question of where the next advances in AI are likely to emerge from- Google and Amazon? MIT, Oxford or Stanford? A well capitalised startup?

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#63

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

StudentStuff wrote: post #39
rileymat2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t Running your own cars would mean incredible capital costs and marketing costs to get people to switch from uber? Additionally you need people maintaining them.

The credit line needed for such a venture would be quite large, I doubt Uber could get such a credit line any time soon.

Surely you're not serious. Uber is seemingly unstoppable at raising funds.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#64

Post by CamperBob2 »

onion2k wrote: post #56
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

Self-driving cars don't solve the traffic problem, but they do solve the "hell" problem.

There's a word for a properly-networked ensemble of self-driving cars: "Train."

People around here like trains, I've noticed.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#65

Post by sanxiyn »

timewarrior wrote: post #60
konschubert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ea…

I would like to bet 4:1 against that. What is your preferred betting platform? Mail me.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#66

Post by gcb0 »

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…

meh. it just means their "drivers" will be car brokers and not much will change for uber. Other than they might experience the other side of the stick on their price shenanigans used to kill competitors.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#67

Post by gcb0 »

ttul wrote: post #45
yeukhon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might spin off the autonomous program into another company to raise fund, prior to IPO, perhaps, just a thought. I think that's a better option financially.

There is no future for Uber without automated cars. Think of it this way: as soon as someone else has an automated fleet, Uber is finished unless it has its own. This is an existential requirement.

They can still live for 20+yrs very profitably on other markets.

Even US and high tech markets like japan and korea will take several years to transition to self-drive cars. Specially because this will start either with trucks or very high cost cars so they can offset support and iron out bugs.

And that's my guess assuming self-driving cars are ready tomorrow.

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#68

Post by nopinsight »

When I look at their runway and valuation going forward, IPO is the most probable path they will take. But it might imply some risks to the overall startup IPO scene in the future as well.

Apparently Uber is bleeding about $2 billion a year and have only $6.6 billion in cash reserve. If this deal adds $1 billion more cash, then that would only last 4 years.

Since full-scale self-driving cars launching across most major cities is unlikely to happen within 4 years, they will need to either:

1) Charge more and lose even more market share to Lyft. This is unlikely.

2) Raise more cash. IPO seems to be the easiest channel for them now. (Maybe SoftBank will provide it from their massive fund but they might also extract concessions from existing shareholders and buy at a very ‘attractive’ price (for SoftBank) but others will likely resist.)

IPO sounds like a good plan for Uber. But if the price drops precipitously at some point afterward because it is outcompeted by other self-driving companies (e.g. Waymo + Lyft expands self-driving fleets to highly profitable market while Uber’s tech is still not ready) it may result in a chilling effect on the overall startup IPO scene as they are the largest unicorn in existence, and there are many startups that sell themselves as Uber for X. (Public investors may not be as astute as VCs in discerning differences in business models of similar sounding startups.)

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#69

Post by sverhagen »

sanxiyn wrote: post #65
timewarrior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ea…

I would like to bet 4:1 against that. What is your preferred betting platform? Mail me.

Amazon Restaurants, UberEATS, haven't you essentially lost that bet already?

Re: Uber confirms SoftBank has agreed to invest

#70

Post by MichaelApproved »

gcb0 wrote: post #67
ttul wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no future for Uber without automated cars. Think of it this way: as soon as someone else has an automated fleet, Uber is finished unless it has its own. This is an existential requirement.

They can still live for 20+yrs very profitably on other markets. Even US and high tech markets like japan and korea will take several years to transition to self-drive cars. Specially because this will start either with trucks or very high cost cars so they can offset support and iron out bugs. And that's my guess assuming self-driving cars are ready tomorrow.

Self driving cars would be such a dramatic improvement to the public, it would be adopted much sooner than 20 years after being implemented. Cars that require a human driver would depreciate so quickly and the safety benefit would be so clear, people would upgrade incredibly fast.
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