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

Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 205 posts

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#81

Post by mattrp »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #18
fastball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although you make a good point about general portfolio diversification, the difference between a "normal" employee and a co-founder is fairly large in this instance. Co-founders are supposed to have confidence in the business they built - if they don't, why should other investors?

he's no longer involved in uber as CEO, why would he want to tie his wealth to something he's no longer steering? there's not even an argument for Optics here.

I agree. Although there are norms for the practice of selling large personal stakes, generally someone who is/has been a founder would announce their intent to diversify with a schedule — ie I’m going to sell x% over the next 3 years regardless of the price for purposes of diversification. Most investors accept that. I think in this case, his image is so tarnished that pretty much anything he does will be greeted with scorn.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#83

Post by draw_down »

pc86 wrote: post #53
at-fates-hands wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also add the state of the market right now is favorable for sellers. Might as well strike when the market is hot and people will gobble his stocks up without any issues. Considering an impending recession, it just makes sense he would dump these now.

I've been hearing about this impending recession for the better part of a decade now, is this just something people repeat so that when there is an inevitable downturn they can say "look I was right!"?

Your choices are either, it’s coming eventually, or this time it’s different. Choose as you like but those are the choices.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#84

Post by ummonk »

aianus wrote: post #50
ummonk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon didn't really have bad unit economics. It just spent a lot on growth and R&D, but the core business was profitable from early on, unlike Uber and WeWork.

Uber has positive unit economics. Uber gets ~20% of what you spend on a ride and their per-unit expenses are basically moving a few bits around and having someone in a Filipino call center present to provide customer support.

After taking into account driver incentives (which should be classified as cost of revenue, not sales and marketing), their unit economics are unprofitable.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#86

Post by burtonator »

gwd wrote: post #6

From TFA: > The 43-year-old’s remaining stake in the ride-hailing company now constitutes about a fifth of his $3 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, down from about 75% before the lockup. To be fair, if I had 75% of my net worth in a single asset, I'd also try to diversify. My wife and I both have lots of stock in the companies we work for, due to RSUs and employee stock purchase programs…

1/5 of your net worth isn't much to centralize especially if you have insider information in that asset.

Further, a lot of high net worth individuals that hold a large % of stock will announce their intention to diversity 6-12 months ahead of time to avoid this type of issue.

A rush liquidation usually isn't a good thing.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#87

Post by aguyfromnb »

ralph84 wrote: post #40
fastball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon does make a profit though. And when they weren't, it was by choice and they were not burning billions in investor dollars to do it. But yes, I probably should've said "Viability" instead of "Profitability".

Every unprofitable growth company says they’re doing it “by choice”. And every unprofitable growth company burns investor dollars (where else would the dollars come from?). During Amazon’s unprofitable years many people were saying the exact same things about Amazon that people say about Uber now. Of course that doesn’t mean every unprofitable growth company is Amazon, but Amazon’s success means companies won’t stop…

>During Amazon’s unprofitable years many people were saying the exact same things about Amazon that people say about Uber now.

Maybe "people were saying" the same things about Amazon then as Uber now, but that doesn't mean they are correct. Completely different business models. Amazon had billions in free cash flow going back to 2005, just no accounting profits. Uber has negative free cash flow. We hear the same thing about Tesla ("they're reinvesting profits!"), but they have something like $10B negative free cash flow since inception.

All profitable companies are alike; each unprofitable company is unprofitable in its own way.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#88

Post by wefarrell »

pc86 wrote: post #53
at-fates-hands wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also add the state of the market right now is favorable for sellers. Might as well strike when the market is hot and people will gobble his stocks up without any issues. Considering an impending recession, it just makes sense he would dump these now.

I've been hearing about this impending recession for the better part of a decade now, is this just something people repeat so that when there is an inevitable downturn they can say "look I was right!"?

Markets are more predictable over the long term than they are in the short term. This is why it people put their retirement funds in the stock market versus a savings account.

For the past few years many macro indicators (Shiller PE, Market Cap to GDP, etc...) have signaled that returns will not be in line with the recent uptrend. This doesn't mean there will be a crash, it could also signal an extended period of reduced returns.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#90

Post by mrep »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #71
jodrellblank wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the markets are at all time highs Isn't the world economy built on the idea that markets will always go up? Every year should be an all time high, otherwise we're in recession which is (apparently) tragedy to be avoided at all costs, no?

It's not just that it's at all time highs. PE ratios are also at all time highs: that's the Price to earnings ratio. There's a number of indicators right now that are at all time highs like the Warren buffet ratio (GDP/earnings), all pointing saying this market is really expensive. This is the most hated bull market ever. None of the experts are buying heavily into this market (it's all stock buybacks that's driving…

> PE ratios are also at all time highs: that's the Price to earnings ratio

What index are you looking at? SP 500 is at about 23 [0] which while higher than median, is definitely not at all time highs.

[0]: https://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-pe-ratio/table/by-month

Post reply on HN