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has Uber had a positive ROI on the billions invested in it? I am pretty sure the return on the preferred price from the late rounds 10 years ago is basically

has Uber had a positive ROI on the billions invested in it? I am pretty sure the return on the preferred price from the late rounds 10 years ago is basically zero. Net income has always been negative or close to zero. From a consumer perspective, in late stage cities, uber rides are the same or more expensive than old taxis, and the quality of vehicles is lower. what was it all worth?

apsurd 14d ago
at $156B market cap someone sure is making money. I've no say in the manner in which they ran/run their business but judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand.
- 33MHz-i486 14d ago
  thank for your lovely ad-homenim and downvote. truely a thoughtful intellectual debate on the merits of the premise.
  - apsurd 14d ago
    downvote isn’t personal. it takes more than one to become gray. Im trying to say it doesn’t matter what we plebs think about these massive entities. Maybe it should but if we’re talking creating (economic) value, they clearly are.
- lmm 14d ago
  > at $156B market cap someone sure is making money. So 50x Pets.com or 2x Enron. > judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand. Disagree. Unit economics matter and can help you cut through a lot of hype and nonsense. "Where's the money coming from?" is always a good question to ask. Sure, sometimes a megacorp loses money on each transaction and makes it up on float or whatever, but that's at least worth knowing if that's what's going on.
  - apsurd 14d ago
    Agree due diligence is required. FTX, Theranos, Enron are a reality. But it’s also tempting to color the assessment with virtue. Im morally against Meta but it’s the world’s greatest money printing machine ever conceived. To say they or Uber don’t make money would be too virtue-tainted.
TZubiri 14d ago
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uCMu9MoRwCo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uCMu9MoRwCo This reminds me of this bit on a podcast where a tidbit of learned information so blatantly contradicts basic logic. There's always an explanation, in this case, the tidbit was that "dull knives are more dangerous", because you apply more force when cutting vegetables and can end up hurting yourself, but it's laughably wrong when applied to weapons. In the case of the tidbit of "uber actually loses money" that might have been relevant in the first years, there's this phenomenon where companies operate at a loss for some time (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_dumping) in order to accumulate market share (i.e a monopoly) and then they increase prices in order to recoup their investment and make profits. So you read somewhere that "uber actually loses money" and this was from presumably a trusted source, but you failed to account the date of the knowledge, when Uber was somewhat smaller and their margins were smaller, and you read it assuming it applies to the present, so you somehow thought that one of the biggest tech companies in the world, that charges around 30% per trip, and has almost no marginal costs, would operate at a loss. So I don't want to be offensive, but it's so wrong that it has a comedic quality.
aeyes 13d ago
net income was 80 billion in the last 2 years alone, what are you talking about?

apsurd 14d ago

at $156B market cap someone sure is making money. I've no say in the manner in which they ran/run their business but judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand.

33MHz-i486 14d ago
thank for your lovely ad-homenim and downvote. truely a thoughtful intellectual debate on the merits of the premise.
- apsurd 14d ago
  downvote isn’t personal. it takes more than one to become gray. Im trying to say it doesn’t matter what we plebs think about these massive entities. Maybe it should but if we’re talking creating (economic) value, they clearly are.
lmm 14d ago
> at $156B market cap someone sure is making money. So 50x Pets.com or 2x Enron. > judging a mega-corporation on lemonade-stand level accounting is a fool's errand. Disagree. Unit economics matter and can help you cut through a lot of hype and nonsense. "Where's the money coming from?" is always a good question to ask. Sure, sometimes a megacorp loses money on each transaction and makes it up on float or whatever, but that's at least worth knowing if that's what's going on.
- apsurd 14d ago
  Agree due diligence is required. FTX, Theranos, Enron are a reality. But it’s also tempting to color the assessment with virtue. Im morally against Meta but it’s the world’s greatest money printing machine ever conceived. To say they or Uber don’t make money would be too virtue-tainted.

TZubiri 14d ago

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uCMu9MoRwCo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uCMu9MoRwCo This reminds me of this bit on a podcast where a tidbit of learned information so blatantly contradicts basic logic. There's always an explanation, in this case, the tidbit was that "dull knives are more dangerous", because you apply more force when cutting vegetables and can end up hurting yourself, but it's laughably wrong when applied to weapons. In the case of the tidbit of "uber actually loses money" that might have been relevant in the first years, there's this phenomenon where companies operate at a loss for some time (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_dumping) in order to accumulate market share (i.e a monopoly) and then they increase prices in order to recoup their investment and make profits. So you read somewhere that "uber actually loses money" and this was from presumably a trusted source, but you failed to account the date of the knowledge, when Uber was somewhat smaller and their margins were smaller, and you read it assuming it applies to the present, so you somehow thought that one of the biggest tech companies in the world, that charges around 30% per trip, and has almost no marginal costs, would operate at a loss. So I don't want to be offensive, but it's so wrong that it has a comedic quality.

aeyes 13d ago

net income was 80 billion in the last 2 years alone, what are you talking about?