Maybe, but then again Lyft also lost $600M last year, and Sidecar already shut down.
If none of the ride-share companies make money, there might be something fundamentally wrong with the business model.
Really that's a turf war between Uber and Lyft. There is pretty clearly a market at the cost of a cab to run a dispatch and network of drivers profitably.
It's no different right now then any loss leader / market buying activity. The current price is not sustainable but there is a market.
The best news is that plate owners don't get to be rent seekers taxing everyone.
It isn't a real valuation. They basically have taken the amount that Uber has fundraised and multiplied it by 10x.
The company lost a record-breaking $3B last year.
Umm that is a real valuation, at least to their investors. Whether you agree or disagree with their valuation is a separate story.
Their private valuation isn't based on the amount they raised multiplied by 10x. It's what their private investors paid for in return for x% of the company.
So to those investors willing to pay that price, they bought shares at the price of Uber being worth $60B+.
Btw, I too agree that their valuation seems super inflated but that doesn't mean their valuation is fake. I personally wouldn't invest my money in Uber at $60B+ valuation but apparently, they were able to find investors who thought it was worthwhile to invest in them at that price.
Uber's current business model is definitely not sustainable in the long run.
Given that they're pouring a lot of money into R&D for self-driving cars, they just need to survive until they can start replacing the human drivers with self driving cars.
Huge upfront cost and huge risks, but the business model can be viable in the long run if they remove human drivers from the equation.
You mean the self-driving car tech they're about to be sued over by Google?
That's one of the recent controversies, but that doesn't disprove my point which is that they're pouring a lot of money into getting self-driving cars out on the road.
Maybe they spent a little too money on stealing technologies rather than innovating within. That being said, they've been hiring a lot of engineers and researchers in this area.
The one question on how this all ends for Uber is do they make money at their core business. If they were just a cab company could they price themselves competively, make money, and attract drivers. If they can Uber never actually dies it just becomes a cab company that is waiting for someone else to invent self driving cars.
How is it that awful? If they are operating in a market illegally how is it worse trying to avoid detection.
Not a big deal at all. As someone who was over the taxi monopoly I was very happy to have Uber available even if it was technically illegal and they had to use technology to avoid detection.
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This is more than just negative press, this is legitimately concerning. Wow, what an awful company.
Anyone else think it's funny the regulatory bodies couldn't hail an uber to build their case? They make this sound like they are trying to infiltrate a multi national drug ring !
So Uber's got a bit of a PR crisis playing out right now, originating from a blog post written by a female engineer who worked there for a year.
New York Times has dove deeper into this and paints another bleak picture of Uber's corporate culture, which given how they interact with lawmakers is not overly surprising.
For the tech industry folks I follow this is becoming the last straw, many heavy Uber users are deleting their accounts and vowing never to use them again. Part of this is that Uber embodies the worst of start up/Silicon Valley's "tech bro" culture, and coupled with the recent Trump support... it's not been a good year for Uber's public image.
The former Uber engineer who published a viral account of sexual harassment and discrimination said her former employer had hired a law firm to investigate her.
Susan Fowler, whose blogpost about sexism and misconduct sparked widespread debate about the mistreatment of women in Silicon Valley, said on Thursday that Uber was investigating her and that she had hired the law firm Baker Curtis & Schwartz to represent her.
But a week later, Fowler tweeted: “Research for the smear campaign has begun. If you are contacted by anyone asking for personal and intimate info about me, please report asap.” She added: “I don’t know who is doing this or why.”
Even the Uber Black drivers are struggling to make a living. Seems like the only people making a living with Uber are the executives.
If people find they are not making money with things like this they can always quit.whats wrong with the executives making money they decided to get careers that would put them into a higher earning than the people they manage.
I don't really care what Uber does behind the scenes - I just care about the service in getting me from point A to point B in a reasonable vehicle for a reasonable price. I took Uber in Calgary for the first time on WED - $19 to the airport ($20 promo, so $39). A cab would have certainly been $75 and a much worse experience. Uber in LV is fantastic. Same in Miami. If Uber is a "bad' company it will go away, and something else will be in its place. As long as something exists to undercut the crooked taxi monopoly, I will use it, whether it's Uber, Lyft or Jim's car service...
Leadership in this situation would be something like, require each manager or executive commit to five hours per week driving for Uber as part of their job. Even 3 hours.
If Kalanick was serious about leadership, it starts by understanding your core business and the experience of the drivers and customers that make that business what it is.
The leaders I respect the most are those who are willing to work with anyone in the organization, even if it means helping do the work that is below their "level". If you run a dairy, be willing to milk the cow.
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