4 ms·

Uber as a ponzi scheme of ambition 1/ Basic premise was they keep highlighting their entry into larger and larger markets and so investors keep ponying up $ fo

Uber as a ponzi scheme of ambition 1/ Basic premise was they keep highlighting their entry into larger and larger markets and so investors keep ponying up $ for the ambition. 2/ First, it was taxis 3/ Then, it was taxis + logistics 4/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership 5/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership, autonomous 6/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership, autonomous, trucking 7 / Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership, autonomous, trucking, drones 8/ I might have the order wrong but each spins Uber into addressing an even larger Total Addressable Market 9/ While they never actually own even the first one (taxis) yet. But investors love the ambition and keep ponying up. 10/ Hence, the ponzi scheme of ambition https://twitter.com/asanwal/status/820365771834531841" https://twitter.com/asanwal/status/820365771834531841" It's hard to say whether Musk is doing something similar or not. Satellites, boring company, mars mission, electrified grid, etc....Obviously, Kalanick is much different than Musk, but I can't help but feel pattern recognition creeping up on me.

taytus 10y ago
At some point we should stop calling them investors and start calling them what they really are: idiots.
- xarien 10y ago
  So I've personally made 6 figures on TSLA. If I'm an idiot, what does that make someone who thought they were smarter than someone who would invest in TSLA? Here's the thing about investment: whether you're playing the long or short game, the only way you make money is through stock volatility. And as far as volatility is concerned, TSLA has been fantastic to play over and over again.
  - taytus 10y ago
    The comment I replied to talked about Uber, not TSLA. I can't understand your need to brag about how much money you made, but yeah, it would be cool if you could read first.
    - ericb 10y ago
      Not the op, but your comment did not make it clear which company's investors you were name-calling.
  - kumarski 10y ago
    I'd say knocking the investors of a mission driven company that's a for-profit company doesn't make them an idiot. Not by a long shot.
  - nickjarboe 10y ago
    I would think that volatility would be a shot term play. Give me a stock the just goes up 0.1% every day and I'll borrow to the hilt to buy it.
    - xarien 10y ago
      Sorry I wasn't too clear, short in the previous post was meant as short selling and long was just buying (whether you're borrowing to do so or not).
godzillabrennus 10y ago
Musk has stated that his ambition is in colonizing Mars. To achieve that he's building the companies to make it a profitable endeavor. When he succeeds he will have built a path for others to follow to also have a commercially viable option to explore space. Travis on the other hand is apparently running a fraternity that spies on you. About the worst of the worst coming out of Uber.
- bwilliams18 10y ago
  Don't shit on fraternities, they're not all that bad.
  - godzillabrennus 10y ago
    No Fraternity needs a $64B valuation.
aerovistae 10y ago
Please, spare me. Uber had a pattern of malicious and immoral behavior from the start. As soon as I read about them tracking people's ride patterns at company parties for laughs, I knew exactly what kind of company Uber was. Since then, their moral shortcomings have only diversified, unsurprisingly. Musk, by contrast, has show over and over that he cares a lot about doing what's right, starting with the very fundamental purposes of his companies: not profit, but making things better for everyone, with profit as a necessary part of the real goal. To point to a recent quote from his twitter, he had said he didn't care if his participation in Trump's panels hurt his reputation or that of his companies, because it was right and he didn't care what people said. And it seems (and many people close to him have said as much in interviews) that this is very much in line with who he is as a whole. Every time someone has made an accusation against his companies of a customer or employee being shortchanged, he's publicly investigated it and resolved it within a couple days. I recall him saying in one such case that if indeed a contractor had been injured on Tesla property, he would have seen to it that they were completely compensated in every way, even if a court did not compel them to do so, simply because it was the right thing to do. I hate seeing a company mired in wrongdoing compared to a company like Tesla, which is the polar opposite. Then we come to this accusation of a "ponzi scheme of ambition." Did your creeping pattern recognition notice that Tesla is being led by the same person who leads SpaceX? I don't understand how people can write this off. No matter what your criticism or doubts of Tesla are, it's simply impossible to deny SpaceX's astounding accomplishments. This is obviously not a CEO who fails to deliver despite unparalleled challenges. Do you truly believe manufacturing another car, after having already succeeded with the Model S, is harder than starting a successful space program from scratch? Musk doesn't do Ponzi schemes. He builds Paypals and Model S's and rockets that have successfully landed when industry leaders mocked it as impossible. Your pattern recognition needs work.
- babyrainbow 10y ago
  >industry leaders mocked it as impossible. What achievement of Musk was "mocked as Impossible"? Now, was those really impossible or even hard enough; or some kind of cheap PR stunt to blow their achievements out of proportions?
adevine 10y ago
I'm going to second aerovistae. I think there are plenty of glaring differences between Uber and Tesla that make your comparison just amount to throwing shade: 1. First, I haven't heard many people argue that they think Musk's end state isn't viable. That is, Musk has already proven you can build a great electric car, the question is just whether he can solve the production issues and scale up (especially battery production) fast enough before he runs out of money. But if he does get there before he runs out of money, people agree he will have huge moats around his business with his technology, brand desirability and the gigafactory. Contrast this with Uber, where a lot of people think that in the end state (when VC money stops subsidizing every ride) that it will essentially be a commodity business with very poor economic fundamentals. 2. Uber has had story after story of fundamental problems with their corporate culture, while everything I've read about Tesla appears to be almost the exact opposite.
flexie 10y ago
In a ponzi scheme, nothing is created. Uber has created a service used by millions and which tens of thousands of people make an income from. Tesla has created products that hundreds of thousands of people use, millions want, and hundreds of millions admire. Tens of thousands of people work in their factories. To many of us, their products hold a promise of a better future. SpaceX is reopening a chapter of human exploration that nation states had closed. Literally the most powerful organisation in human history, the United States, had all but given up on it. In my mind, landing a rocket is one of the most astonishing technological feats by humanity in decades. And it was done by a startup. Now, I don't know what you spend your days doing, but I cannot compete with Musk. And I am just talking about his achievements until now, not the potential future ones. I get that from an investor point of view, Tesla might have created little of value if it bankrupts soon. Eventually, though, all companies bankrupt or close in other ways, and so will Tesla. But the EV revolution that Tesla started will not stop. The cars are still there, the ideas have been proven. Is the comparison with ponzi schemes really a good one?
- mtreis86 10y ago
  Enron employed thousands - that doesn't make it less of a Ponzi scheme.
LeanderK 10y ago
i think this is unfair. I am not a big fan of uber, but uber already provides value, has a solid service and penetrates international markest (not native, is this...right? sounds kinda wrong imho). Autonomous driving complements their original target (taxis) and makes it possible conquer new markets. I get what your idea is, but i think it's wrong because what they do makes sense and they are actually building (and delivering!) stuff. They might gamble too high and loose big time, but i wouldn't call it a ponzi scheme.

taytus 10y ago

At some point we should stop calling them investors and start calling them what they really are: idiots.

xarien 10y ago
So I've personally made 6 figures on TSLA. If I'm an idiot, what does that make someone who thought they were smarter than someone who would invest in TSLA? Here's the thing about investment: whether you're playing the long or short game, the only way you make money is through stock volatility. And as far as volatility is concerned, TSLA has been fantastic to play over and over again.
- taytus 10y ago
  The comment I replied to talked about Uber, not TSLA. I can't understand your need to brag about how much money you made, but yeah, it would be cool if you could read first.
  - ericb 10y ago
    Not the op, but your comment did not make it clear which company's investors you were name-calling.
- kumarski 10y ago
  I'd say knocking the investors of a mission driven company that's a for-profit company doesn't make them an idiot. Not by a long shot.
- nickjarboe 10y ago
  I would think that volatility would be a shot term play. Give me a stock the just goes up 0.1% every day and I'll borrow to the hilt to buy it.
  - xarien 10y ago
    Sorry I wasn't too clear, short in the previous post was meant as short selling and long was just buying (whether you're borrowing to do so or not).

godzillabrennus 10y ago

Musk has stated that his ambition is in colonizing Mars. To achieve that he's building the companies to make it a profitable endeavor. When he succeeds he will have built a path for others to follow to also have a commercially viable option to explore space. Travis on the other hand is apparently running a fraternity that spies on you. About the worst of the worst coming out of Uber.

bwilliams18 10y ago
Don't shit on fraternities, they're not all that bad.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  No Fraternity needs a $64B valuation.

aerovistae 10y ago

Please, spare me. Uber had a pattern of malicious and immoral behavior from the start. As soon as I read about them tracking people's ride patterns at company parties for laughs, I knew exactly what kind of company Uber was. Since then, their moral shortcomings have only diversified, unsurprisingly. Musk, by contrast, has show over and over that he cares a lot about doing what's right, starting with the very fundamental purposes of his companies: not profit, but making things better for everyone, with profit as a necessary part of the real goal. To point to a recent quote from his twitter, he had said he didn't care if his participation in Trump's panels hurt his reputation or that of his companies, because it was right and he didn't care what people said. And it seems (and many people close to him have said as much in interviews) that this is very much in line with who he is as a whole. Every time someone has made an accusation against his companies of a customer or employee being shortchanged, he's publicly investigated it and resolved it within a couple days. I recall him saying in one such case that if indeed a contractor had been injured on Tesla property, he would have seen to it that they were completely compensated in every way, even if a court did not compel them to do so, simply because it was the right thing to do. I hate seeing a company mired in wrongdoing compared to a company like Tesla, which is the polar opposite. Then we come to this accusation of a "ponzi scheme of ambition." Did your creeping pattern recognition notice that Tesla is being led by the same person who leads SpaceX? I don't understand how people can write this off. No matter what your criticism or doubts of Tesla are, it's simply impossible to deny SpaceX's astounding accomplishments. This is obviously not a CEO who fails to deliver despite unparalleled challenges. Do you truly believe manufacturing another car, after having already succeeded with the Model S, is harder than starting a successful space program from scratch? Musk doesn't do Ponzi schemes. He builds Paypals and Model S's and rockets that have successfully landed when industry leaders mocked it as impossible. Your pattern recognition needs work.

babyrainbow 10y ago
>industry leaders mocked it as impossible. What achievement of Musk was "mocked as Impossible"? Now, was those really impossible or even hard enough; or some kind of cheap PR stunt to blow their achievements out of proportions?

adevine 10y ago

I'm going to second aerovistae. I think there are plenty of glaring differences between Uber and Tesla that make your comparison just amount to throwing shade: 1. First, I haven't heard many people argue that they think Musk's end state isn't viable. That is, Musk has already proven you can build a great electric car, the question is just whether he can solve the production issues and scale up (especially battery production) fast enough before he runs out of money. But if he does get there before he runs out of money, people agree he will have huge moats around his business with his technology, brand desirability and the gigafactory. Contrast this with Uber, where a lot of people think that in the end state (when VC money stops subsidizing every ride) that it will essentially be a commodity business with very poor economic fundamentals. 2. Uber has had story after story of fundamental problems with their corporate culture, while everything I've read about Tesla appears to be almost the exact opposite.

flexie 10y ago

In a ponzi scheme, nothing is created. Uber has created a service used by millions and which tens of thousands of people make an income from. Tesla has created products that hundreds of thousands of people use, millions want, and hundreds of millions admire. Tens of thousands of people work in their factories. To many of us, their products hold a promise of a better future. SpaceX is reopening a chapter of human exploration that nation states had closed. Literally the most powerful organisation in human history, the United States, had all but given up on it. In my mind, landing a rocket is one of the most astonishing technological feats by humanity in decades. And it was done by a startup. Now, I don't know what you spend your days doing, but I cannot compete with Musk. And I am just talking about his achievements until now, not the potential future ones. I get that from an investor point of view, Tesla might have created little of value if it bankrupts soon. Eventually, though, all companies bankrupt or close in other ways, and so will Tesla. But the EV revolution that Tesla started will not stop. The cars are still there, the ideas have been proven. Is the comparison with ponzi schemes really a good one?

mtreis86 10y ago
Enron employed thousands - that doesn't make it less of a Ponzi scheme.

LeanderK 10y ago

i think this is unfair. I am not a big fan of uber, but uber already provides value, has a solid service and penetrates international markest (not native, is this...right? sounds kinda wrong imho). Autonomous driving complements their original target (taxis) and makes it possible conquer new markets. I get what your idea is, but i think it's wrong because what they do makes sense and they are actually building (and delivering!) stuff. They might gamble too high and loose big time, but i wouldn't call it a ponzi scheme.