Regardless of what you think of Kalanick there are legitimate questions about the business model. I see many people claim things like "They lose money because

Regardless of what you think of Kalanick there are legitimate questions about the business model. I see many people claim things like "They lose money because they spend on R%D". I have not been able to see the most recent year but leaked numbers from prior years show that even if you cut R&D to zero they still lost money. In the more recent year I have not seen the breakout for R&D but the losses scale with revenues by quarter which is not what you would expect to see if they had a fixed R&D budget cutting into profits. I also see many wildly overoptimistic estimates of how much driverless cars would increase their margins. For example you see absurd statements like "driverless cars can produce revenue 24 hrs a day". Demand for rides is not constant 24 hrs a day. To meet peak demand (which is critical to their competitiveness with alternatives) you will have many cars idle off peak. That means parking (costs money) or driving empty wasting money. Many others have pointed out some of the many costs currently born by drivers that somebody still has to pay. You can debate the exact cost of all those things but it is definitely not zero. I am not saying it is impossible for them to make changes and make money but until I saw detailed numbers and a plan to increase margins I would not invest my money.