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Still, a $150M-90M personal net worth at the 18B-30B valuation window. They're not going to starve either.

by Fordec 8y ago

randomacct3847 8y ago
Idk. I’m very bearish on Lyft. It’s a pure bet on US ridesharing. They didn’t expand internationally (now those markets are saturated) and didn’t get into delivery (Uber Eats alone is worth 5-7b).
- opportune 8y ago
  Do you think ridesharing is just going to die as a product or do you think it will become easily commoditized and all margins will essentially disappear? I think it's going to be around for at least another 10-15 years, and considering how much money uber and lyft had to burn to get to where they are now, I feel like it will be quite hard for competitors to capture relevant amounts of market share in the US
  - randomacct3847 8y ago
    The business is clearly not sustainable..it’s not that there’s changes in demand but the company will literally run out of money in a very short amount of time unless something drastically changes with their business model
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
They probably de-risked their stake with some buyback during some of the rounds.
pastor_elm 8y ago
you could have made that much with a few good crypto choices
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Sure, or by picking the right Powerball numbers.
- ivalm 8y ago
  I mean if I went all in on crypto from the start and sold around end of 2017/beginning 2018 I would have been a multi billionaire. But that's not the point. Similarly, if I "only" bought far OTM option on FANG between 2010 and 2017 but not march 2014-2015 I would have also been a multibillionaire. Heck, I could have went long volatility at high leverage in February 2018 and be a good way to a billionaire. The point is, of course, if you make "good choices" one can be a multibillionaire in many ways. Alas, I am not a multibillionaire because "good choices" are good mostly in retrospect.
- sctb 8y ago
  Would you please work on commenting more substantively? We're aiming for the kinds of discussion in which we stand to learn something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
untog 8y ago
This is something that always strikes me about the amount of money swilling around in tech. $90M is an absurdly huge amount of money. By absolutely any outside objective measure of work put in to payoff it is off the scale. To look at this as the founders having lost out is almost comical.
- randomacct3847 8y ago
  Well apparently you can play baseball and make $330m. Yes, it’s a lot, but to build a $30b company and make 90m pre-tax (maybe 50m post in CA) is something... The obvious comparison is Travis Kalanick, who is definitely a billionaire and retained much more of Uber.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    On the other hand, the baseball player will create much more than that in value while Lyft has lost billions of dollars. If someone here is underpaid it's not the Lyft founders.
    - kolbe 8y ago
      Lyft has enriched its investors far more than any baseball player could even dream of. You're just looking at accounting losses. But when this IPOs, early stage investors will have all made billions.
      - Certhas 8y ago
        But that's not creating value. Unless the lottery creates value for people who buy the right tickets.
        kolbe 8y ago
        The current price is the market's expectation of value throughout the existence of the company. The market believes that these past cash flows are not indicative of the company's future ability to create accounting value. And you may choose to value a growth company by its historical cash flows, but the market doesn't.
randlet 8y ago
Looks to me like they've made out pretty well on the personal front considering they've run their business at a loss every year.
- rhlsthrm 8y ago
  Unfortunately that's not what matters to Wall Street or VCs. They could arguably have scaled slower and made sure each market was profitable, but since everyone wants "growth over everything", they were forced to scale as quickly as possible. They are actually successful in the minds of VCs because their revenue has been growing.
puranjay 8y ago
I know a couple of bootstrapped founders running businesses with $10M+ ARR. They own the business in full. Any exit event would net them the same figure as Lyft's founders. Makes you wonder if raising money to run a business like Lyft is worth it from a personal financial perspective. The bootstrapped founders I mentioned are extremely satisfied with no outside interference or investors breathing down their necks But then again, not everyone can build a $10M ARR business
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Companies like Lyft, Uber or Airbnb changed the world. Literally.

Still, a $150M-90M personal net worth at the 18B-30B valuation window. They're not going to starve either.

by Fordec 8y ago

Still, a $150M-90M personal net worth at the 18B-30B valuation window. They're not going to starve either.

Idk. I’m very bearish on Lyft. It’s a pure bet on US ridesharing. They didn’t expand internationally (now those markets are saturated) and didn’t get into delivery (Uber Eats alone is worth 5-7b).

opportune 8y ago
Do you think ridesharing is just going to die as a product or do you think it will become easily commoditized and all margins will essentially disappear? I think it's going to be around for at least another 10-15 years, and considering how much money uber and lyft had to burn to get to where they are now, I feel like it will be quite hard for competitors to capture relevant amounts of market share in the US
- randomacct3847 8y ago
  The business is clearly not sustainable..it’s not that there’s changes in demand but the company will literally run out of money in a very short amount of time unless something drastically changes with their business model

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

They probably de-risked their stake with some buyback during some of the rounds.

pastor_elm 8y ago

you could have made that much with a few good crypto choices

ceejayoz 8y ago
Sure, or by picking the right Powerball numbers.
ivalm 8y ago
I mean if I went all in on crypto from the start and sold around end of 2017/beginning 2018 I would have been a multi billionaire. But that's not the point. Similarly, if I "only" bought far OTM option on FANG between 2010 and 2017 but not march 2014-2015 I would have also been a multibillionaire. Heck, I could have went long volatility at high leverage in February 2018 and be a good way to a billionaire. The point is, of course, if you make "good choices" one can be a multibillionaire in many ways. Alas, I am not a multibillionaire because "good choices" are good mostly in retrospect.
sctb 8y ago
Would you please work on commenting more substantively? We're aiming for the kinds of discussion in which we stand to learn something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

untog 8y ago

This is something that always strikes me about the amount of money swilling around in tech. $90M is an absurdly huge amount of money. By absolutely any outside objective measure of work put in to payoff it is off the scale. To look at this as the founders having lost out is almost comical.

randomacct3847 8y ago
Well apparently you can play baseball and make $330m. Yes, it’s a lot, but to build a $30b company and make 90m pre-tax (maybe 50m post in CA) is something... The obvious comparison is Travis Kalanick, who is definitely a billionaire and retained much more of Uber.
- jonknee 8y ago
  On the other hand, the baseball player will create much more than that in value while Lyft has lost billions of dollars. If someone here is underpaid it's not the Lyft founders.
  - kolbe 8y ago
    Lyft has enriched its investors far more than any baseball player could even dream of. You're just looking at accounting losses. But when this IPOs, early stage investors will have all made billions.
    - Certhas 8y ago
      But that's not creating value. Unless the lottery creates value for people who buy the right tickets.
      - kolbe 8y ago
        The current price is the market's expectation of value throughout the existence of the company. The market believes that these past cash flows are not indicative of the company's future ability to create accounting value. And you may choose to value a growth company by its historical cash flows, but the market doesn't.

randlet 8y ago

Looks to me like they've made out pretty well on the personal front considering they've run their business at a loss every year.

rhlsthrm 8y ago
Unfortunately that's not what matters to Wall Street or VCs. They could arguably have scaled slower and made sure each market was profitable, but since everyone wants "growth over everything", they were forced to scale as quickly as possible. They are actually successful in the minds of VCs because their revenue has been growing.

puranjay 8y ago

I know a couple of bootstrapped founders running businesses with $10M+ ARR. They own the business in full. Any exit event would net them the same figure as Lyft's founders. Makes you wonder if raising money to run a business like Lyft is worth it from a personal financial perspective. The bootstrapped founders I mentioned are extremely satisfied with no outside interference or investors breathing down their necks But then again, not everyone can build a $10M ARR business

conanbatt 8y ago
Companies like Lyft, Uber or Airbnb changed the world. Literally.