4 ms·

Partly, it's just that everything is priced relative to the current market, which atm is cash rich and opportunity poor. Uber and Lyft are an optimistic bet. T

Partly, it's just that everything is priced relative to the current market, which atm is cash rich and opportunity poor. Uber and Lyft are an optimistic bet. They can't generate profits right now but (Uber especially) they might find a way. Self driving cars are otw. They could be in position for that. Regulation is otw. This could give them a moat. ..also efficiency, I suppose. A lot of recent "marketplace" successes (YouTube rev-share, app stores, steam, iTunes...) are built on thick margins. Uber and Lyft take 20-25%. Uber & Lyft's main job is software and software scales. There's no inherent reason preventing them from operating within a profit producing budget, especially if growth-at-all-costs ends. It'd be hard to justify the share price though. Remember that FB went public well before the ad business turned into the money machine it became. Not saying it's a good investment. I suspect it's not, but there aren't many good investments around. etc.

vidro3 8y ago
I don't get the self-driving car move for Uber, et al. Instead of letting drivers use their own cars or making money on loans they will all of a sudden have to buy tens of thousands of cars, maintain them and replace them every 5ish years (unless they get yet another exemption from taxi regulation commissions).
Balgair 8y ago
Aside: > but there aren't many good investments around. etc. Like, can we talk about this just a sec? I feel this too, that there just isn't a lot of room left in the economy. But, it just feels like that is crazy, right? There is all this money, more than ever before. There is all this technology, and it's the best that has ever been out there. There is all this education and learning, we're better at teaching people than we've ever been. And there are all these people, nearly eight billion of us. Things, objectively, have never been better! So, how can we be running out of good investments? It just feels like I'm nutz here. One one hand, we have all this potential energy, but on the other, there is just no where for the kinetic energy to go. Humans aren't just boulders on hill sides, we don't tend to sit still, we get moving on our own. Why do I feel like I'm missing something big?
- akiselev 8y ago
  > So, how can we be running out of good investments? It just feels like I'm nutz here. One one hand, we have all this potential energy, but on the other, there is just no where for the kinetic energy to go. Humans aren't just boulders on hill sides, we don't tend to sit still, we get moving on our own. There's a lot of factors but the big ones I've noticed are healthcare costs/risks and overall income inequality drastically reducing the pool of potential entrepreneurs. It's less a problem for software engineers but it's a significant limiting factor for any venture that's applying software to specific industries (think transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, etc) when founders can't get their heads above water long enough to consider a startup. Zoning laws are also slowing growth in many cities so a lot of money that would normally be chasing low risk returns in real estate has to move up the ladder. The number of things to invest into without relying on a bubble just can't keep up with the amount of money coming in from fiscal policy and foreign investors.
  - screye 8y ago
    The US IT industry (as a lay person) is the only one where a startup can feasibly grow quickly enough to justify the investment. Construction in the US is minimal. The initial costs of any industry with production, manufacturing are immense. Healthcare is one area where there is space for clear improvement, but being a rigid to change as it is, healthcare startups really struggle to penetrate the industry. You may invest in the service / food industry, but it doesn't seem to be as hyper-scaling friendly as it used to be. I do not foresee any trend since Starbucks that has been able to take a country by storm. You can invest in smaller restaurants, but that is more of a small business investment than anything resembling stock, so good luck making it a liquid asset, even if successful. Also, a lot of investments are mislabeled (often purposely) as tech startups but are actually some thing else. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Coursera, Udacity, Instacart, Juul, WeWork, and the like are to me, products from a different industry all the together. The tech aspect of their business does not influence their success as much as it may seem.

vidro3 8y ago

I don't get the self-driving car move for Uber, et al. Instead of letting drivers use their own cars or making money on loans they will all of a sudden have to buy tens of thousands of cars, maintain them and replace them every 5ish years (unless they get yet another exemption from taxi regulation commissions).

Balgair 8y ago

Aside: > but there aren't many good investments around. etc. Like, can we talk about this just a sec? I feel this too, that there just isn't a lot of room left in the economy. But, it just feels like that is crazy, right? There is all this money, more than ever before. There is all this technology, and it's the best that has ever been out there. There is all this education and learning, we're better at teaching people than we've ever been. And there are all these people, nearly eight billion of us. Things, objectively, have never been better! So, how can we be running out of good investments? It just feels like I'm nutz here. One one hand, we have all this potential energy, but on the other, there is just no where for the kinetic energy to go. Humans aren't just boulders on hill sides, we don't tend to sit still, we get moving on our own. Why do I feel like I'm missing something big?

akiselev 8y ago
> So, how can we be running out of good investments? It just feels like I'm nutz here. One one hand, we have all this potential energy, but on the other, there is just no where for the kinetic energy to go. Humans aren't just boulders on hill sides, we don't tend to sit still, we get moving on our own. There's a lot of factors but the big ones I've noticed are healthcare costs/risks and overall income inequality drastically reducing the pool of potential entrepreneurs. It's less a problem for software engineers but it's a significant limiting factor for any venture that's applying software to specific industries (think transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, etc) when founders can't get their heads above water long enough to consider a startup. Zoning laws are also slowing growth in many cities so a lot of money that would normally be chasing low risk returns in real estate has to move up the ladder. The number of things to invest into without relying on a bubble just can't keep up with the amount of money coming in from fiscal policy and foreign investors.
- screye 8y ago
  The US IT industry (as a lay person) is the only one where a startup can feasibly grow quickly enough to justify the investment. Construction in the US is minimal. The initial costs of any industry with production, manufacturing are immense. Healthcare is one area where there is space for clear improvement, but being a rigid to change as it is, healthcare startups really struggle to penetrate the industry. You may invest in the service / food industry, but it doesn't seem to be as hyper-scaling friendly as it used to be. I do not foresee any trend since Starbucks that has been able to take a country by storm. You can invest in smaller restaurants, but that is more of a small business investment than anything resembling stock, so good luck making it a liquid asset, even if successful. Also, a lot of investments are mislabeled (often purposely) as tech startups but are actually some thing else. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Coursera, Udacity, Instacart, Juul, WeWork, and the like are to me, products from a different industry all the together. The tech aspect of their business does not influence their success as much as it may seem.