From the point of view of "does it matter if they're profitable", a "tech company" has more of their costs up front (to develop the software), and their costs i

From the point of view of "does it matter if they're profitable", a "tech company" has more of their costs up front (to develop the software), and their costs increase less with volume. So, once you've got the software made, "all you need to do" (still a big deal) is get customers, and you will become profitable (ignoring software maintenance that gets costlier as you scale up, etc). Costs may go up due to server capacity, etc. but not nearly as fast as revenue. But, if your cost structure isn't really like that, then if you're not profitable when you're small, that's a signal that you're not a good investment. A lot of companies with cost structures more like a conventional company, that weren't profitable, tried to claim that they were a tech company and therefore as they scale up they would become profitable. Some investors fell for this, or thought that someone else would when it was time to IPO. Whether this logic was ever valid is, IMHO, debatable. But in this case it's a moot point, because Uber (and Lyft, and Lyme, and WeWork, and etc.) don't have a cost structure that looks like a tech company. They may use software, but most of their costs do absolutely scale up as they get more customers. Uber would have been having layoffs this year regardless, I think, they are just doing it now because they have an external shock to blame it on.