5 ms·

Uber to focus on FCF and hints of bumpy ride ahead for employees

32 points by Lapz 4y ago

djbebs 4y ago
Uber is running out of runway I see. Who knew that losing money on every trip you sell was an unsustainable business model?
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Their software engineering overhead is just insane. I found some numbers from 2018 which states that there are about 90 000 FTE Uber drivers to some 1000s engineers. It is really strange setup for a cab company. They are using their scale for bloat rather than a scale advantage. https://www.epi.org/publication/uber-and-the-labor-market-uber-drivers-compensation-wages-and-the-scale-of-uber-and-the-gig-economy/ https://www.epi.org/publication/uber-and-the-labor-market-ub...
  - djbebs 4y ago
    The whole business has bad economics, and it's been a perfect example of Venture Capitalist charity
    - deepsun 4y ago
      Same as Wework, but as far as I see, WeWork carved out their chunk of the market (by pricing out competition using price dumping). Now, once they killed some competitors, they are regular player on the co-working market, with regular prices. I tend to think this is bad for economy in general, as it emphasizes capital over innovation.
  - kramerger 4y ago
    What stops a much smaller company to create a more efficient solution and take over the market now?
    - deepsun 4y ago
      Billions of investment? Not unique to ride sharing, but pretty much every other common type of business.
axg11 4y ago
We were promised the roaring ‘20s. Instead the party’s over, every tech company is pulling back plans and preparing for a multi-year recession. The tone of these emails is odd to me. Dara is not stupid, he must know that Uber is bloated and over-engineered. If there is a long recession affecting their business, they will inevitably have to trim some of this fat. Surely _that_ is what was discussed with investors.
- lalos 4y ago
  Specially the part of “most of our employees are below 30”, sounds like that sound bite is still fresh on the mind from that conversation with investors.
  - strikelaserclaw 4y ago
    Most big tech engineers who went to SV in 2010's have experienced unprecedented appreciation to their equity and that forms their baseline of expectations. For a lot of people, it is not "oh my 100k a year equity grew to 300k a year", its my income per year grew 300k a year and my expectations are for 500k a year from now on. This is especially bizarre at companies which fail to make money because their business model is flawed, no amount of engineering talent can make a shitty business model functional. What this all means is that we are in for a slow down in the next ten years.

32 points by Lapz 4y ago

Uber is running out of runway I see. Who knew that losing money on every trip you sell was an unsustainable business model?

rightbyte 4y ago
Their software engineering overhead is just insane. I found some numbers from 2018 which states that there are about 90 000 FTE Uber drivers to some 1000s engineers. It is really strange setup for a cab company. They are using their scale for bloat rather than a scale advantage. https://www.epi.org/publication/uber-and-the-labor-market-uber-drivers-compensation-wages-and-the-scale-of-uber-and-the-gig-economy/ https://www.epi.org/publication/uber-and-the-labor-market-ub...
- djbebs 4y ago
  The whole business has bad economics, and it's been a perfect example of Venture Capitalist charity
  - deepsun 4y ago
    Same as Wework, but as far as I see, WeWork carved out their chunk of the market (by pricing out competition using price dumping). Now, once they killed some competitors, they are regular player on the co-working market, with regular prices. I tend to think this is bad for economy in general, as it emphasizes capital over innovation.
- kramerger 4y ago
  What stops a much smaller company to create a more efficient solution and take over the market now?
  - deepsun 4y ago
    Billions of investment? Not unique to ride sharing, but pretty much every other common type of business.

axg11 4y ago

We were promised the roaring ‘20s. Instead the party’s over, every tech company is pulling back plans and preparing for a multi-year recession. The tone of these emails is odd to me. Dara is not stupid, he must know that Uber is bloated and over-engineered. If there is a long recession affecting their business, they will inevitably have to trim some of this fat. Surely _that_ is what was discussed with investors.

lalos 4y ago
Specially the part of “most of our employees are below 30”, sounds like that sound bite is still fresh on the mind from that conversation with investors.
- strikelaserclaw 4y ago
  Most big tech engineers who went to SV in 2010's have experienced unprecedented appreciation to their equity and that forms their baseline of expectations. For a lot of people, it is not "oh my 100k a year equity grew to 300k a year", its my income per year grew 300k a year and my expectations are for 500k a year from now on. This is especially bizarre at companies which fail to make money because their business model is flawed, no amount of engineering talent can make a shitty business model functional. What this all means is that we are in for a slow down in the next ten years.