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Leaked Uber Numbers Point to Over $1B Gross, $213M Revenue
- zavulon 13y ago> “The surprising part is that Valleywag knowingly outed their own source. Valleywag actually knew the screenshot had identifying information of the individual leaker prior to them publishing this story,” Kalanick told TechCrunch in a statement. “We told Nitasha Tiku from Valleywag that we would protect her source from legal ramifications if they did not publish the document. Nitasha and Valleywag decided to publish anyways. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again: ValleyWag/Gawker Media are scum. This is just another entry in a long list of terrible things they do to get pageviews.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- untog 13y agoYou cut it off a little early: Editor John Cook told us that the screenshots did not, in fact, have any identifying information. “We didn't publish any identifying information about the source of the screengrab,” Cook says. “We don't know who sent us that shot, and neither does Uber. Now, I can't say which one of the two is telling the truth, but at least give both sides of the story. Looking at the shots, I'm not sure what is personally identifiable, though the bookmarks bar could give some clues. And Travis's threat of legal action might just be hot air from him (which isn't exactly unprecedented). After all, these numbers look very good for Uber. I wouldn't want to be one of their competitors trying to raise a round of funding right now.
- kmfrk 13y agoPrivacy isn't exactly binary, though, so the point still stands that you should probably not leak to ValleyWag. Privacy is like a game of 20 Questions where the adversary intends to hone in on the full identity. Regardless of whether the source is identified, it is still unfathomably sloppy on ValleyWag's part in protecting their sources.
- zavulon 13y agoLook at the comment to the article: > It's a shame when tech journalists don't understand tech. Of course, they outed their source. With the time stamp Uber can check which employees looked at that page at a particular time. They can then ask these employees [likely just one] whose computer they were using at that time to figure out who grabbed the screenshot and sold it to ValleyWag. So it's either VW didn't realize this, or fully realized it and still outed their source because they don't give a shit. Given their history of outing their sources, even after specifically being asked not to, I think the latter is much more likely.
- untog 13y agoWith the time stamp Uber can check which employees looked at that page at a particular time. I think it's a bit of a leap to assume that the Uber admin system logs every user pageview. It may well do, but many home-grown systems (and it certainly looks homegrown) don't bother with that level of detail. Certainly, if they were that security conscious you'd think they'd also avoid allowing any employee to see overall revenue figures.
- ars_technician 13y agoApache access log by default has this. Doesn't matter how crappy the upper layers are.
- untog 13y agoPage views, yes. User account used, no.
- jc4p 13y agoAssuming they're using Apache's basic logs wouldn't it be insanely easy to track down all URLs visited by that IP? After you login to Uber.com it instantly does a GET to /api/clients/[PERSUMABLY_USER_ID]?parameters which would be in the logs or they might have logs of user logins on their side (to show users a 'you've recently logged in from...' list somewhere)
- gojomo 13y agoThe personally-identifiable bit could be a watermark: slight coloration changes. It could also be the last-updated time, or particular numbers in a column... which would have only been served to a single account in a logged transaction. A company that cares about its proprietary information can easily log and/or watermark everything served via internal tools.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joelandren 13y agoThis is what news organizations do. They find newsworthy information and provide it to the public. TechCrunch or the Wall Street Journal would do the same thing. The press doesn't exist to cheerlead (in most cases). There's no arguing that Uber's numbers are newsworthy, so I don't see anything wrong with Valleywag's coverage in this instance.
- benologist 13y ago> I've said it here before, and I'll say it again: ValleyWag/Gawker Media are scum. This is just another entry in a long list of terrible things they do to get pageviews. Jokes on them cause AOL successfully hijacked their story anyway.
- arasmussen 13y agoWhat the hell happened two weeks ago when revenue was 33% of the other weeks...
- doki_pen 13y agoHate to make a meta post. But I submitted the link to the ValleyWag article and it got killed.. Not sure why.
- untog 13y agoValleywag tends to be insta-flagged by the HN community.
- swombat 13y agoValleyWag is probably auto-banned because it is generally low quality polemic stuff.
- seiji 13y agoValleywag is a banned domain like youtube and a hundred others.
- kmfrk 13y agoBuzzFeed, too. I believe the entire Gawker network is blocked.
- anrope 13y agoValleywag articles are auto banned on HN because they are too waffly. Maybe try turning it off, then, after that, turning it back on again.
- swalkergibson 13y agoI am confused. Is $213M Uber's top line, or bottom line?
- nlh 13y agoUber collects the full amount of the fare, but keeps only 20% of it for itself -- 80% goes right back out the door to the driver. Typically this is called "Gross Revenue" vs. "Net Revenue" So the $1B in gross revenue is the same as how a small car dealership books gross revenue for the total $ value of the cars it sells, even though most of that $ goes right back to the manufacturer ("cost of goods sold") So $1B is their Gross Revenue (top top line), and $213M would be their Net Revenue (bottom top line) -- then all expenses, etc. come out from there...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- swalkergibson 13y agoGotcha. I was not sure if they were going to book it as COGS or what exactly they were doing there. Makes sense now! Thanks!
- samspenc 13y agoMy understanding is that its top line. So Uber gets $1B in revenue, but gives most of it to the drivers - so is left with $213M in total revenue. So we don't know its "income" or profits.
- testrun 13y agoIn many companies (and GAAP), what is here referred to as gross revenue will be revenue, and what is called here as net revenue will be gross income. After that you deduct normal expenses that is related to create revenue, then that will be earnings before tax, interest and amortization (EBITDA). To get to nett you need to deduct from EBITDA the interest, amortization and tax, as well as abnormal items. COGS (cost of goods sold) is normally the difference between revenue and gross income.
- jpeg_hero 13y agoWow. Giant numbers.
- colinbartlett 13y agoWhy is this news? How does the volume of business affect Joe Uber User or even Sally Hacker in general? This doesn't seem even remotely interesting.
- jmduke 13y agoIt's raw financial information about a well-known and much-discussed new business, a business about which we aren't often privy to any numbers. It's okay that you don't find it interesting, but I -- and many others, thus the upvotes -- do. (If your definition of newsworthiness stems solely from whether or not it effects you in general, then I'd imagine you'd have to eliminate 80% of Hacker News, as well as ~98% of all world news.)
- colinbartlett 13y agoNo snark necessary, Justin. It was a genuine question. I just didn't understand why it was so highly upvoted and why this was so interesting to people.
- jmduke 13y agoI apologize if I came off as snarky with the middle bit, I didn't mean it as such. (For instance, I don't find the VC stuff on here, such as the Kima15 thing, interesting at all. But I recognize that a huge portion of readers here do.)
- chatmasta 13y agoI don't think they did this, but one smart way for Uber to protect screenshots like this would be to include unique hex value colors depending which employee is logged into the dashboard. i.e. a different shade of blue in one of the cells for each employee who logs in. Then when the screenshot is published, you just eyedrop the color and you know who leaked it.
- tych0 13y agoWouldn't something like image compression potentially distort this?
- kmfrk 13y agoYes and no; an array of predetermined colours - say ones deemed to be print-safe - could address that. And even if it weren't perfect, narrowing it down to, say, a green domain of colours would still be valuable.
- zackbloom 13y agoIs it really worth the trouble? An employee could just copy-paste the data into excel next time.
- ericlewis 13y agoi actually think its a really simple solution for the problem at hand... its also hard to detect. the leaker didn't bother this time, but why not have such a simple mechanism in place?
- donjigweed 13y agoSheesh, if I were Uber, I'd actually want those numbers to be distributed, far and wide. A $3.5b valuation represents a downright paltry multiple by Silicon Valley standards.
- jacques_chester 13y agoSomething is actually being bought and sold. This makes it easy to give a "real" valuation, rather than plucking figures out of the air based on buzz. That is why unprofitable companies can raise so much money. You can sell the hope that it will someday make some sort of money, somehow. How much? Set your imagination (and your chequebook) free!
- jgalt212 13y agoUsing GAAP (Groupon Accepted Accounting Principles), Uber's Gross is $10B.
- steven2012 13y agoAre Uber drivers employees of Uber? Or are they contracted out, or independent, etc? If they aren't considered employees, then the $1B gross would not really be gross revenues under GAAP.
- tlrobinson 13y agoWhat else would you call that number? It's basically sales. Revenue is how much they actually took in.
- steven2012 13y agoIf they are a marketplace where the drivers are independent entities from Uber, then the money going to the drivers is not considered revenue under GAAP. Which is why I ask whether or not the drivers are Uber employees or not. I have no idea if they are or not. If they are Uber employees, then it is legitimate revenue, but if there is some agreement where they remain independent from Uber, then it would not, under GAAP. Think about a site like Expedia, or Orbitz. They do not claim the entire price of the ticket as their revenue, since that money is going directly to the airlines. Their only revenue is the $10 they make from a ticket purchase. This is the same issue that Groupon ran into pre-IPO where they were claiming the entire deal as their revenue.
- bmelton 13y agoBy the title, it looks like they're working under GAAP rules. 1 billion gross, 213 million revenue. Gross would be the overall moneys that come in, $213mm would be what Uber grosses for itself, and the difference would be contractor payments. I'm just speculating, of course, but if the title is to be believed, it supports what you're saying, I think.
- mschaecher 13y agoYou're correct. Which is why most reports of revenue for Uber, or even Airbnb, almost always use numbers in the hundreds of millions. However, both companies have gross sales in the billions.
- meterplech 13y agoThis leak is frustrating and sad. Many of us here applaud companies that work to be transparent with their employees and would appreciate working for a company that helped us understand metrics like this. It makes everyone feel like they are a larger part of the company's success and learn more about how to become founders themselves. So, having an employee leak this out doesn't just hurt the culture at Uber (which it undoubtably will at least shake), but lessens the likelihood that any company that hopes to IPO or get bought will want to share their performance metrics with employees.