People keep saying Uber is burning cash, but their core business model is sound:

$5 per hour per driver goes to Uber

Assume 80,000 drivers (half of # U.S. Uber drivers) drive 8 hours a day, 7 days a week

52 weeks in a year

5x8x80000x7x52=$1,164,800,000

So about $1.1 billion just in the US. The only expenses are at headquarters (engineering, operations, design, legal, marketing, support) and the tiny field support offices they have in each city (local, entry-level employees).

As far as I know, Uber loses money on driver incentives and stuff like pool/share options, where they pay the driver the amount over the discount granted to the customer. I'm assuming a lot of such tricks are how they keep their drivers, and this is what they spend money on.

billionairs can get burned too

Yes, but the ill effects are wildly out of proportion.

> We really need pro-competition legislation to stop this sort of predatory capitalism.

That's a non-sequitur

>"We really need pro-competition legislation to stop this sort of predatory capitalism."

This conclusion refers to the idea of VCs(billionaires) subsidizing rides in order to remove the entrenched player(taxis.) How is that a non-sequitur?

It sounds like the parent poster is saying that "pro-competition legislation" would prevent a new company (funded by VCs) from competing with an entrenched industry (taxis).

I think the confusion stems from saying pro-competition legislation will prevent competition.

What's bad about VC billionaires giving cheap rides to other people?

It wasn't my comment. I was just commenting on it not being a non-sequitur.