Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors

Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by whitepoplar on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:03PM (#18633402)

My favorite thing about the public markets is that it doesn't matter how much hype a company garners on TechCrunch, where the founders went to school, or how slick the company office spaces are. A piece of shit is a piece of shit, and conversely, a diamond is a diamond. That's not to say that public companies can't run on hype--they absolutely can--but eventually hype wears off and a company must show that it's a real business.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by paxys on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:07PM (#18633424)

Have you met TSLA? Public markets are as much based on hype than anything else.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by sethherr on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:14PM (#18633454)

Have you seen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18618365 ? It brought interesting insight into additional factors in TSLA’s valuation

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by isoskeles on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:37PM (#18633537)

I don't understand how this brings insight into "additional factors" in their "valuation", as the article mentions nothing about their valuation, just that they have efficient batteries.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by krn on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:40PM (#18633548)

Many people think of Tesla as a car company, when actually it's an energy company. Other car manufacturers are not.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by prostoalex on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:07AM (#18634656)

Their balance sheet still reflects liabilities in terms of showrooms, salaried salespeople for those showrooms, automobile service centers and salaried mechanics at those service centers.

Until those expenses become immaterial in the grand scheme of things, they’re a car company.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by azhenley on Friday December 07, 2018 @10:01PM (#18633615)

Reminds me of a quote I once heard (but can't find now) about Ford or GM, that they aren't an automobile company but rather a finance/loan company.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by taneq on Friday December 07, 2018 @10:27PM (#18633718)

Kind of like big mining companies aren't actually mining companies, they're finance and investment companies. The actual mining is done by contractors three or four tiers down in the contract stack.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by quickthrower2 on Saturday December 08, 2018 @01:41AM (#18634217)

No company is a what it actually does company.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by sah2ed on Saturday December 08, 2018 @05:25AM (#18634690)

> No company is a what it actually does company.

Or perhaps that companies, like individuals, have facets.

Someone calling Google a search engine company is no more correct than you saying they are an advertising company, technology company etc, or in a negative sense, a monopoly.

Each of these epithets refer to the same entity, it's just that each emphasizes a particular trait over other traits for the point being made. A regulator is more much more likely to use "search engine" in conjugation with "monopoly" to characterize Google than with the term "technology company" since their goal is to highlight a potential case of abuse that is known to stem from such market power.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by taneq on Saturday December 08, 2018 @09:47AM (#18635456)

True, but I'd phrase it as "no big company is actually a what-you-think-it-is company."

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by maxerickson on Friday December 07, 2018 @10:05PM (#18633633)

The question then becomes whether they have a modest cost advantage over other battery makers or a huge cost advantage. A modest one just means they will be the slightly more profitable battery maker.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by taneq on Friday December 07, 2018 @10:26PM (#18633716)

I think Tesla is actually a tech company, where 'tech' refers to 'technology', not just software. They have developed a whole bunch of cool new tech, and they use it to build cool new products. The specific flavour of tech and product is window dressing to the core methodology.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by artursapek on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:21PM (#18633486)

Tesla is definitely hyped, but that's not the only reason for its market value right now. They are _the_ electric car company, nobody wants other electric cars nearly as much as they want a Tesla.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by adventured on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:14PM (#18633453)

TSLA... the company that doubled its sales in the last three quarters and is outselling BMW and Mercedes in the US?

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by markus_orlandis on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:39PM (#18633545)

Just because they've been performing does not imply that they're not overvalued. TSLA has been overvalued for years. That doesn't mean it's a bad investment, it just means it brings along higher risk.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by a_t48 on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:16PM (#18633464)

If that’s true, couldn’t you short it?

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by admax88q on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:27PM (#18633508)

Shorts only work if the market corrects fast enough for it to be worth while.

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Re:Uber Joins Lyft in Race to Tap Investors by paulcole on Friday December 07, 2018 @09:10PM (#18633438)

Yes, no stock has ever been affected by hype.

It can take YEARS for the market to get things right.

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