Whatever the case, the exit-ramps are there at every stage and every moment until you do it. To play this as some kind of rolling ball that couldn't be stopped strains logic and seems basically counterfactual.

I disagree. I think the tension between getting your house in order enough to open your books to the public market and critically important employees waiting around for their stock-based compensation to trigger puts you between a rock and a hard place.

For Uber, it's do-or-die in 2019.