Uber makes a gross profit of over $12 billion on a revenue of nearly $32 billion. They lose money on paper because they keep reinvesting profits and further investments back into the business. They've almost doubled revenue YoY.
So even the most ludicrous SV startup you can think of pulled this off.
I am not following. I didn't mean to make fun of you, I honestly thanked you for correcting my warped vision of Uber's VC situation. Sorry if it sounded ironic or aggressive.
It's also not true to say that Uber's loss is due solely to R&D, since R&D only represents $1 billion in expenses, per Uber's 2022 annual report and their Q1 financials. Uber would still be unprofitable even if it did no R&D, since it has very large G&A, marketing costs, and CORS (cost of revenue).
Or maybe their plans is to get the first mover advantage and see what pans out ? Or get the whole market à la Uber by spending a lot of VC money and then figure out how to recoup ? See farming tech.