Non-IT News Thread
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@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
So the same thing they have been trying to do for the last decade? How is this proposal any different?
Different font?
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@nadnerb said in Non-IT News Thread:
@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
So the same thing they have been trying to do for the last decade? How is this proposal any different?
Different font?
Bonus points to them if they send it out in Comic Sans.
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@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
Bribes most likely, but written down as something else.
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@kelly said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
Bribes most likely, but written down as something else.
A quarter!? How literally how the hell could that be. . .
At some point you just place a guy in the captains seat after expending so much. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
This is how businesses work. They get billions in investment, and then they spend that money to grow the business. It's expected that you will lose that money. If they weren't going to lose it, they'd not have made it in the first place.
It is an extremely rare business that can grow using only profits, because if they could, everyone would start zero risk, unlimited growth companies. This is where investments and risk come in.
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@kelly said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
Bribes most likely, but written down as something else.
A quarter!? How literally how the hell could that be. . .
At some point you just place a guy in the captains seat after expending so much. . .
That's a lot but not THAT much. Given the size and cost of Uber, it's not really all that much. Enough for them to worry, but not so much that it's crazy.
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Keep in mind that Uber currently earns $2.22 bn in the same period. So while losing $1bn is a big percentage, it's only so much. It's well within normal ranges of "what you spend to get bigger." If Uber doesn't expand, someone else will move into the markets where they want to operate.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
This is how businesses work. They get billions in investment, and then they spend that money to grow the business. It's expected that you will lose that money. If they weren't going to lose it, they'd not have made it in the first place.
It is an extremely rare business that can grow using only profits, because if they could, everyone would start zero risk, unlimited growth companies. This is where investments and risk come in.
I get start up risk and reward, but at this level? Uber and the others are simply ride-shares (cheap taxis so to speak). I just don't see how this level of spend, is in the realm of realistic for such a basic service.
Does every Uber include WiFi and drinks and companionship for each customer?!
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber leaving markets such as SE Asia as they are losing $1bn a quarter.
I can't begin to understand how a business spends 1-billion a quarter for something as simple as ride-sharing. . .
What kind of opex is occurring here?!
This is how businesses work. They get billions in investment, and then they spend that money to grow the business. It's expected that you will lose that money. If they weren't going to lose it, they'd not have made it in the first place.
It is an extremely rare business that can grow using only profits, because if they could, everyone would start zero risk, unlimited growth companies. This is where investments and risk come in.
I get start up risk and reward, but at this level?
Less than 50% of revenue. That's not a high level.
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber and the others are simply ride-shares (cheap taxis so to speak). I just don't see how this level of spend, is in the realm of realistic for such a basic service.
I think that there is a massive disconnect here. What Uber does is insanely expensive. The scale of the tech, infrastructure, legal, marketing, sales, training, local coordination needed, plus R&D... there is a reason no one else did this for so long. This is one insanely expensive business to be in. The costs of being in just a single city is staggering. The amount of licensing and other needs are just crazy.
Simple is the last thing you can use to describe Uber.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
Uber and the others are simply ride-shares (cheap taxis so to speak). I just don't see how this level of spend, is in the realm of realistic for such a basic service.
I think that there is a massive disconnect here. What Uber does is insanely expensive. The scale of the tech, infrastructure, legal, marketing, sales, training, local coordination needed, plus R&D... there is a reason no one else did this for so long. This is one insanely expensive business to be in. The costs of being in just a single city is staggering. The amount of licensing and other needs are just crazy.
Simple is the last thing you can use to describe Uber.
I just used the word simple to define Uber.
It's ride sharing.
Ignoring everything else that they are doing (which appears to be an autonomous rideshare - end game)
You hail a rideshare, it arrives, it takes you to point A. You opt to leave point A and hail another rideshare. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
Does every Uber include WiFi and drinks and companionship for each customer?!
Think about the cost of good IT. People who don't understand IT will say things like "how much can it cost to plug in a computer, that's all IT is." But in IT we know that it takes an insane amount of time and cost to ensure stability, security, patching, planning, helping end users, etc.
Uber has all of that. You are focused on parts of Uber that aren't even Uber, but are the individual drivers. Uber doesn't own the cars or manage the services. This is why you feel Uber is simple, you can mixing the concepts of a global technological and legal behemoth with individuals who drive cars. It would be like saying "how hard is it to run a country, does every citizen get a personal chef?" The luxuries provided by the government aren't what make a government big and complex. It has a lot of stuff to do behind the scenes.
Uber has to manage so many things that it is actually amazing that it is even possible to do. And long term, we might sadly discover that it is not possible to do.
Imagine starting an Uber service in a new city. It might require five years of legal work and technical work, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, before you can even do your first ride. And only then do you start discovering real world problems.
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@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
You hail a rideshare, it arrives, it takes you to point A. You opt to leave point A and hail another rideshare. . .
Which is INSANELY complex to do and the exact opposite of "simple."
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dustinb3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
You hail a rideshare, it arrives, it takes you to point A. You opt to leave point A and hail another rideshare. . .
Which is INSANELY complex to do and the exact opposite of "simple."
How so? I can call for a taxi from my cell phone just as easily. . . I don't see the difficulty in this?
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Some of the things that Uber needs to do for every ride:
- Do more work that most companies here have ever considering doing in the history of their companies just to get legal permission to operate in a country.
- Build and maintain applications and application frameworks that cost hundreds of millions to make.
- Run a world class IT department.
- Build an infrastructure in every single city they want to service.
- Run massive marketing campaigns.
- Hire and train and army of drivers.
- Run customer service and support organizations.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Every "little simple" thing that Uber does requires 100x more cost and scale than any business you've ever looked at. It's a massive organization doing an insanely massive task. The cost to deliver a single ride share is enormous.
If you wanted to bring Uber to Rochester for the first ride, that first ride might cost $100 million dollars to do, even in a country and state that already had Uber in it.
Think about the insane cost of taxi services. Uber is literally running a service 10x as complex, while trying to do it at half of the cost, of existing services that cost many billions of dollars.
