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Comment by brohee | Hacker News Reader

> This year, the firm expects to clock $10.84 billion in revenue which — calculating the 20 percent commission that it takes — should bring in around $2 billion in revenue for the year. Its projection for next year comes in at $26.12 billion, which could generate over $5 billion in take-home money.

So, is it eleven or is two billions in revenue... Techcrunch...

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$2 billion. Uber is never entitled to the full 100% they collect from passengers, so under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), it is inappropriate for them to record the full $10.84b as revenue.

From a GAAP perspective, pretty much every financial term is used incorrectly in the TC article, though presumably under Unicorn Accounting they make sense as used. Uber's gross revenue under GAAP is roughly $2 billion; net revenue is gross revenue less the costs directly associated with earning that revenue (generally meaning costs that can be determined on a per unit basis). Net profit is net revenue less non-directly-allocated expenses (like marketing, legal, rent, etc.). Based on previous leaks this summer, Uber is not currently profitable on either a GAAP or Unicorn Accounting basis.

Companies publicly traded in the US are required to use GAAP for their financial statements. Companies that are not publicly traded are free to use Unicorn Accounting, on the presumption that investors in privately held companies should know to perform their own due diligence.

Where are the Unicorn Accounting Principles (UAP) documented?

In the souls of eager entrepreneurs who are still children at heart... in the wind wafting through the foggy streets of San Francisco... pounded into the soul of the ground and streets around San Jose... in the clickety-clack of ping-pong games played just down the hall from the accounting office... when you have Employee Incentive Stock Options from a Unicorn, then you, too, will know the Accounting Principles, you will celebrate the Accounting Principles, you will be one with the Accounting Principles, and you will know they are Good, and you will laugh with elvish glee long into the night, singing praises to the mighty accountants who with ever-careful attention to the Unicorn Accounting Principles bring wealth and happiness to all.

(And darken not their spirits with tales of the Coming of the Second Great Pop.)

I prefer 10x accounting principles.

In general net revenue means revenue net of discounts or credits, but not net of cost of production. The proceeds net of direct costs of producing the revenue is gross profit. Operating profit deducts selling, general and administrative costs. Net profit further deducts interest, tax, and miscellaneous expenses (one-time gain or loss on selling a piece of equipment previously used in production, for example).

It's $2 billion. Groupon tried this during its IPO preparation and the SEC smacked them down and made them use net rather than gross for their gaap revenue. (Note that the SEC actually made Groupon change a bunch of stuff)

Good timing: http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements

Yeah but the media isn't held to that.

They're talking about 11B in pass-through revenue and 2B in revenue to Uber.

The 11B is the value of transactions they're facilitating through bookings that customers make, which pass through Uber and end up with the drivers, less the commission, which is the 2B in Uber revenue.

This tripped me up too, but I would guess the author meant to say $10.84B gross revenue and $2B net revenue.

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/what-are-diff...

It's $10.84b in total bookings (or taxi rental fees, whatever you want to call it), of which they keep 20%, so $2x billion in revenue for Uber.

Next year bookings are projected at $26 billion and they'll keep $5.x billion of that as revenue for Uber Corp.

It seems like they should really call that top-line, $10 bn, number 'bookings' and the second, $2 bn, number 'revenue'.

I'm guessing those are "Gross" vs "Net", or "Revenue" vs "Profit", depending on how you define your terms.

So do I, but this is extremely sloppy writing. Profit is talked about a bit later in the article, there is likely none.

I find it all very ironic with "financial mistatement" being on the front page.

Definitely not $2B "Profit" since they would have to subtract all other overhead costs like salaries etc.

I think the article mentions that actual profit might be negative.

A business can report one business unit (The bit that hires drivers and sends them out) is 'profitable', and also have an overall in-the-red because other business units aren't. I've not read the presentation, but it may be that Uber is trying to show their engineering costs and operations costs as two business units to better represent how the business scales (Engineering costs go up only logarithmically, while operations go 1:1 with revenue).

If Uber normalized its growth investing, it would continue to grow and be radically profitable.

I'm pretty sure that's money paid by users (i.e., 80% which goes to drivers) then 20% to uber

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