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Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

There's definitely a tightening of capital happening right now. Investors are pulling back as fear of recession grows.

EDIT: Did I say I believe there's a recession coming? No. I said (accurately) that there are growing FEARS of one. There's definitely tightening of investments and capital happening.

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Not really at the early stages from what I can tell. There is definitely a correction happening in late stage pre-IPO and recent-IPO companies. In part because everyone is realizing that SoftBank are actually the dumb guys in the room, when the prior common view was that they were the smart money. A lot of these crazy valuations (Uber, WeWork, Slack, etc) that are getting cut were set by them.

I mean there's also the fact that California has pending legislation that seems ready to pass that will kick Uber (and others in the gig economy space) right in the wallet. Next 2 years should be interesting as we see what effect that has on things.

What's funny is that if they were employees then uber would be a lot harder to compete with. As it is now uber drivers will use several apps and often recommend competitors to customers, which they're entitled to do as private contractors.

If they were employees, Uber(and the others) would just be another taxi company and wouldn't have the same market share/investment levels they do.

Article about that California legislation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927466

Where is the line between "fear of recession" and "being in a recession"?

Recessions happen on a somewhat consistent cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_recessions); people would be less fearful if they were better prepared for their inevitability. Antifragility would be a good concept to be familiar with.

You should re-read my post, as it wasn't myself that fears a recession is looming.

The broader discussions within the markets are that one is on the horizon. I'm not so confident.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to you specifically. I have edited my comment to avoid the perception I had been.

Uber laying off several hundred people is not a signal for a market recession. How is your comment relevant?

I didn't say that it was.

Okay. How is your comment relevant to Uber layoffs?

Because Uber is heavily funded by investors. Layoffs from Uber, likely point to tightening of investor funds.

That's how.

Uber is publicly traded, they can no longer do funding rounds as they always have. That is more likely a reason for layoffs than uber fearing investors fearing recession. If anything it's a signal that the company is publicly traded, not recession fears.

Is Uber short of capital? I didn't see that in the article.

They run on investments (still haven't made a profit). If investors get shy (due to fear of recessions) then they have to cut back the pipe, and uber is forced to layoff.

435 people, especially engineers, is no small sum of money.

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