michaeldunworth

Actually that is exactly what it means. How many countries does Lyft operate in?

Exactly. 1.

Extremely far off.

1) Lyft is in the USA only. Uber is in 400+ cities. Lyft is not remotely close to Uber in terms of hurting them.

2) No. It is scalable. They burn to drown their competition. They've got more money, so once the oxygen runs out for their competitors, Uber will just put margins back to where they are, stop comping so many rides, etc...

3) Not sure how you get to this approach. Self-driving = Lower/zero driver costs. Consumer facing app mobile experience is not going to be the deciding factor of Uber's success.

I'm not sure if your statement is trolling, or if you were actually being serious... If it's a troll, very well done... If it's not, then I strongly disagree with you.

The value of Uber is not in it's app, it's design or any of that. That's all bs cosmetics stuff. The value is in it's execution, infrastructure, and processes.

Tesla - Doesn't make nearly enough cars to even be considered in the same spectrum of any other of the players. Autonomous, great. Ride sharing/micro-logistics infrastructure? Not enough strength unfortunately.

GM/Ford/Toyota - Great, they've got cars, let's say those cars are autonomous. Now what about the logistics management that they've got zero experience in? Uber has serviced millions of rides and learned and learned from that. The tech is not enough, the experience/data is what counts imo.

Any company looking to just "jump in" because they've got money and a car, is going to get vaporized, unless they've got data and resources (Google being the only one that fits this mould imo).

Just how Facebook and Google got vaporized in the "daily deal" market. They had more access to the businesses, and more access to consumers than the daily deal sites ever could. Yet they struggled to find any kind of market share. Another example is Google Shopping.

Resources aren't the only thing needed, experience and processes. Which is why I say that Google is a threat, but if they're buying out Lyft. Otherwise, Google will potentially compete, but more than likely cater to a different segment than what Uber does.

Time will tell I suppose :) Definitely see what you're saying, but I just don't think you're focusing on the most valuable pieces of Ubers business.

Either way, we're very fortunate to even be in a position to discuss such cool stuff! Exciting for sure :)

I'll tell you exactly how it will end.

Uber will be one of the first companies to a $1T valuation. (First two will be Facebook and Apple).

Here's why. Uber isn't about ride-sharing, at all. Uber is about rewriting your idea of needing a car. The market they're going after is literally automotive industry.

So right now, they're burning money hand over fist, but they don't /need/ to be doing that. It's a strategic choice, to drown their competitors (see Amazon, that's exactly what they do by tapping good sources of financing in the past). Uber will continue to do so until it is not viable to compete with them.

The only companies that will be able to compete is one with infrastructre and rivers of gold. Google. Google owns all the data of Ubers (maps), and they've got everyone on their own maps, they've got hundreds of millions of users that are tied into a google profile in some capacity (gmail/youtube/etc...) and a lot with linked credit cards. This makes for the biggest threat to Uber. Google can afford to lose, and Uber not buying Lyft is going to be the only potential down fall of the company. If Google buys them (which I don't think they will) then that is the headshot on Uber unfortunately.

Back to my point, basically Uber is going to burn and burn while capital is cheap, and force other players out. Makes sense. They can stop subsidizing their rides for users once they've bullied out the others, and there we end up with decently priced normal rides (Which is still ridiculously better in price and experience than a taxi). But by the time this happens (3 years-ish) Autonomous vehicles will be making their ways into cities at much more capacity. This will reduce their costs significantly, and all these price points they have which they have to pay for, will pay for itself by autonomous tech (instead of just forking out their own money to make our rides $5, the lack of labor because of the autonomous vehicles will force the COGS down essentially).

People will have a huge uproar at Uber for creating and then cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs (the drivers) - But their service and value add of an autonomous driving network will wash away everyones humanity side because it's just "too good". Leaving them in the tallest tower in the city with a penthouse office and a cat sitting on Travis' lap while he looks out the window down onto his autonomous city laughing in an evil tone.

$1T company, without fail.

RE Groupon: Groupon as compared to in the article is a different situation. Groupon had minimal barriers to entry and is only a sales machine. People, people, people, and more people were needed in order to bring in the next deal, the next bargain, etc... Uber is absolutely incomparable as they have an innovation in technology, financial defensibility, and humungous footprint of recurring revenue. Groupon had none of those so I feel the article writer putting that out there doesn't seem like a just example. The only thing they have in common is that they're losing money.

I know what you mean, but I think I've got to disagree. The general sense of "Autopilot" implies the same level of sophistication that other vehicles have that use "Autopilot"... Boats use it for mid course, as do planes, now having cars using it. It won't park, and it's not going to get out the carpark and onto the road, but it'll take over once the course is set and there's less technicalities on direction.

I think it's a fair call using this term.

Good points all round!

Thank you.

Definitely agree. Thanks for that, appreciate it!

I know this is very much a "How long is a piece of string question" - But typically are there any stories that you guys could share, or any insight.

Here's an example

//

1. Invest for 0.5-1% of equity in current round.

2. Status as ‘Senior Advisor’ to the Board.

3. 1-2 days per month on senior sales/advice/strategy/compliance etc…

4. $100k per annum in fee or equity options (latter preferred).

//

I know that it's tough to answer, but any insight is really appreciated.

Thank you!

Google is emphasizing for low prices and people not to make careers from this for one reason, automation. This is a pilot for them, and will be replaced by autonomous cars in a few years. They don't want to be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of jobs and fight that moral fight. Uber is about to have a huge amount of people displaced from the jobs they created, and Google doesn't want to share that reputational hazard imo. Good call for Google.

Interesting fact // It would cost ~$2.5M annually to flood the network and make it barely usable. That is petrifying to think about how easily crushed it could be. Forgetting about banks and regulation squandering it's growth, this can be done by any corporation with a hunch. Core developers are under a lot of pressure, but with any new tech evolving, panic is not the best way to create decisions.

Haha, thought the same.

The reason it puts downward pressure is because large scale miners are forced to sell all their BTC almost immediately, if not pre sell future mined coins at a locked price (Hedgy.co solving this issue for them) So if people are forced to mine and sell every bitcoin instantly it applies heavy downward market pressure on the exchanges. Look at the volume in China, most of this comes from miners.

If electricity wasn't too bad, and/or the price was significantly hire per BTC the pressure to liquidate and pay bills wouldn't be there as much, leading to less (immediate) downward pressure on the markets/price.

I think this is interesting because companies from day one may look at making their processes operate entirely on bitcoin from day 0. (payroll,bills,etc...) - I wander how many of the companies will cash it out and how many will use it for day to day operations. (This is also referenced in a comment below the article)

But given this is months out, this may be a $300k bankroll for each company. (Of course could go the other way)

Genuinely made me laugh. "Many room".

Become an expert in efficiency. Company processes are what separate great companies from good ones. The ability of having processes down, and duplicating those for scalability without foregoing quality. If you make yourself an expert on being able to see holes in efficiencies, then you create a lot of value for yourself.

This is just what I found when working, it would be the first thing people notice and reward, in companies.

She lived in Hong Kong and were selling small electronics (USB sticks/Gadgets/Key rings) Nothing major, just more for fun.

EDIT: *was

I had a friend that was selling about 20 items a week on instagram. This seems like it would make it easy. Good job!

This.

OH GOD YES. Seriously. I'm a tourist here. The guy asks me where I'm going. I say "To X please" - They then ask to get my phone out to show him where it's near. While he's looking at his phone plugged in, with GPS. This has happened, easily, 4-5 times. It's fkkd.

Yeah, we're working on that. At the moment it's still private to selected users for testing etc... I've got to update the site and make it more informative. Thanks for the heads up, I'll get onto that asap.

We don't provide a virtual credit card, we connect your coinbase account to our service and allow you to buy things on all websites, your coinbase account is then debited for the amount of your purchase. We then process the amount and transaction on our server to the merchant site.

Thanks so much :) I appreciate it!

snapcard - Allows people to spend their bitcoins on any website at anytime, regardless of whether the merchant has it integrated.

Like Amazon 1 click, except it works on every website and requires no merchant integration.

Video Demo - https://vimeo.com/76122291

It's cool because - Spend bitcoins anywhere you want - No merchant integration - 1 click checkout so you don't flood a million websites with your personal data.

I'm not sure, I don't want to burn any bridges or anything like that. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the further info... I'm waiting on an email response from them. It was an introduction from a successful entrepreneur who wanted us to speak to this particular VC company. Upon introduction, was hit up for BTC... I'll let you know what the end result is. Appreciate the feedback though!

Yeah, that's what I thought. They asked to get paid in BTC also. Haha...

Thanks. I thought that was the case. Much appreciated!

It's currently automated. We are though, manually checking the transactions to make sure the automation is working correctly. edit: manual checking is taking place throughout our alpha/beta until we've kicked all the bugs on our automation process.