I don't think 'selling stuff with a margin' was ever their business model. In almost every aspect of their business they act as a platform (platform to sell things to consumers, host photos/ music/ etc, watch/ listen/ subscribe to content, AWS). I feel like Prime's goal is to encourage customers to stay within the Amazon ecosystem and although its a revenue stream, it doesn't necessarily mean that 'monetization is now tied to walking the fine line between positive experience and pissing people off'.
Not sure I see how it's relevant to the discussion... The article you linked talks about Woodman's stock grants, and mentions how stock option repricing is used primarily by companies with volatile stock prices. The price hit the stock took would lower the value of Woodman's grants, so I don't feel like that article really dampens the main point in any way... Would you mind clarifying?
Agree that bullshit offers need to be weeded out, but I don't think it would make sense for an Acquiror to propose a price without sufficient information to base that price on. Justin's post mentions bullshit offers as not putting time pressure or promise of term sheet delivery, but the email indicates they're interested in getting it done as soon as possible. Hard to say if this really was a bullshit offer, but don't think an indication of price through an email, especially prior to an NDA, would make sense.
Agreed, that's why I've always thought of it as an implied valuation. Investors are going into it expecting upside, and the terms allow them to have a floor (regardless of what happens with common/ prior rounds), but I don't think they would make the investment if they felt an acquisition/ IPO/ other liquidity event would value each share of the company at less than what they paid for it. I don't think its unreasonable to use this to get to an implied total valuation.
After reading through the quora article, I agree that different tranches may have different terms. However, if investors are buying 70M shares at $1 each, it implies that they believe a share of the company is worth that much. If the company has 3.5B shares, that's an implied valuation of $3.5B. In that sense, the investment does value the company at $3.5B. Whether that valuation (or a higher or lower one) is realized through a liquidity event is a different matter, and if/ when that happens, the valuation would be specific to that point in time.
Curious - why did you feel the need to start your comment like that rather than just saying 'I'm happy to see Lfyt's years of efforts in improving transportation paying off. This is so much better to hear than Uber's tale of one-upmanship.'?
Google ventures invested $258M in Uber about a year ago, I'd say it's highly likely that if self-driving cars pan out, there'll be an Uber fleet of them.
Not saying I disagree. I don't think people should be looking at GAAP vs. Non-GAAP if they don't understand that one vs. the other doesn't make the company more or less profitable. My point is it helps better understand the company from an operational perspective when very high SBC or D&A can significantly distort actual expenses.
Both are non-cash expenses, so makes sense to consider financials without them when looking at GAAP vs. Non-GAAP. They're certainly operational charges, but somewhat distort P&L.
I feel like this comment was made without reading the post.
"Uber’s growth potential rests not only on being able to claim a larger share of the car-service market but also on expanding this market by attracting those who use public transportation or drive their own cars." He even mentions that his base case is assuming uber remains in the car-service related business.
Great write-up. For those interested and not already aware, Damodaran's own site has lots of great posts on finance and valuation. This article seems to build on his original analysis done here: http://www.aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-disruptive...
Thanks Markus! It's great for the community to have data like this to learn from. I've tabulated the image for anyone interested in looking at it as a spreadsheet, which can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17yKe82aozcBegNs2YfPU...
If you'd prefer that this not be made public please let me know.
enterprise value = market cap + debt - cash; don't think the additional cash would 'raise their buying price'. If they could have sold for $10B currently (assuming the valuation TPG is buying in at is what they would sell for), I'd think it would make sense to not take additional funding at the expense of giving up equity, so don't see how this would raise the value of their valuation. Thoughts?
Tried using it on a Nexus 7, some frustrating issues with UI because it aligns off to the right instead of taking up the full screen, and some elements are off the page so not clickable. Might want to try it on different tablets?
Looks really interesting but will rely heavily on getting people to invite friends and be actively involved, not sure what's going to make it sticky...
That makes a lot more sense. I realized my mistake after going back to the site and noticing that guests are charged a fee as well. It's still pretty crazy on a rev multiple basis but the company's growth is ridiculous as well. Thanks for the insight.
but it's not really earnings is it? that's 20x revenue, so even with really good margins that would be at least double. You're right that amazon's P/E is insanely high, but on a revenue basis they trade at 1.5-2.0x. I guess with the kind of growth AirBnB has there's nothing really comparable... just trying to understand how they're justifying that valuation
yeah, was confused by that part a bit, since their website mentions 3%. perhaps that's just the listing fee vs. how much they make for each night someone stays at a listing...
Can I ask what the $4 in profit and 30M nights/ year to justify $2B valuation are based on? Just wondering if maybe my math/ view on it is wrong...
Looks like they charge a 3% fee meaning a night @ $100 would bring in $3 of revenue (not profit). At 30M nights that's $90M in revenue, putting the $2B valuation at 22.2x revenue... seems slightly unreasonable (at least not a valuation that public markets are likely to put on it). Thoughts?