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Comment by pbreit | Hacker News Reader

I get what "full Uber" is trying to mean but it seems like a pretty silly concept. And I don't see the connection between one company's bookings and another's funds raised.

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On a personal note, I'd say it's pretty sad that a taxi company is raising more than a company attempting to further the technological front. Not popular to say anything against Uber here these days, but this is not against Uber specifically, more the perverted culture that we live in. Imagine these 8+ billion going to cancer research, for example.

Uber is buying up robotics departments and pushing into autonomous vehicles. They're definitely furthering the technological front. Also, I think you'll find plenty of criticism of Uber around here, it's not one of the most well-regarded companies.

Uber hasn't done anything meaningful to further the technological front yet -- certainly nothing that is or will affect all of humanity. And we are literally talking about Rocket Science here...

And has SpaceX?

From wiki article on SpaceX:

The first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit (28 September 2008)

The first privately funded company to successfully launch (by Falcon 9) Orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon) (9 December 2010)

The first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the International Space Station (25 May 2012)

The first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit

That's not a front though, that's just doing it with a different revenue stream.

There was a lot of "first" in the previous comment, which might as well be synonymous with "front" in this context.

As an example, Linux wasn't the first UNIX-like kernel or the even the first free UNIX-like kernel, but it (with GNU) was the first free UNIX-like kernel to bring a UNIX-like kernel to the mainstream PC world and span the entire vertical range of computing scale from microcontrollers to TOP500 supercomputers. I'd call that expanding the technological front.

Edited for GNUtical correctness, which makes it quite a bit harder to read

>There was a lot of "first" in the previous comment, which might as well be synonymous with "front" in this context.

Not really. It's literally doing what was done before, 30 years ago.

None of those things has had any affect on my life or the lives of anybody i personally know (yet).

I booked a ride on Uber just the other day.

edit: typo

Both Uber and SpaceX are technically 'transportation companies' in a loose sense. None of the things you listed above really further any field in basic science and academia. SpaceX's achievements simply sound cooler because it is with big rockets and more tangible to write down for record keeping. They are essentially using rocket tech in a new, different way that employs a new business model for success - which, surprise surprise, is exactly what Uber does as well but with terrestrial transport vehicles.

Re-usable rockets are pretty meaningful. And SpaceX is a couple of launches away from achieving them.

>certainly nothing that is or will affect all of humanity.

If we're setting the goal post for "furthering the technological front" at "helping all of humanity" then technology is at a standstill and the Internet is a failure. After all, fewer than 50% of the world uses the Internet.

Uber has improved my quality of life, and improved the ability of my social group to get together despite being fairly spread out. Before installing uber, I paid for transportation maybe twice a year. Now it's closer to twice a month. That's pretty significant.

I'm glad SpaceX is doing well, but I'm also glad Uber is going well.

Totally tangential, but I'm genuinely curious where you live if you've only needed to pay for transportation twice a year. (Assuming you are counting car and bike maintenance and car fuel in that comment?)

If people can get around cheaper and more easily using Uber than they could previously using taxis, that's an enabler for better productivity and quality across the entire economy.

Not even to mention that Uber, in complete opposition to taxis, is massively incentivised to drive self-driving tech forwards as quickly as possible. That will be a huge, huge multiplier on the above.

Your use of 'perverted culture' in reference to demand for improvements in transport services puzzles me. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your intent. People getting around, seeing other people, working with other people is the very basis of, well.. everything in our economy, and in our lives.

Even if only on an academic level, I really struggle to see how anyone couldn't be excited by the improvements companies like Uber are making right now, and the potentially more drastic improvements they could make in the future, in this sector.

Thanks for this. I was not aware of Uber's investments in the field, and I didn't want to compare Uber in particular. By "perverted culture", I meant the high-tech world in general, where Facebook buys Instagram and WhatsApp for billions of dollars for ... uhm ... important reasons. I am not holier than though myself, I participate in the crazy spending myself. But seeing the numbers here just made me think.

So by that definition, SpaceX is truly going "full Uber".

You somehow think Uber is going to continue subsidize taxi travel forever? Is that what all these investors are putting money into, of course not. The technological mertis of Uber does not take that much money. They might be working on self-driving cars, but so are several other startups and car companies. Just not as some lofty future goal, but as actual incremental improvements.

I think most peoples excitment over Uber is reactionary. Because they clearly aren't as excited about all the other companies that are now using similar technology without the poor ethics of Uber.

I don't like some of Uber's ethics but its execution overall has been exceptional. There is one impressive technical component around matching up riders along the same route. Otherwise, the Uber service is mostly just well-executed technology. But where Uber is way beyond others is operations, scale, marketing, etc. All worthy characteristics even if they don't resonate so much with a pure technical crowd.

Also, on a gross basis, Uber's 20-25% take rate makes it wildly profitable.

I'm going to disagree. It's a slippery slope to start making comparisons like that because the logical conclusion is that you only spend money on cancer research.

Also, I think transportation is fundamental and worth investing in. And further, it's (currently) a pretty good and very flexible way for a variety of people to earn income.

At least it's not fart apps. They're both selling real services. One of them is concrete and the other overvalued, is all.

Billions of dollars a year already go into cancer research. Infinite funding != faster progress.

I'd say the allocation of capital has been fairly efficient. Uber will be doing self driving vehicles(among other companies), and that will be as transformational as the automobile itself.

Also "cancer" is not one disease. It's thousands of separate diseases.

Moreover, technology is not a straight line. For example as far as cancer research goes, computer gaming and the incredible investment in graphics card technology (and the consumer market for it) has done more to help in recent years as a general effort then any other specific advance.

But people have definitely sat around saying "we shouldn't spend money on this..."

It is very, very popular to say things against Uber here these days.

It's not clear how or why the comparison exists except due to Uber being at the forefront of the current tech zeitgeist. There are many other things to compare this too. I am not clear on how informing the reader about the amount of funding Uber has raised and SpaceX's revenue from contracts actually clarifies and helps to provide proper perspective of the amount of money SpaceX has under contract. There is only mention of Uber in the title and once in the article, but the mention and comparison have worked to make everyone think about Uber (look at the current comments in this submission :))

I would have thought under the current funding systems having an "Uber" in contracted future sales would have limited its value.

After all you've got to expand before making money. Or so the current thinking appears to go.

It sounds like an "Uber" is a new measure of money. So Apple would be worth almost 100 Uber. My assets are measured in microUbers.

Respect. They don't measure mine, but if they did, the unit of measure will be picoUber.

Unless you're filthy rich, more like a nano-uber.

If $8 billion is 1 Uber, then a microUber is $8 thousand. It's nice to have, but hardly filthy rich.

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