Does this mean Uber technically recognizes more revenue from from a $6 UberPool ride than a $20 UberX ride?
I do not think this a shell game to make the revenue number larger. The way drivers are paid while driving UberX vs. Uber Pool is different, and that probably has accounting rule impact.
If you're using GAAP, you have to include stock-based compensation as a cost. There are, however, a lot of tech companies that try and spin non-GAAP earnings by removing stock-based compensation, which can paint a very different picture (e.g., Salesforce)
It's to Uber's credit that on an ordinary ride, they don't try to claim that they have revenue equal to the entire fare. That would be an easy way for them to make their top-line financials look way more palatable than they actually are (ie, that they lost about $3B on $20B, rather than $3B on $7B).
But it may be genuinely hard to report on just the share of UberPool revenue that does not go to the driver, as my understanding is that the calculation is much more complicated in that case.
Uber's gotten away with a lot of stuff but I doubt even they could pull a 'whoops, forgot our expenses' sleight of hand. Especially since they try and frame drivers as 'contractors' and not employees
This company is like a Russian nesting doll shell game. There's more in each layer and every layer is a distraction.
In the marketplace case this is deceitful because the marketplace owner doesn't really have a way to bring the costs of the product down, so it's much more realistic to only consider their margin as revenue.
In the UberPool case I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that since they are paying drivers a flat fee, but charging users based on dynamic pricing and packing a variable number of people in each vehicle Uber has more flexibility in terms of how it provides the service to customers, the top line number of how much they are charging users is more reasonable. Uber cuts their costs on an UberPool ride in half every time they put two groups in the same car.
You would really want to see the data broken out by category if you were an investor, since mixing the two types in the revenue number is sort of meaningless since we don't know the split, but we're not exactly in a position to demand financials.
Still, I think this data shows a much rosier picture than HN wants to paint about how "Uber is losing money on every ride"/"Selling 2 dollar bills for $1" etc. the 2.8B loss is huge, but when you look at it compared to the $20B bookings number, you can see that they're not significantly subsidizing rides, but rather using their war chest to compete on price. They only need a 15% price increase to become profitable, which shows their prices are in the right ballpark, even if they're not profitable right now.
I do wonder if this is essentially a move to try and compete more effectively for talent that, besides being outraged, may be starting to believe HN about how likely Uber is to fail.
I think this is a matter of accounting judgment.
I'm not an accountant, but I remember reading somewhere that pure agency transactions have different accounting treatment vs. "principal" transactions where the party in question assumes more risk and is not acting strictly as a representative of another party (the UberX driver).
[1] http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2015/aug/fasb-propo...
In the car of Pool, Uber hires the driver.