They're not doing that. They got $11.27 in revenue for a cost of $9.65. The loss stems from spending an additional $4.67 on advertising and R&D.
1.5 billion on R&D, 3 billion on marketing.
Uber don't get the income from the rides without the marketing so I don't get why you get to ignore that when working out if they are profitable or not.
Does marketing and R&D cost grow linearly with number of rides though?
The “marketing” cost does when it’s driver / rider incentives. It’s literally selling a $10 ride for $8 by chipping in $2 from the marketing budget.
Not true, read the S1. They lose money on every ride due to driver incentives.
Can you be more specific than a 280 page document?
Your example isn't proportionate. It's selling $14 for $11, which is much closer to selling $10 for $8, which is a lot more reasonable than $10 to $5.
Cool, cool. Just gotta raise prices by 25% or cut costs by 20%. Trivial.