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Comment by tempsy | Hacker News Reader

It's still a 45B company...still the largest and most successful company to come out of SF this decade.

>still the largest and most successful company to come out of SF this decade.

That's a lot less reflective of UBER and more reflective of the type of startups SV is trying to take public. Look at any other SV Unicorn that IPO'd...take Twitter that IPO'd in 2013, it turned a profit one year since going public.

I'm using market cap as a proxy for success not profit...

Twitter isn't really a shining example of success either - their share price has been sideways for 6 years.

> I'm using market cap as a proxy for success not profit...

Market cap is not and has never been a good proxy for success.

I think you're referring to private valuations

If Uber counts as a successful company by SV standards, that's a pretty strong condemnation of SV standards.

It's not a SV company - it's an SF company.

If we assume the meant SF instead of SV, does that negate his point somehow?

Yes, I meant SF.

I do find it amusing that I was called out on this, though, since in the past I've been called out for not including SF as part of SV.

If it’s worth one third of its current market cap it’s worth $15B. For a company that’s ten years old that’s incredible.

I think measuring whether or not a company is successful solely by that yardstick is very dubious.

Turning $10 billion into $45 billion over 10 years isn't really that incredible.

That's less growth than Comcast has had over the same period. Which most would not consider a dynamic incredible stock.

It's the most successful cashout for investors and early employees, but let's not act like Uber isn't still running on borrowed time.

It's not successful though. WeWork is still valued at 47B technically speaking today. They are a company that only loses money, has a horrid culture and does some morally reprehensible things.

Their true value is their logistics software. If they would lease/sell that to other industries they would be rich beyond belief.

What morally reprehensible things are done by WeWork?

I was referring to Uber

Their business is sketchy and their CEO is double sketchy. Type "wework" or "adam neumann" in google and you'll find plenty of sources

Private valuations are not the same as public ones, especially one post-earnings and post-lockup.

Every private company tries to turn those private valuations into public ones at IPO.

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