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But how to get the money when VC money ended? The only way I see is to be more efficient on spending. Hint: taxi companies don't need 10k+ software engineers.

So their market is a race to the bottom. Which is a indicator of an effective market. Only non-effective markets have large profit margins.

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Both Uber and Lyft are public companies, so they can raise money on the stock market, selling bonds, convertible notes, etc.

For reference, uber now has a 3:1 ratio of debt to equity. Lyft is closer to 4.

Taxi companies don’t operate apps at global scales.

Consider that each country needs their own specialized team of engineers to deal with its own unique problems. Then you need reliability engineers, you need engineers building administrative tooling, payments, security, so much shit. You really do need thousands of engineers.

Actually no, there are companies [1] that sell whole ride-hailing infra, apps etc. Customers just customize them (logos/phones) and have their own Uber.

[1] https://onde.app

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