Uber is worth 50 billion $

[Deleted]

Why?  It seems like there would be very little reason others could not do the same thing as Uber, so competition should be steep. I think any good businessman could come implement the same plan with low startup costs.

[mroped]

So what makes Uber so highly priced?
Besides a website what do they have? Answering service?
It is my understanding that they don't own the cars and so on so there is effectively no equipment/tools involved or even a market that belongs to them. 
So again? Why is it $50billion?
It is all based on potential earnings for the next decade? 
Isn't that the proverbial bird on the fence?

[joemilitary]

money.cnn.com/2015/05/11/investing/uber-50-billion-valuation/

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

The one thing I will give Ubr is they have started to lease cars to operators. Since that money came from Microsoft which has literally never made a good investment in a company...

Aside from that their current model is not sustainable. There is no way long term they will be able to make money from unlicensed drivers. I would never send anyone I cared about anywhere through Ubr.

Seems like the myspace of this space. If one aspired to grow a business like this the angle is finding a way to get licensed drivers and launching off the Ubr fad. That would be a real business model in my mind. Tough to speculate on the value there, but a world wide taxi sharing service has to be worth quite a few billions I would imagine.

[mroped]

Yeah! Read the article Joe. Thanks!

It seems that Uber is the today's .com and we all know what happened to the slew of .com's

[ArchietheDragon]

I don't get it either.  The article Joe posted compared Uber to Google and facebook, but both Google and Facebook are giants because they sell of all of the information that have gathered and are able to gather from the public.   Without that neither are anything.  I don't see how Uber can be compared to that.    But at least Uber does sell a service that the customer actually pays for.  That is rare in new companies these days, it seems.

[mroped]

Yes Archie, they sell a service but there is a twist into that thing.
From what I know and read about it they don't actually own anything of physical value. All they have is the app that puts people together.
All their cars are privately owned-as in you putting your name and getting on the list of Uber drivers- and all they use for scheduling/coordinating is the app.
That is a big hit for the cab companies because by doing that, Uber drivers get around of having to pay for a medallion which can be very expensive and with just a little jump in the auto insurance you are allowed to carry on the service. Cab companies pay huge amounts on insurances of all sorts. Uber doesn't have that!
Is it right? Not fair for the cab companies but is legal. 
We call that "free enterprise" but we don't hold all to the same standards. 

In the article is saying that Uber can make about $2billion a year and I can't understand how can it be worth $50bils with just that much income/profit.
What it can be achieved "if..." Is irrelevant since there is always the threat of a competitor making the exact same move on the market. Too many "ifs" and too much uncertainty.
If they do that and start evaluating business using the same model, that is a clear sign that we are moving quickly towards another collapse just because we are creating "value, money" from things and using things that don't exist. 
Too much money, too big of a bet!

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Mroped, what you're talking about is more that just an Ubr phenomenon, book to market value is a conundrum as old as the market.

If you want a real head scratcher, look at the P/E of the Shanghai market - or ever the case shiller P/E of the US markets.

Share prices in lots of cases have more to do with perception than value. It's up to the individual investor to sort through the rubbish to see the value. JMO