> That's a somewhat outdated narrative to still be parroting.
It's not. Most of those "innovators" are still posting losses in the hundreds of millions
> Uber just got included into the SP 500. One of the pre-requisites for that is being profitable on a GAAP basis.
Because you can somehow lose a billion dollars a year for 10 years, become a publicly traded company with a steatement "we don't even know if we'll ever turn a profit", still continue operating at a huge loss for several years, write off 6 billion in losses, and finally become profitable enough to be included in S&P.
Any any other, sane world, Uber would be gone after two years of losing a billion dollars a year. Not crawl into S&P after 10 years of unsustainable losses.
> it seems as if Uber’s losses were self-evidently sustainable.
With the unlimited free investor money. Same goes for the rest of "amazing starup innovators" of recent years (e.g. YCombinator's startups). The flow of money has now stopped/slowed, and we now see mass layoffs and a wave of bankrupcies.
Losing a billion dollars a year for 10 years is not a sustainable business. But somehow it has become the norm in IT.
It's not. Most of those "innovators" are still posting losses in the hundreds of millions
> Uber just got included into the SP 500. One of the pre-requisites for that is being profitable on a GAAP basis.
Because you can somehow lose a billion dollars a year for 10 years, become a publicly traded company with a steatement "we don't even know if we'll ever turn a profit", still continue operating at a huge loss for several years, write off 6 billion in losses, and finally become profitable enough to be included in S&P.
Any any other, sane world, Uber would be gone after two years of losing a billion dollars a year. Not crawl into S&P after 10 years of unsustainable losses.