They don't, never have. In fact, they (Uber, Lyft, et al.) lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

They "hide" the profits with growth. Uber in particular burns thorough a lot of money every year in expansion globally, and into bike share and other markets. The company is still "worth" a couple billion dollars. "Profit" is to be avoided at all costs unless they want to be taxed heavily. Uber CEO is currently worth nearly 6 Billion Dollars. That's BILLION. With a "B". "Losing" money on paper is one way to accumulate wealth in the USA.

Since their growth potential is low now after establishing themselves everywhere they wanted to be, their earnings are dropping steadily. Without the growth, the numbers look bad. Except the CEO. SIX...BILLION...DOLLARS. Yeah. Losing money big time.

Losses are NOT profits. The growth of Uber has not been in assets but only its ability to lose its investors' money and expand into a dizzying whirlpool of money losing ventures.
Revenue - Expenses = Profits. Uber and its ilk had billions of dollars more in expenses, including salary for management (Uber CEO is paid $6.4 million/year) than it has taken in through revenue from its customers. From Day One.

The difference, i.e. losses, are being made up by the money that venture capitalists have been willing to lose/gamble that eventually they can unload their initial stake on naive suckers with a big payday windfall for early investors of an IPO, AKA a gigantic Ponzi scheme/service that has lost money hand over fist from day one.

The so-called billions of Dollars of Uber management "worth" is not wealth that can be spent or borrowed against but is speculative paper propped up by venture capitalists willing to gamble/lose money in search of IPO suckers.

"They"?

The CEO of Uber is worth 6 BILLION dollars. He made that money and put it into his bank account. "They" I presume is "The Company". I worked for a company that purposely "lost" money for 12 years. I was the CEO and I actually worked at the company and made decent money. The owner (President) of the company never had to step foot in the place and always claimed that he would NEVER own a company that he had to work at. Obviously, he had a ton of money that I (and others) made for him. I actually made enough money to take 6 months off every year as we had two "CEOs" and we took turns running the place. Basically, I made a years salary in six months. But still, for 12 years "They" lost money.

Do you understand?

You don't seem to understand anything about this topic. Your previous employment and salary "experience" doesn't mean doo-doo when discussing the viability or profiability of Uber and similar so-called smartphone enabled "ride share" mobility enterprises, or the personal wealth of its recently hired CEO. The CEO of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, was hired by Uber in August 2017. His salary is a handsome $6 million. Whatever other wealth he may have did not come from Uber, but rather his wealthy family connections and previous (to Uber employment) business/investment deals.

Uber loses big money not because it is being looted by management but because their revenue falls far short of their operating expenses and it is not likely to ever become a profitable enterprise due to its unprofitable business model.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensher.../#1c79a09210ec

Extracts:More: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/und...r-loses-money/

Extracts:

The example I used was certainly simplistic. And Uber isn't retail sales. Thanks for catching me up. I did not know much of what you posted.

I just wanted to clarify the "looted by the management" part of your post. In retail, ideally, every widget in the store will double your money invested in it every season. Sure there is shrinkage and other overhead that has to be addressed but ideally, every season you make 2X for ever X invested in inventory. A retail store never wants money in the bank instead of inventory. Money in the bank does not double every season (3-6 months depending on the store). So let's assume that our retail store is wildly successful and the bank account is filling up, the store is crammed full of product, and the tax man is drooling. What to do, what to do?

1. Open another location.

OR...

2. Give everybody a big raise. Or raise the commissions - even better, in case we have a bad year - the commissions will shrink and management does not have to take wages away from employees or lay anyone off.

It's a tightrope walk for sure. Ideally, at tax time, we want less than zero in the bank and the least amount of inventory possible. File the taxes, and fill the store again.

Now you start talking about stocks, going public, futures, leveraging, etc...I have no clue how all of that works out. So thanks.

Just offer.. get a cargo bike so you can haul anything you used to put in your car..

I went nuts the first time and got some discontinued Saddlemen saddlebags from a friend on eBay brand new for $60. after so many years I need to repair the straps etc but just look at that Rollfast and tell me I didn't get the motorcycle look right.

Correct, you and others, do not understand how to define wealth, let alone how people amass it.

In a sane world, getting paid $6 mil to run a money losing enterprise might be considered akin to looting.

In this case the management is less concerned with running a business that makes profits but rather is looking to score a big billion dollar payday for its founders and early investors and venture capitalists with a big payday IPO with a Ponzi like enterprise that will likely never make any profits.