Originally Posted by
JoeyBike
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.