I like @wraithburn but I disagree with every sentence in this tweet.
Cab drivers often owned their own cars in the old model as well as the new, and cabs are actually cheap.
Amazon rarely uses USPS, and when it does, USPS clears a profit.
Neither spreads costs to others.https://twitter.com/wraithburn/status/1296835383456681986 …
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4/ Mechanics owning their tools, Uber drivers owning their cars, etc is the American ideal - this is the Jeffersonian Yeoman farmer. The thing that people dislike is that market competition makes clear exactly what value people deliver, which shatters pretty delusions.
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5/ The Uber business model is viable, as demonstrated by the fact that it's working.https://twitter.com/ZombieClaudeR/status/1296837562359660551 …
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6/ Also capital is trivially available to big firms. It's the easiest thing in the world to solve for! Market fit, hiring, profitability, growing as fast or faster than competitors - these are all hard. Borrowing $100M SECURED BY HARD CAPITAL? They can do that w a phone call
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7/ Uber is not achieving success by forcing the poor working man to leverage himself to buy a car, thus relieving Uber from the impossible capital constraints of car ownership. The working guy ALREADY owns the car, in most cases, and is monetizing an underutilized capital asset
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8/ I'd argue that software from 1990 to 2020 is the story of capital demands getting smaller and smaller. To launch a startup back then required $2M in servers, Oracle license fees, etc. Today? $4 to buy some ramen. Capital is stunningly cheap.https://twitter.com/wraithburn/status/1296839522379014144 …
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9/ Uber has a "take rate" of ~ 20%, meaning that's what they pocket off of each ride. If VC was subsidizing it, that'd be negative, no? I think Uber is spending VC dollars on R&D ... which is the ideal use of VC $, no? https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-ipo-lyft-fare-increase-20190511-story.html …https://twitter.com/BobbyRiggsTankd/status/1296839891519705088 …
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11/ This seems to be a variant of the Obama "you didn't build that". Because Uber exists in the economy somehow they're ripping the rest of us off. Passengers pay fees. Drivers get paid. Drivers buy gas. Gas taxes pay for road maintenance.https://twitter.com/wraithburn/status/1296841392489103360 …
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12/ "expectations and assumptions" This sounds like an attempt to shoe horn in a bunch of YOUR expectations. Enumerate / explain, please?https://twitter.com/wraithburn/status/1296841893217742849 …
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End of conversation
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