Color me surprised….NOT!
Wolf Street: Uber Confirms Horrendous Loss in 2016
“Cementing its place as the most heavily-lossmaking private company in the history of Silicon Valley.”

On Good Friday, when markets were closed and when the entire financial world was tuned out, and when certainly no one was supposed to pay attention, Uber, the most highly valued - at $62.5 billion - and the most scandal plagued tech startup in the world, took the until now unprecedented step of disclosing its audited revenues and losses for the fourth quarter and for the full year of 2016.

Rumors of ballooning losses for 2016 had been swirling since last summer. Bloomberg reported in August that Uber had lost “at least $1.2 billion” in the first half. In December, Uber’s loss in Q3 was said to “exceed $800 million,” according to Bloomberg, and its annual loss “may hit $3 billion.” Others chimed in as some of Uber’s dozens of investors who’re getting its financial statements share them in dribs and drabs with the media.

But on Friday, Uber itself disclosed that it lost $2.8 billion before interest, tax, depreciation, and employee stock options - the latter likely being a big chunk, as the earnings of publicly traded companies that award stock-based compensation, such as Twitter, regularly show. Translated into a net loss, including the expense for stock-based compensation? Dizzying. But Uber wisely didn’t disclose it.

The Financial Times, which reported this disclosure, mused that Uber is “cementing its place as the most heavily-lossmaking private company in the history of Silicon Valley.”

I love the smell of Ayn Rand practitioners burning others capital while walking away unscathed in the morning…..
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