The Future According to Uber
Every stock-market bet is a prediction, but Uber’s vision of the future is particularly far-reaching and risky.
The Uber IPO is finally upon us, and it has proved divisive. The critics point to Uber’s billion-dollar losses and SEC filings so meager, a Financial Times commentary called them “an outrage.” A Bloomberg column even questioned the growth of this growth company, noting that the money coming in to the core ride-hailing service appears to have plateaued.
Yet when the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Uber will almost certainly raise something like $8 billion or $9 billion, with a valuation of about $82 billion. How?
Every stock-market pick—and especially every tech IPO—is a bet not on the world as it is, but on the world as
