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Uber Settles Dispute With Alphabet's Self-driving Car Unit (cnbc.com)
In a shocking development, Uber said on Friday it has settled the high-stakes trade-secret theft lawsuit brought by Alphabet's Waymo, resolving a conflict that already cost the ride-hailing giant its top driverless car engineer and threatened to further embarrass the company. From a report: Uber will pay Waymo a 0.34 percent equity stake amounting to about $245 million at Uber's recent $72 billion valuation, the companies said on Friday, after days of courtroom theatrics. Uber has also agreed not to incorporate Waymo's confidential information into its hardware and software, though Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi writes that he doesn't believe his company used any of Waymo's trade secrets in the first place. Khosrowshahi says that he feels "regret" over the dispute and wished his predecessors had handled it differently.
Uber will pay Waymo a 0.34 percent equity stake amounting to about $245 million at Uber's recent $72 billion valuation, the companies said on Friday, after days of courtroom theatrics.
Uber worth $72 billion? For a privately held company that had a loss of $3.8 billion on revenue of $6.5 billion? For a business with limited economies of scale? (providing twice as many rides does not result in major cost savings) Anyone who actually believes Uber is worth that much is a weapons grade idiot. It's like the dotcom boom all over again.
Basically they arrive at a "$72 billion valuation" by someone buying a portion of the company and then extrapolating what that person thinks it is worth. So if I buy 1% of a company for $1 million I'm effectively valuing the company at $100 million. Doesn't mean it is actually worth that because you have to consider the winners curse. Just because someone is willing to overpay doesn't mean others will.