Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

So what if theres a single lady as in a solitary female who wants an Uber ride?
She cant have a female driver as women cant drive there. She cant get in the car with a non-mahram male anyway.

Uber attracts $3.5bn from Saudi Public Investment Fund - BBC News

btw, 3.5 billion dollars is a LOT of money. Ramzan is just around the corner, I would have thought some of that money should have gone into easing the suffering of fellow Muslims in Syria / Libya / Yemen / Palestine or maybe investing in stemming the deaths in the Mediterranean sea caused by this mass exodus which btw historians one day will shake their heads at!

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

I was taken back by this. It also values Uber at around 60bn. That's a lot for a taxi company.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

What the @#$%, Uber is worth $60 billion :eek:

When Facebook went public they were said to be worth $100 billion, which is just nuts , when you compare to a top notch company like 3M who is worth $102billion ; 3M actually desgins and makes things, a lot of very usefull things for industry.

Uber is worth $60 billion and Caterpillar is worth $45 billion , how effed up is that.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Indeed - as someone who has lead investments into a tech companies, even I am questioning these valuations. Uber doesn't make profits, it's only a growth company and I question it's growth model to be honest. All of these companies are immediately replicable in markets they have not entered. Uber has lost China in my opinion.

The largest taxi company does not own any cars.
The largest hotel company does not own any real estate or manage any hotels.
Facebook will one day have more dead people on it than alive people.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Ah well.

History is the story of people's failures to learn from the past. Dutch tulip mania, anyone? Or more relevant, the dot com bust of late 1990s?

Here's a theory I just thought of. Perhaps so much of the wealth recently generated is just paper wealth, money made by bankers and investors from playing money games (capital gains, overvalued IPOs), which, once again, is just invisible electronic figures, so perhaps there's an excess of invisible money running out of solid things to invest in. That could explain the wild overvaluation of these types of companies?

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Strangely as well, Careem is apparently far more popular in KSA too.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

hahhahahaha

you've been here long enough not to reason like this mate.

Since I'm not quiet ready for a free flight home I'll leave further comments unsaid for now

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

In a similar vein, has anyone read this - which i guess is where Millhouse gets his statement on Taxi and Hotel companies?

FUTURE PREDICTIONS:
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous Cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies may become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance Companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars won’t become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: There will be companies that will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breathe into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large number of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business Opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Agroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups that will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are. Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.

Robert M. Goldman MD, PhD, DO, FAASP
dr-bob-goldman
World Chairman-International Medical Commission
Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board-A4M
Founder & Chairman-International Sports Hall of Fame
Co-Founder & Chairman-World Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
President Emeritus-National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)
Chairman-U.S. Sports Academy’s Board of Visitors

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

kodak is an odd one and largely one of terrible management and vision as kodak themselves invented the digital camera in the early 70's and in the early 90's were licensing out their IP on digital cameras to other companies.

They had the lead by a very long way on digital and somehow managed to **** it up royally as they were too focused on their old business.

a cracking tale on how old companies are often unable culturally to take on new technology or new directions.

in a similar vein, jobs and apple stole the design for the GUI and mouse from Xerox who didn't know what to do with them

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

The worst possible job to train for right now must be a pilot. Very expensive to train and in the next 10years won't exist in a skilled form.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Pilot instructor could therefore be worse

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Didn't Gates ripoff the DOS from some guy? I recal my professor at college (in a Pacific NorthWest college) talking about the history of DOS and how Gates ripped it off the guy who invented it for essentially peanuts.

Can't recal the details but Zuckerberg was sued for ripping off the idea for Facebook , something specific to Facebook and not a general social media platform.

There's a line that goes something like this : good ones copy, great ones steal.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Really doubt traditional car companies will go the way of the Dodo anytime soon. Self driving cars will make a big splash and the traditional car companies are best positioned to succeed here, owing to the massive amounts of capital equipment and expertise required.

Tesla will do fine but they are still a tiny niche . What is it that Tesla can bring to the table that VW,Mercedes,GM,Ford,Fiat,Honda,Toyota can't?

At the end of the day, with all the computer power and self driving, cars still need an engine or motor + transmission and chassis to work.

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

I've seen this shite on LinkedIn and Facebook in the last week, personally I think Dr Bob is just out to make a name for himself. IT is going through a big transformation at the moment with the 3rd platform, but reading his predictions, we are heading into Skynet territory.

People will always want to talk to doctors or lawyers, people will want to drive cars...people will want to go to supermarkets.

As for pilots - most planes don't need them now, they are there for contingency in case the software fails, considering you have ~300 per flight I can't see that changing (maybe the quality of the pilots will).

And bitcoin??

Re: Saudi Public Investment Fund puts 3.5bn$ in Uber
 

Then who will bang the crew on layovers?