
Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals consolidate - anguswithgusto
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/gett-in-advanced-talks-to-buy-juno-for-250m-as-uber-rivals-consolidate/
======
yeukhon
I prefer Gett for long commute. It gives you a firm quote so if your
Uber/Lyft/Juno driver messed up enroute or there's a traffic, you don't pay
the extra. From a user's perspective, this saves me money. I would take Gett
to Barclay Center knowing Uber and Lyft would charge me high premium after
game. Or trip from Manhattan back to Queens. There's also an option to make
extra stop which is nice! Gett cars are the regular black SUV cars so much
more comfortable.

This acquisition is nothing but acquiring users (although Junos has fewer
drivers so fewer active users) and talents, as Gett itself can already do what
Juno and other rider-service apps can do. I wonder if they will continue to
run Juno as a standalone app like Seamless and Grubhub but share the same user
database. I still wonder why Seamless and Grubhub can't shut down one of them,
this seems like a marketing tactic than anything else, creating a diversion
that there are other players in the market. Who knows, maybe there's tax
advantage.

~~~
Spinfusor
Re Grubhub/Seamless (I used to work there):

The sense I got was that they haven't unified the brands yet because they're
really afraid of messing up the NYC market. Grubhub merged with Seamless in
2013 because leadership wanted to get into NYC, and Seamless owned/owns NYC.
It's a hugely profitable market for the company.

They've toyed with the idea of bringing the brands closer (particularly around
the Grubhub rebrand last year), but nothing's happened so far.

~~~
yeukhon
I see. I can see the risk, although at this point both apps are virtually
identical appearance wise and even function wise. For the G/S folks out there,
not that I am picky, but seems like a good idea to consolidate. I was actually
using Grubhub before downloading seamless then I wanted to try Seamless (I
didn't know the merger until I downloaded both apps and realized they are the
same).

------
slap_shot
Juno pledged to give away 50% of the founding shares to drivers via RSUs over
a 10 year period [0]. I wonder how units many were issued, if they had
accelerated vesting upon an acquisition, and if so, what drivers actually got
in the transaction.

[0] [https://gojuno.com/drive/meet/](https://gojuno.com/drive/meet/) Over a
period of ten years, we intend to distribute to drivers a number of RSUs that
would give drivers the same ownership interest as our founders upon an IPO or
sale assuming all such RSUs vest.

------
avip
The headlines I see in Hebrew (both Gett and Juno's founders are Israelis) are
somewhat more low-key: the undisclosed price tag is estimated at "few tens of
millions", to be paid in shares of privately held Gett.

~~~
aomurphy
Could you link to some of them?

~~~
doubleplusgood
Sure:
[http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4049196](http://www.themarker.com/technation/1.4049196)

------
peternicky
Been using Gett in NYC with excellent results. Car availability is hard to
beat, even during peak hours and the special flat $10 rate in manhattan is
quite the deal. Never tried Juno but will check it out.

------
curiousDog
The more the merrier. At this point, I'd hate for Uber to have a monopoly in
this market.

~~~
classybull
Lyft?

~~~
colmvp
Lyft isn't available in a LOT of places. Not even in all the major cities in
North America unlike say, Uber.

------
nathanvanfleet
Wait, the article says that if Gett and Juno combine they'd beat Lyft? It
doesn't look like they are even close to Lyft's size...

------
coleca
Am I the only one that was wondering why the dialup ISP Juno.com was
considered a rival to Uber? Guess it's a different Juno..

TIL Juno.com still offers dial-up for $15.95/mo. Gone are the days of free
dial-up with obnoxious banner ads.

~~~
doctorshady
There are a few who still offer free dial-up. No banner ads, since they make
money by doing traffic pumping.

~~~
voltagex_
What's traffic pumping?

~~~
scott00
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping)

~~~
voltagex_
I wonder if schemes like this are used anywhere other than the US.

------
skdotdan
Instead of burning cash by subsidizing travels, Uber could have just bought
some competitors but still... The only chance Uber has is becoming a monopoly,
and I don't see how they can achieve it.

~~~
notyourwork
Why do they need to be a monopoly to succeed? I personally dislike Uber based
on all the latest PR but what if they actually achieve a self driving car? If
so, this would change the business entirely because no more contractor's to
pay.

Do you think if one company has self driving cars and the rest don't this is a
competitive advantage? Perhaps they license the self driving car software to
other companies which also presents revenue options.

~~~
ghaff
Self-driving is so far out as a door-to-door taxi service as to be utterly
irrelevant to Uber's business model.

~~~
technotony
I'm not sure it's 'so far out' Waymo is running such a service in Phoenix:
[https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/waymo-begins-first-
public-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/25/waymo-begins-first-public-on-
demand-self-driving-service-test-in-arizona/)

~~~
ghaff
Right. Because the fact that there's a Google employee in the driver's seat
ready to take over control makes no difference whatsoever.

------
douche
So I assume these must be rival alt-taxi companies, but I have never heard a
whisper of their existence before this story.

Uber, despite the seemingly coordinated smear campaign, reigns supreme in this
area.

------
CaliforniaKarl
Something about this headline interests me, along with the title that appears
here on HN:

Article: "Gett in advanced talks to buy Juno for $250M as Uber rivals
consolidate"

HN: "Ubser rivals consolidating: Gett to buy Juno for $250M"

I wonder if the HN headline is as-submitted or mod-ified.

The latter title leans much more on the Uber link, while TC's headline puts it
at the end.

If we didn't have all of Uber scandal stuff going on, I wonder which title
would've been submitted to HN:

"Uber rivals scrambling as Gett buys Juno for $250M", maybe?

Here's a fun query to run: Pull HN submissions and go back to the linked
articles. Pull those headlines, and then remove ones too long for HN's length
limit.

Of the remaining headlines, normalize and see how many HN posts modified the
title in some way.

~~~
chronic940
Very few people on HN actually care about the Uber scandals. Almost no one has
changed their daily behavior. They all still use Uber.

It's exactly how Trump won the US election. A small group of people spread the
idea Uber is doing poorly when in reality they're not.

~~~
tyingq
I'm skeptical about the business model in general, not related to any recent
scandal.

The leaked financials[1] seem to indicate it's a losing proposition until self
driving cars are relatively ubiquitous.

So whenever it does become financially viable, there's a pretty long payback
cycle. And no obvious iron clad moat that keeps competitors at bay...ones that
aren't under pressure to pay back investors for years of subsidized prices.

Of course, the leaked data is incomplete, and using unusual accounting, so
perhaps I'm wrong.

[1] [http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-
prove...](http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-prove-uber-
is-a-mo-1704234157) and [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-
deliver...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-
one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html)

~~~
user5994461
Sounds good.

Revenues growing exponentially from 2012-2015. The revenues in 2015 were even
higher than the predictions done 2 years earlier (that were actually planning
for a steep exponential).

At this rate of growth. They should be making 1-2 billion in revenues per
quarter now. Wish we had a recent leaked document.

That's a solid multi billion dollars business. Worse case scenario if they run
out of subsidies: Stop distributing tons of incentive in unprofitable markets
+ fire half the staff (they have too many anyway) = back to positive.

~~~
tyingq
Easily back to a profitable business that is already in a hole how big?

Anyone can drive big revenue by taking huge piles of investor cash and selling
things below margin. That isn't magic. If that buys market share with a moat,
it may make sense. If not, it's unwise.

~~~
user5994461
The size of the hole is irrelevant.

What matters it the size of the shovel they are using (their expenses and
subsidies) and the force of the wind that's refilling the hole with nearby
dust (the customer revenues).

They can reduce their shovel without impacting the wind too much.

~~~
tyingq
Amazon was fine throwing money into making a moat, and they have a tangible
one.

I don't see what Uber's moat is once self driving cars are common. It seems
they will be fighting off competition (car companies, Waymo, etc) that didn't
have to spend money on lobbying, lawsuits, subsidies, and so forth.

~~~
user5994461
That's your problem there! :D

Self driving cars are just hype that won't be any significant for another
decade. You should forget about self driving cars.

What Uber has right now is real, a massive customer base and network of taxi,
that is bringing billions of dollars. They could totally focus on that and
have a strong and sustainable business.

~~~
tyingq
Sans self driving cars, Uber loses cash. You seem to think shedding employees
is enough to fix that. Closing a $2 to $3bn/yr loss with just layoffs seems
hard. Eliminating subsidies puts competitors on a level playing field. I can
sell dollar bills for 90 cents and be incredibly popular too. I just don't
have the panache to sell that plan to Saudis.

~~~
yawaworht12
Sans self driving cars, Uber's competitors are also losing cash, and they are
losing cash faster than Uber

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13772168)

~~~
tyingq
Yes, that seems logical. I'd mentioned competition in my comment as Waymo and
car companies.

"Sell at a loss but make it up in volume" probably doesn't work well for many
:)

~~~
yawaworht12
I read your comment twice. You only mention Uber and not "Waymo and car
companies" unless your referring to a different comment of yours than the one
I replied to here.

~~~
tyingq
This was the only spot where I said anything about specific competitors: _It
seems they will be fighting off competition (car companies, Waymo, etc) that
didn 't have to spend money on lobbying_

The bigger thing, though, is that you keep implying that I said Lyft was
somehow in a better spot. Now you're noting I never mentioned Lyft.

Nothing I'm saying is affected one way or other by Lyft. Pointing out that
they have the same problem doesn't change the rationale.

