Equity Shot transcribed: Slack’s S-1 and Uber’s IPO terms

We’re deep in IPO news, and last week was no different. When this happens, Equity’s Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm fire up their mics and wax financial about the news we can’t possibly fit into the regular episode of the popular TechCrunch podcast.

Last week the duo discussed Uber’s IPO pricing and Slack’s S-1.

On Uber:

Kate: And before we jump into Uber’s Q1 financials, what do you think of Uber is most recent private valuation of 72 billion. Do you think that’s a wildly inflated valuation or do you think that’s a reasonable price tag?

Alex: So I have absolutely no idea. And we’re going to get into this a bit with the Q1 numbers, but I don’t know how to price this company. I really don’t. We talk a lot about SaaS IPOs and there’s a lot of really solid metrics out there about those companies and what they’re worth and what makes them work more or less than competitors. Uber’s a strange beast. It’s got these enormous losses. It’s got slowing growth. It is a global brand. It’s got an enormous amount of revenue. But where to put a price on it for me is a really big struggle. And this is why I’m glad that I’m a journalist and not an analyst because I don’t have to make that call.

On Slack:

Kate: I thought they were closer to profitability than they actually are and Slack is still losing a lot of money. So really it’s just like all the other unicorns who you’ve been covering who are not profitable and who are losing a lot of money, but Slack is a great business. So I think we’re going to see that play out. Actually. I kind of wish it was doing an IPO because it’s a lot more fun to speculate and criticize when we’re covering, direct listings yeah, they are so simple in so many ways and I think that’s what has appealed Spotify and Slack to that method of exit just because it does cut out a lot of that kind of especially unnecessary prices those companies have to pay, you save a lot of money doing it this way.

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