Jeff Bezos Net Worth: Uber IPO To Add $400M More To Richest Man

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and the richest man in the world will be richer by another $400 million from the ride-hailing app Uber’s IPO. Uber will start trading on Friday. The Amazon boss has been an early bird investor in Uber.

Bezos personally invested $3 million into Uber for a stake that is worth $400 million today, according to The Information, citing persons briefed on the matter.

Uber is aiming an $80 billion-plus valuation. Bezos, whose net worth is $157 billion has personal as well as venture capital investments in Uber.

The latter was via Benchmark. It That VC has a history of pouring down investments in Dropbox, Twitter, Snapchat and other tech companies in their early stage.

Benchmark invested $30 million in Uber and is going to make roughly $7.9 billion on the early day investment.

Former CEO Travis Kalanick to make a big fortune

Other big beneficiaries of the Uber IPO will include ousted founder and CEO Travis Kalanick who will gain nearly $9 billion from the 8.6 percent stake.

Co-founder Garrett Camp has 6 percent of the company. Arianna Huffington, who joined Uber's board after Kalanick's departure in 2016, owns 22,000 shares.

Strategic pricing to avoid a stock plunge

Uber on Thursday priced its IPO at the low end of the targeted range for a valuation of $82.4 billion. The conservative approach is aimed at salvaging it from a future trading plunge, unlike rival Lyft. Uber’s pricing of the IPO at $45 per share, is a way to stay put at the bottom band of targeted $44-$50 range without any hard knocks.

This moderate valuation is a departure from the aspiration for a $120 billion valuation when it was planning the public listing. Uber seems to have taken good lessons from the not so exciting performance of Lyft IPO and wants "slow but steady" in the share market.

Meanwhile, Uber begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, under the symbol “UBER.” That will give retail investors the chance to buy shares of the ride-hailing company.

Cheap Rides at Uber set to end?

The listing of Uber and Lyft has raised questions on the user impact in terms of pricing. Both ride-hailing companies have no other road to profitability except avoiding drivers or raising prices.

In their effort to stay profitable or cut losses, they may do both. They have market compulsions as well.

As public companies both Uber and Lyft have to put up quarterly results under Wall Street norms.

Considering the long gestation involved in autonomous robot-taxis, the easy way out is increasing prices.

Uber’s IPO has been the most anticipated Silicon Valley IPO since Facebook. In 2018, Uber reported an operating loss of $3 billion upon the revenue of $11.3 billion.

Both Uber and Lyft had a long rope from venture capitalists to experiment and grow with low fares. As public companies, that model may not work for them.