Dara as CEO

TL;DR: Dara has been Uber CEO position for nearly 1 year. I haven’t observed much from him as employee and Uber’s growth slowed down a lot. Makes me wondering what’s his past performance. This post just a quick research about Expedia vs Booking.

Timeline & Metrics

Dara became CEO of Expedia in 2005, served until mid 2017. So I will just compare different metrics in that period. From a company operating aspect, top line and bottom line will be good metrics to look at because top line captures high level addressed value and bottom line captures how efficiently the company operates.

Revenue (Top line)

In Q4 2005, Expedia’s revenue was 2.12B and Booking’s was 0.96B so Expedia was effectively 2.2x as Booking in terms of top line.

In Q2 2017, Expedia’s revenue was 9.45B and Booking’s was 11.48B. Expedia was effectively 82% as Booking’s

So from an indexed growth perspective

Topline conclusion

Under Dara’s leadership, Expedia lost the top line growth to Booking.

Net income (Bottom line)

In Q4 2005, Expedia’s net income was 0.23B and Booking’s was 0.19B so Expedia was effectively 1.2x as Booking in terms of bottom line.

In Q2 2017, Expedia’s net income was 0.33B and Booking’s was 2.36B. Expedia was effectively 13% as Booking’s. Or say Booking’s net income was 7x as Expedia’s

Bottom line conclusion

Booking outbeat Expedia in bottom line performance by a lot. I’m a bit surprised by the topline and bottom line combined view. This basically means Booking was running more efficiently at a bigger scale. 用中文说就是Booking把Expedia按在地上摩擦摩擦再摩擦。

Some thoughts

作为一个CFO出身的CEO，从track record来看，不太会lead team to win，想到的战略基本是finance那套并购整合，去年年末和年初把俄罗斯业务和东南亚业务都卖出去了，现在也有传闻还要继续卖其他region，这是典型的CFO出身的CEO会想到的战略:资本运作。但是从价值角度来说，资本运作不产生价值，只有entrepreneurship才产生incremental value.

最近Uber growth放缓，bottom line也没跟上，反观Lyft慢慢赶上来。作为Uber 1.0的老员工，我有一种呕心沥血付出的努力被人白白糟蹋的感觉。。。但是基本within 我去年的预测 post link