$120 Billion Doesn’t Make Uber a Real Company

Let’s all be honest with one another. No one can confidently predict how most private tech companies will fare when they become grown-up public companies. That goes quadruple for Uber Technologies Inc.

In a financial analysis, it’s perhaps the most confounding technology company of the last decade. It may be the most genuinely novel and disruptive business in many years. It has reshaped people’s behavior in many countries, sparked conversations about the nature of jobs and forced governments and transportation planners to catch up. All that can be true, and Uber still might not last. The company is almost 10 years old, and it exists thanks only to a constant supply of fresh cash from a handful of eager investors. This all might turn out to be a mirage.