Friedberg

And so he knows how that business operates. And so if he's looking at this thing and the stock price has been flat roughly since he left in 2017, if you look at the underlying financial performance, you could kind of start to construct a rationale for buying Expedia this cheap. And it would be very accretive to Uber, even if there are these big strategic risks on the horizon.

So just to give you some numbers on it all, Uber has got about 150 million monthly active users. Expedia has about 45, 50 million customers a year that use the service and pay for stuff. So there's a real opportunity to think about the Uber customer base that's installed and as being almost an opportunity to market to them Expedia services and cross sell.

So just to give you some numbers on it all, Uber has got about 150 million monthly active users. Expedia has about 45, 50 million customers a year that use the service and pay for stuff. So there's a real opportunity to think about the Uber customer base that's installed and as being almost an opportunity to market to them Expedia services and cross sell.

So Expedia on an annualized basis is spending about $8 billion a year in sales and marketing and about $720 million a year in G&A costs. And they're running about $3 billion EBITDA right now. run rate.

So Expedia on an annualized basis is spending about $8 billion a year in sales and marketing and about $720 million a year in G&A costs. And they're running about $3 billion EBITDA right now. run rate.

So if you cut about half the GNA in an acquisition, because you don't need all the people that overlap with Uber's people, you know, and you cut about 30% of the sales and marketing dollars, because you can cross sell into the Uber install base, you could see a scenario where you could increase Expedia's EBITDA by 75 to 100%, maybe getting it as high as $6 billion.

So if you cut about half the GNA in an acquisition, because you don't need all the people that overlap with Uber's people, you know, and you cut about 30% of the sales and marketing dollars, because you can cross sell into the Uber install base, you could see a scenario where you could increase Expedia's EBITDA by 75 to 100%, maybe getting it as high as $6 billion.

And while Expedia's market cap trades at $20 billion, this is off of, you know, obviously the recent news that they might get acquired. If you kind of assume a 40%, 50% price premium to the last 90-day average of the stock price, which is kind of typical or common for a deal like this, they're probably paying $26 billion for the company. and they got about 4 billion in net cash.

And while Expedia's market cap trades at $20 billion, this is off of, you know, obviously the recent news that they might get acquired. If you kind of assume a 40%, 50% price premium to the last 90-day average of the stock price, which is kind of typical or common for a deal like this, they're probably paying $26 billion for the company. and they got about 4 billion in net cash.

So you're kind of paying about 22 billion enterprise value to buy Expedia. So 22 billion of enterprise value, and if you can bump the EBITDA up to 6 billion a year, that's a pretty low multiple. I mean, you could kind of see yourself rationalizing this just from a financial basis that you're paying four times EBITDA to buy this thing.

So you're kind of paying about 22 billion enterprise value to buy Expedia. So 22 billion of enterprise value, and if you can bump the EBITDA up to 6 billion a year, that's a pretty low multiple. I mean, you could kind of see yourself rationalizing this just from a financial basis that you're paying four times EBITDA to buy this thing.

And Dara knows this thing, and he would have great command over what needs to be done over there, and he would have a great sense of what to change and what's gone wrong. And there's a lot of interesting assets inside of Expedia. VRBO is a great one that's been under-monetized and underutilized. I don't know if you've used the UX on VRBO versus Airbnb.

And Dara knows this thing, and he would have great command over what needs to be done over there, and he would have a great sense of what to change and what's gone wrong. And there's a lot of interesting assets inside of Expedia. VRBO is a great one that's been under-monetized and underutilized. I don't know if you've used the UX on VRBO versus Airbnb.

There's obviously some influence Dara could have with people that he knows well that could go in and fix that interface and make it a better service.

There's obviously some influence Dara could have with people that he knows well that could go in and fix that interface and make it a better service.

And even as AI starts to step in and hotels maybe integrate better with agents and so on, and they show up in a more ubiquitous way, there's other things that Expedia does like build vacation packages and travel packages that are high margin products that they sell. that are a little bit different than what you're used to with just booking a flight.

And even as AI starts to step in and hotels maybe integrate better with agents and so on, and they show up in a more ubiquitous way, there's other things that Expedia does like build vacation packages and travel packages that are high margin products that they sell. that are a little bit different than what you're used to with just booking a flight.

Booking flights makes no money for anyone, but vacation packages is where all the money's at. And so theoretically Expedia could be smarter about how they build vacation packages and personalize them for families. And that's where they can make real margin, like 20, 30% margin. So I could see a story where this all starts to click for the board at Uber saying, maybe it makes sense.

Booking flights makes no money for anyone, but vacation packages is where all the money's at. And so theoretically Expedia could be smarter about how they build vacation packages and personalize them for families. And that's where they can make real margin, like 20, 30% margin. So I could see a story where this all starts to click for the board at Uber saying, maybe it makes sense.

Dara knows what he's talking about. We could buy this thing for four times pro forma EBITDA. This could be hugely accretive for us. So I think that's why this is happening, why this conversation may be happening. That's just me trying to understand what the rationale might be.