“Is Uber the next PayPal?”

I’ve been seeing the “Uber is the next PayPal” take a lot recently so let me just address it real quick.

I agree that the stock’s been rough. Ran to $100 in 2025, now it’s back in the $70s looking choppy.

But the actual business? Numbers don’t lie, 22% growth in bookings and trips, revenue up 20%, EBITDA up 35% last quarter. That’s not a dying company.

Ad business is already $2B+ annualized. Delivery expanding into grocery and retail. And the whole “Waymo/Tesla will kill Uber” thing also seems to be drastically overstated. Uber is not fighting the innovation, quite the opposite actually. They’ve begun partnering with AV companies and positioning themselves as the platform that connects riders to whatever’s driving. Human or robot, doesn’t matter.

The PayPal warning is fair though. Get comfortable, stop innovating, in today’s market, competition eats you alive. But I’m just not seeing that here. They’ve turned profitable, growing at scale, and are prepping for the disruption of autonomy.

So is the aggregator play legit long term, or is the disruption risk bigger than I’m giving credit for? What do you think?