The world's biggest ride-hailing business is hitting the market just weeks after smaller rival Lyft.

When you think about the excitement surrounding Lyft, multiply that for Uber.

This is more global.

It's diversified.

So there's certainly a lot of excitement from public market investors.

Uber is far from making money.

It reported an operating loss of $3 billion dollars in 2018, after losing more than $4 billion in the prior year.

During its roadshow, Uber compared itself to Amazon as it explained its money-losing business to investors.

Why Amazon?

Because the now wildly successful company didn't make a profit for several years after it went public in 1997.

But Uber isn't Amazon.

For one, Amazon had little competition in the e-commerce space when it IPO 'd.

It also had a valuation of $438 million, compared to Uber's $75 billion.

Still, some investors are far from being scared away from Uber's red ink.

In the U.S. alone, Americans spend about $1.2 trillion dollars on personal transportation, and Uber really is at the forefront of this move from a personal car ownership model to more of transportation as a service.

And I think investors really do believe that humans will one day forgo owning their physical cars in favor of an on-demand service, like, like Uber or Lyft.

Uber was founded as UberCab in 2009 by Garrick Camp and Travis Kalanick.

The app launched in San Francisco in July 2010.

It allowed users to hail, via an app, black town cars but was still more expensive than taking a taxi.

It then dropped cab from its name and launched in New York City and Paris.

But in 2012, another ride-hailing company entered the market.

You had Lyft come into the picture and they came around and said you know we're going to give Uber some competition on the lower priced end of things.

And from that came UberX, which is now sort of Uber as we know it, the cheap alternative to hailing a taxi.

Uber now operates in 63 countries, 700 cities and has completed over five billion rides.

There are also more than three million Uber drivers worldwide.

Taxis accounted for 99 % of ride-sharing trips in the U.S. in 2012.

And now, with the rise of Lyft and Uber, taxis represent just 12.5%.

So why is Uber losing so much money?

First, they have to pay drivers.

And now drivers are asking for more.

Drivers united will never be defeated.

Increased competition with Lyft has created tensions with drivers who complain of low pay rates and unfair compensation.

It's expensive to navigate the regulatory environment in each city and to ensure the business.

Insurance costs for Uber ride-sharing products increased $1.3 billion from 2016 to 2017.

Credit card processing fees and driver incentives also drain the company of money.

On the rider side, they also have to make it appealing.

Entice the rider to come to Uber and use its platform instead of going to Lyft.

So in this way, Uber and Lyft both spend millions and millions of dollars to attract and keep people on their platforms.

Uber's growth to number one has been riddled with controversy.

In 2017, after multiple scandals, Uber founder Travis Kalanick stepped down.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is out, after shareholders staged a revolt.

Meanwhile, Lyft gained a reputation for being the friendlier of the two.

Uber has certainly had a more troubled history than Lyft.

Lyft has had a better reputation with drivers, for instance they introduced tipping from the very beginning, Uber only introduced tipping a few years ago.

At IPO, Lyft was valued at just over $20 billion dollars but its stock has had a rocky start.

The Lyft IPO has been a bit challenging. And the revenue multiple that people are using to value Lyft, people, are, will sort of look to apply that to Uber, as, as a way to get a sense for valuation.

Also, some of the trends that were outlined in Uber's S-1 filing can raise some questions.

Specifically, the fact that you've seen a pretty sharp slowdown in revenue growth at Uber over the last few quarters and significant declines in its take rate.

Uber's total revenue for 2018 was $11.3 billion dollars, with ride-sharing bringing in over 80%.

Uber Eats is the second biggest source of revenue for the company at $1.4 billion.

But Uber has put a lot of focus on diversifying into bike sharing, scooters, Uber Freight, air taxis and even its own autonomous driving technology.

All of which require a lot of investment and has slowed growth towards profitability.

If you believe that this industry and Uber and Lyft are going to be profitable, you believe that at some point in the future self-driving cars are going to help them get there.

Uber's Advanced Technologies Group or ATG, which works on self-driving vehicles, recently announced a $1 billion dollar investment from SoftBank, Denso and Toyota.

A sign investors may see it's serious about long-term growth.

ATG took a hiatus after one of Uber's self-driving cars killed a woman in Arizona last year.

Uber's rapid growth in many directions has meant a lot of spending.

However, some analysts predict Uber will become profitable eventually.

In terms of when Uber could achieve profitability, we're still several, several years away.

I'd say four or five years away at least.

Uber is part of a big wave of Silicon Valley companies rumored to go public in 2019.

So will it be a smart investment?

Uber really is the number one player in virtually all of the markets where operates a ride-sharing business and an online food delivery business.

And over time that number one kind of leadership position in those respective markets should translate into a more resilient business, a more profitable business.

I think the important thing for investors to know is that this is a bet on a company that aims to be the so-called Amazon of transportation.

They have humungous aspirations.

They don't want to focus on just the U.S. market.

They want to be global.

They want to be diversified.

They're looking at a $5.7 trillion dollar addressable market.

So when you look at Uber, you're really betting on the future of transportation not just ride-sharing.