As Uber Faces Wall Street Scrutiny, How Does Potential Expansion to Dallas Fit in?

As Dallas leaders try to woo Uber Technologies to North Texas, the ride-hailing giant is under intense scrutiny from Wall Street analysts to become a profitable publicly traded company.The tech company's stock has fallen since it went public in May. It missed revenue expectations last week and posted its biggest net loss ever: $5.2 billion. It laid off a third of its marketing team and said Friday that it will freeze hiring for most software engineers and product managers.The mounting financial pressures may be one of the reasons why Uber is looking at Dallas for its largest office outside of its San Francisco headquarters instead of cities on the East or West coasts. Mandeep Singh, a senior tech industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said Texas and Arizona — which are contenders for the large office — may stand out to Uber because of their lower real estate prices, lower hiring costs and tendency to offer more generous economic incentives. He said Uber must be "very picky about the locations where they pick to scale." "I wouldn't characterize it as cost-cutting, but being smart and strategic about trying to curtail their expenses at this point," he said.  Continue reading...