Uber’s strongest quarter (Q4), first annual profit since it went public in 2019, and phenomenal performance in 2023 has become the talk of the town globally. Back home, in India, a large section of venture capitalists and unicorn founders contend that Uber’s glowing report card offers a deep sense of optimism for a clutch of home-grown startups that have already hit the road to profitability and have been consistently trimming their heavy losses. But before we try to find out whether an Uber-kind of turnaround can be replicated by Indian startups, including unicorns, one must try to figure out how Uber--till 2022, it reportedly accumulated $31.5 billion in operating losses since 2014—posted profit.