[refurb]

EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) is a real measure of earnings (i.e. they didn't make it up), but it looks like Uber just saw that on their income statements and latched on it. Not sure it's all that appropriate here.

This focus makes EBIT an especially useful metric for certain applications. For example, if an investor is thinking of buying a firm out, the existing capital structure is less important than the company's earning potential. Similarly, if an investor is comparing companies in a given industry that operate in different tax environments and have different strategies for financing themselves, tax and interest expenses would distract from the core question: how effectively do these companies generate profits from their operations?