The walk (illustrative)
Net cash provided by operating activities$7,100
Less: purchases of property and equipment, capitalised software($580)
FCF (Standard)$6,520
USD millions; refresh from the latest 10-K.
Driver-incentive treatment
Driver incentives reduce gross bookings or sit inside cost of revenue depending on classification. The cash effect flows through OCF, so FCF captures them correctly. Quarterly FCF can swing materially with promotional cycles; annual reads are more stable.
FCF / NI ratio
Equity-method investments (notably DiDi, Aurora, Grab historically) introduce large non-cash mark-to-market gains and losses in net income. FCF / NI is therefore noisy; the underlying business FCF is the cleaner read.
Buyback support
Uber announced a multi-year buyback authorisation. FCF generation supports execution within the authorisation period without incremental leverage.