It’s only the first week of school, so it’s the time to embrace your freedoms before classes begin rolling, deadlines begin creeping and parking spots begin diminishing. Take full advantage of this time because there is nothing else that compares.

With that being said, when you celebrate, it is important to remain safe. Remaining safe includes getting home safe. There are a plethora of options in doing so, but I want to talk about one in particular: Uber.

Considering the usefulness of Uber, I want to speak about its financial status as a company and my take on their current situation.

Uber Technologies Inc., better known simply as Uber, is a privately owned and operated business that seemingly has taken over the ridesharing industry. It connects drivers and riders alike in over 500 cities worldwide via its mobile phone application.

Uber is privately funded through individual investors with large sums of personal money, investing their wealth into the company and opting against options such as the stock market.

Unfortunately for these private investors, Uber has been recording strikingly high losses. According to Business Insider, Uber has lost $1.2 billion in the first six months of this calendar year.

A driving factor behind Uber’s losses is their long-standing battle to stay relevant against their Chinese competition, Didi Chuxing, pouring lucrative sums of money into their efforts since early 2015.

Their decision to attempt a business expansion into China proved to be catastrophic for Uber’s financial stability. Uber is attempting to eradicate their financial problems by turning to another emerging market: autonomous, or self-driving, vehicles.

Specifically, interest lies in traditional trucks that are being converted and designed to transport riders without anybody operating the vehicle; a project that Uber has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding in order to bounce back from their recent financial struggles.

Many are anxious to find a solution that curbs Uber’s downward spiral into the red. Their private investors are urging that they go public on the stock market, but Uber insists that their self-driving trucks are part of a multi-trillion dollar industry that is on the rise. Nevertheless, we will just have to wait until more unfolds in due time.

My takeaway from all of this is that no business entity is impervious to failure and that no one business is untouchable. In a short period of time, Uber has proven this creed to be true.

Uber is in the red, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars daily, and is looking for the quickest way out of their record-setting slump. They have been plummeting through 2016, proving that even when companies appear at their strongest, the numbers never lie. Uber’s rapid rise to popularity dragged along equally-quickly arising issues.

As you’re celebrating safely with your friends during this first weekend of the school year, please try to keep in mind that the folks at Uber are doing their best to keep the transportation giant afloat.