As it goes into its roadshow, Uber faces two main issues. One is that it needs to tell Wall Street a growth story — something to convince investors that its best and most lucrative days are still ahead of it. For years as a private company, that growth came easily as it expanded its service into more and more places across the world.

But nearly a decade later, that growth has slowed. In an amended offering prospectus on Friday, Uber said revenue growth in the first quarter was roughly 20 percent, less than half of what it was a year ago. As ride-hailing has evolved from a luxury business to a mass-market service, competitors have multiplied and the number of people using the service may be starting to max out as Uber finds fewer new locations to expand into.

Uber’s other issue is its lack of profit. The company lost $1.8 billion last year excluding onetime gains; it lost $1 billion or so in the first quarter of this year alone. Because ride-hailing is expensive to operate — Uber continually needs to spend to lure riders and bring on new drivers — some critics have wondered if it will ever be able to make money.

All of this explains why citing Amazon is so useful.

The Seattle-based retailer has always cared more about customers than Wall Street, which meant it was willing to spend aggressively to get ahead of competitors and create new businesses even if investors carped. Then just as Wall Street patience wore thin, Amazon produced profits that underlined the innovation machine that Jeff Bezos, its chief executive, had built over many years.