[snarf]

Singhal's title at Uber says that he is in charge of marketplaces and maps, not the self-driving stuff. So this would be stuff like pricing, dispatch, supply optimization, and route optimization which rely on traditional algorithms and not ML. But I agree with your larger point and find his departure from Google curious. Even if they were moving search in another direction or he was completely bored with what he was working on and wanted change, I am shocked that they would let someone of his caliber leave Google.

[tyingq]

Supposedly, they leverage machine learning across those areas as well...perhaps not as the primary foundation, but used there nonetheless.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/02/uber-is-rolling-out-a-big-...

https://newsroom.uber.com/inferring-uber-rider-destinations/

There's other references, but you get the idea.