[Aloha]

Uber as far as I'm concerned isn't really a tech company - its a logistics company existing under tech company rules - in essence its a freight broker for human 'freight' - how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is. In short, you're providing short term contracts between a consignor (the passenger) to transport an object (the passenger) between two known end points, by an independent contractor. Uber provides the infrastructure to make this happen, and takes a cut of the revenue from the shipment.

If you wouldn't call JB Hunt a tech company, you shouldn't call Uber one.

(The research into autonomous cars is not really central to their current core business model - and assuming the technology is successfully developed - their entire business model would change - they'd also need a massive capitalization to purchase a fleet of self driving cars when it does.)

[bsaul]

"how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is"

This is a pretty bold claim. The fact that it's instant, and that it geolocalize every party involved thanks to a mobile app, and that every part of the process is fully automated is what makes uber something different from a regular cab company.

To reduce uber to its high level functions abstracting away the technical details and implementation is i think one of the big mistakes business people make in general. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of reasoning is what business CEO show in their slides before they take the decisions that completely screw the tech companies they're leading.

[subroutine]

Scenario...

Twenty years ago an astute and entrepreneurial young man named John took over his father's taxi company, Orange Cab based in San Diego. Exploring ways to reach potential customers, he found that all the cab companies in town were marketing their services through the same traditional mediums - newspaper ads, Yellowbook listings, billboards, etc. Not sure what else he could do, he remembered he still had 4 free hours of America Online credit, and decide to see if the internet had any advice. Then it struck him... Maybe my competitors have websites that I could browse for hints on how they advertise. The search came up empty. Damn he muttered, "none of them have websites", to which his wife Jane (expertly lurking from the nearby davenport desk) quips, "well neither do you, so maybe you should get a website". I have a brilliant idea, he thinks while slightly tilting his monitor away from Jane, maybe I should get a website. He types into the Lycos search bar "how. to. make. a. website." enter, "You know in that technology class I took last semester they taught us how to make a webpage using HTML", pipes Jane; then she smiles and taps John on the shoulder "move over".

After building the website they noticed things starting to pick-up a bit, and in a short few years they were beginning to see real growth; recently their was a nice spike in their marketshare after implementing an online form to request rides directly from their homepage. Younger crowds in particular preferred to request rides over speaking with someone on the telephone.

Fast-Forward ~10 years...

Orange Cab is not so little anymore. They now manage fleets in 14 metropolitan areas and recently incorporated so they could merge with Yellow Cab, making them the biggest cab company in the US. A few days after the merger, Jane (formerly Orange Cab's head of operations) had a meeting with Yellow Cab CEO to see how her role would change after the merger. She came into the meeting excited with ideas about how to innovate to reach new customers (particularly since the new operating budget was 10x the pre-merger budget). She started by sharing an idea where the whole point-to-point experience, from cab request to fair payment is managed entirely by a little software applications on someone's mobile phone. Jane, Jane, Jane, ahhh silly Jane, we are not a tech company. Yes, the website has been really helpful, but don't those smartphone things have a web browser? We are the biggest taxi company in the US, and we have a veteran management team, what's the worst that could happen!

[late2part]

Apparently Yellow Cab went bankrupt. I didn't know this and it wasn't clear from the preceding anecdote, so now you know.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-and-lyft-didnt-bankrup...

[nopinsight]

Uber is aggressively pursuing self-driving cars as we can observe from their massive investments to acquire Otto and other AI startups, and to set up labs filled with experienced robotics and AI researchers in the US and Canada.

Once autonomous vehicles become practical, it is almost imperative for Uber to own the critical technology to be competitive in their current businesses.

[sumeno]

First Uber has to survive for the next 5-10 years until autonomous vehicles become practical at the scale required for them to replace their drivers.

[valuearb]

What are you, an agent for autonomous engineers?

Uber can't ever own the critical technology in autonomous. They are late to the party, critical patents have been filed. Autonomous technology will be freely available when it's commercially feasible, Uber can buy some then. In the meantime it has to avoid blowing through the remainder of it's capital and stay alive.