[lumost]

I don't understand why an investor would fund unprofitable Uber 2.0. Without a massive differentiator there is no reason to believe their trajectory would be any different from Uber's - except with increased capital requirements from being the third(fourth?) mover.

Uber's burned 10s of billions in the hopes of becoming a few hundred billion dollar company. Would Uber 2.0 need to burn hundreds of billions in the hope of becoming a hundred billion dollar company?

[mikepurvis]

Uber 2.0 would probably make the same pitch Uber did— that all of this is temporary moat-building as we prepare for a glorious self driving future.

So I think the difficulty is less around investors being more savvy to the economics of ride sharing and delivery services, but that they're more savvy to the realities of how far off those technologies are. And that the entrenched firms like Waymo will be far, far better positioned to offer an autonomous taxi service on day 1 than some plucky startup will be.

[mrweasel]

It would be interesting to hear why investors keep throwing money at Uber. Does anyone honestly believe that they will ever be profitable? You would have to throw billions at them to keep them alive long enough for autonomous vehicles to be a possible rescue.