I've heard talk of self driving cars at uber, but are they really "investing" in them? Self driving cars will be available for anyone to buy within 5 years -- Uber would be better off buying some of those. And so will their competitors.

I'll say this: uber will be the next groupon, zynga, webvan, ... it's laws of physics, we've seen it before -- take a simple but good profitable product with early user growth, a big market (ppl needing cabs, groceries, stuff at discount, addictive entertainment), and then completely kill it through over-investment. Then they use the money to buy the growth they need to justify their ever-higher valuations.

Market growth really looks more like a sigmoid than a hockey stick. Towards the top, near the plateau, it's possible to buy growth to feed the myth of the hockey stick. By doing this, you are incurring a sort of technical (real?) debt that is harder to pay back than people realize, particularly as margins get squeezed by inevitable competition.

In Uber's case, they will also mostly lose in court.

Within 5 years? That's crazy talk man.

Are they actually doing that? Or just spending like crazy trying to expand. I find the comparison of Uber and Amazon a bit hillarious. Amazon is very profitable and keeps investing huge amounts every year, if they stop investing they will make a huge profit. Can we say that about Uber?

It simply isn't plausible that Uber will invent and deploy a completely new technology they have no experience with or expertise in. If this is where there valuation comes from and this is why they are running losses people should be afraid for their money. For that matter, give me a few billion, I can definitely cure cancer.

The same could be said for Google. But they just acquired and hired their way to having that expertise.

I'm not holding my breath for great engineering from Uber, but that's a bias and at least I can see that.

If you have insider information you may have more reason than I to have that bias.