I think Matt Levine nailed it earlier this month [1], on how Uber lost $2.2 Billion in 9 months [2]:

>Eventually there will be self-driving cars, and there's no special reason to think that Uber will be the best at building them, or that its dominant position in the ride-hailing-app space will protect it from better self-driving-car businesses.

Which also needs to factor in Uber's biggest liability: their attitude towards flouting laws and regulations. It worked okay for the ride-sharing markets, as municipal regulations are varied and slow to catch up, but they were forced to stop their self-driving car project after just a week because they didn't even get the necessary permits. [3]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-10/bank-bloc...

[2] http://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/1/9/14194202/uber-lost-22-...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/technology/san-francisco-...

I don't think their position is safe but I'd probably bet on them or google winning that market over anyone else.

I'd bet on Google, Tesla, and Mercedes before Uber, since they all have vehicles with more than a week on the road and cash-positive revenue streams to support further development. Uber burned through ~30% of their $11B in cash just in 2016 alone.

Uber will be able to get cash in the future if self driving tech matures to transition. It'll be a multi billion dollar opportunity, capital will be lining up to invest in the ride hailing market leader.

I'm very doubtful. The financial market conditions that lead to the unicorns are drying up, and like most unicorns, their early/current investors have some extreme shareholder's agreements which make the companies very unattractive to new investors.

If...

If Singhal is motivated by money at this point then he's a straight up fool. I'm going to give this all the due regard of a Mayer going to Yahoo.

What if he were only indirectly motivated by money? Money has a lot of potential for philanthropy after all and he did say that that's where he'd like to focus.

Why do you say that? Last I checked money still had a lot of utility in our society.

not sure how they treat people like him but for the average engineer they don't pay great and want to force you take take equity instead of $$. really hope Amit is getting pure cash out of this deal.

edit: also, im pretty sure google pay him big money.