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Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

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Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#261

Post by ksenzee »

ProAm wrote: post #102
necubi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that was never the strategy, no matter how many times people on HN claimed it was. Both Uber and Lyft are aiming for profitability next year with human drivers. (Disclaimer, I work for Lyft but this has been said in public many, many times by both companies.)

Does profitability equate to paying back all the VC money burned getting to this point? They were losing billions every quarter for a long time. I haven't looked at their quarterlies in a while though but Id be surprised if they were remotely right-side up.

No, because the VC money is equity rather than debt. Profitability doesn't include "make sure the owners get some cash." It just means you made more money than you spent this quarter.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#262

Post by paraschopra »

boh wrote: post #99

Is it possible that just having an app doesn't make you a tech company? Anyone else ready to think Uber might just be an overvalued taxi company?

The degree of techness of a company is a function of how long it can survive if you start firing their IT team.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#263

Post by Dylan16807 »

necubi wrote: post #219
jypepin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. Way before Uber IPO'ed and started aiming at profitability next year, self-driving cars was the big thing for Uber's future. (Disclaimer, I worked at Uber 2014-18).

I'm not saying there wasn't excitement about AVs. The specific claim I'm disputing (which I've heard over and over again over the past few years) is that either company considered AVs to be the only path to profitability. The history is a bit complicated, because before the IPOs neither company was focused on profitability as a primary goal.

"only path" is a much stronger statement than you were reacting to, which is that it was the chosen strategy.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#264

Post by letitbeirie »

lr4444lr wrote: post #196
dekhn wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One pedestrian death due to cars occurs on average every ~200 million car-driven miles. Is that really bad? (the math is based on # of US miles driven in 2017 divided by the number of car-caused pedestrian fatalities in the same year)

It's the loss of agency to machines, not the raw numbers that scares people. Why do you think so many people are unduly spooked after airline accidents due to mechanical or computer error?

Which is ironic, because this is the kind of automation they've been building into planes for years and consequently air travel is safer than it's ever been.

737 Max fiasco notwithstanding - it's worth mentioning that MCAS had nothing to do with flying the plane, only making it feel more like the 737NG to its human pilots

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#265

Post by pault »

ProAm wrote: post #102
necubi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that was never the strategy, no matter how many times people on HN claimed it was. Both Uber and Lyft are aiming for profitability next year with human drivers. (Disclaimer, I work for Lyft but this has been said in public many, many times by both companies.)

Does profitability equate to paying back all the VC money burned getting to this point? They were losing billions every quarter for a long time. I haven't looked at their quarterlies in a while though but Id be surprised if they were remotely right-side up.

Investment rounds aren't loans, they're... Investments. You're selling them a stake in the company, not borrowing money. I'm sure there are exceptions but that's generally how it works.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#266

Post by boh »

ProAm wrote: post #258
boh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies prefer logistics/pricing models to be profitable. Being a pump-and-dump for VCs isn't something they can license out.

Isn't that just tuning compared to the race as a loss leader for market share?

No. This isn't a software company.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#267

Post by Dylan16807 »

lhorie wrote: post #180
todd3834 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper than a $0.39 hamburger? Where?

What currency are you using? In USD, the cheapest item on the menu that I can find (apple slices) goes for $0.57. A big mac combo goes for around $10, while a subway footlong goes for about $7.

$10 is also a pretty wrong number for "hamburger". Looking at this ordering form, I see $2.49 for a mcdouble and only $1.39 for a basic hamburger. And the mcchicken is $1.19

(Though wow, mcdouble was half that 2-3 years ago. Big mac hasn't really changed.)

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#268

Post by Jommi »

dustinmoris wrote: post #58
necubi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that was never the strategy, no matter how many times people on HN claimed it was. Both Uber and Lyft are aiming for profitability next year with human drivers. (Disclaimer, I work for Lyft but this has been said in public many, many times by both companies.)

Profitability maybe, but the obscene valuation was based on Uber having a self driving fleet one day, at least to my understanding. Many businesses are profitable and even much more profitable than what Uber might be in a few years time and yet they have never come close to any valuation such as Uber has seen.

Why are you repeating this falsehood? What facts do you have to present that Ubers current valuation is majorly driven by a selfdriving future?

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#269

Post by jowday »

grecy wrote: post #192
mikesabbagh wrote: post #160

This self-driving system promise keeps getting delayed! It looks to me this is a case of a donkey led by a carrot on a stick (investors are the donkey here). What I never understand is what happens when a new situation that the system did not previously train for happen? what if this situation is deadly? Will all the Uber cars decide to jump off a cliff because of a wrong signalization or bad weather? What will the T…

> What I never understand is what happens when a new situation that the system did not previously train for happen? I think most people ask this kind of question because they assume the entire system is some kind of big if-else-if-else statement. The question about swerving and hitting the kid or the grandma follows the same logic. What we have to realize is that a neural net can and will react to things it hasn't sp…

That video isn't an example of this. Tesla's statements about fleet learning are pretty much theoretical - they're talking about a system they want to build someday. Right now, their motion planning and prediction is all hardcoded robotics.

See Karpathy's talk here: https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/annotated-karpathys-aut...

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#270

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

cercatrova wrote: post #208
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing to suggest technological growth will be exponential forever. It's just as likely we've gotten all the easy stuff the last century and now everything else is much harder.

Maybe so, but there isn't much evidence of a slowdown while there is a lot of evidence of acceleration, such as time to new tech, re: hunter gatherer to agriculture to industrial revolution to information revolution to potentially genetic/biotech/AI revolution in the future.

That jump happened because of groundbreaking discoveries in physics, chemistry, and biology. We are reaching the ends of that, though.

Particle physics has been at a standstill for decades. Fusion power is still a pipe dream. Global warming continues to go on without a technological answer in sight.

False AI promises are not evidence of anything. Nothing AI is doing now is genuinely artificial intelligence. Biotech? We still can't cure cancer.

We are getting more and more evolutions and less and less breakthroughs. That, to me, is slowing down. That doesn't mean things won't get better - just not as quickly, or as thoroughly.

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