If Uber really, really believed that self driving was such a sure thing for them, their optimal strategy would be to wind down the rideshare business, the food delivery business, and all its other businesses that aren't self driving, so that it could redirect its mountains of capital toward developing self driving even sooner. Because as soon as cars that really can operate fully autonomously hit the scene, it's not going to matter who was incumbent in the rideshare space or how dominant they are. The company with the self driving cars will take over just about as quickly as they can manufacture new cars.

The fact that they're not playing it this way implies that they're not so confident that they're well positioned to be first past the post with self-driving cars. Which means we probably shouldn't be, either.

Or, at least, has spent a lot of money failing to be in that business.

> They burnt through cash to get market share, because when self driving becomes a thing, they'll have a huge swing in margins/profits as self driving will get rid of their greatest expense (human drivers).

Established relationship with human drivers and the acquisition cost to overcome that is a big part of Uber’s moat, which is potentially erased when self-driving from anyone but Uber is real.

Using self driving car to justify their valuation is very risky - it's huge project, tons of competition, no idea about when it could even become a product, etc.

Alternately, Uber attaches their public messaging to external hype cycles and, in fact, is just a taxi business.