According to Linkedin 54% of Uber employees (48,000) are in operations roles.[0]

I suppose some of these could be drivers, but I believe Uber's biggest department is operations, which is one of the reasons it's so expensive to enter new markets. Can't scale operations in the same way you can scale development.

Google would have to do something similar to launch their own ride-share app powered by Waymo, so could make sense to just keep Uber in the middle.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/uber-com/insights/

Maybe not, but a human at Uber responded within 15 minutes when a ride I had booked drove away from me just before pickup. They canceled the original booking with no fee, then sent another car to pick me up and gave me some Uber credits.

That's 1000% better customer service than I'd ever expect from big G. Google would probably charge me a cancellation fee for not taking the trip, shut down my account for having the temerity to complain I'd been stranded, and then followed up with automated email confirming they made the right decision after review.

Yes they do. especially in the delivery area they need tons of ops people to deal with the restaurants.