
Uber’s self-driving unit gets $1B investment from SoftBank - henryw
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18507049/uber-atg-self-driving-autonomous-car-investment-softbank-toyota-denso
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Judgmentality
Is Softbank just going to invest in every self-driving startup? That seems
like a really weird investment strategy.

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1123581321
SoftBank has used competing rideshare investments to increase valuations by
convincing its portfolio companies to stop costly fighting. Perhaps they
expect to have a similar need once self-driving companies are also competing
for rides.

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dalbasal
Sounds dangerously like a trust.

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thraway32131
Does anyone know what's happening at Toyota ? They Gil Pratt (from DARPA/CMU?)
leading TRI in SV, Boston (and now apparently in Tokyo). They have a TTI in
Nagoya, have $100 M in PFN, and have an in-house autonomous driving effort.
...

Yet, they invest $500+660m (with Denso) in what is empirically proven to be a
reckless team in Pittsburgh.

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Fricken
There's evidence that they were a reckless team. There's no evidence that they
_are_ a reckless team.

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dalbasal
I wonder how much of all uber investment is actually an investment in self
driving cars, and uber's ability to get a big piece of that.

Uber's q4 revenue was $3bn ($1bn loss)

Lets say they triple revenue to $40bn pa in 10 years, while growing into
profitability... call it 10% profit margin over the 10 yr period... it'd be
impressive, considering margin is currently negative 30%.^

That makes <$30bn profit in 10 years. Uber's IPO valuation is estimated around
$100bn.

In any case, lets also say you believe L5 self driving will be rolling out by
2030. Uber seems to. At this point, the current business model (uber of
driving) starts declining. Self driving is the only obvious replacement.

You really need to expect _very_ big things from uber in the self driving
space. If self driving is coming, there isn't time to make money from the
current business model. If it isn't, uber is betting on the wrong things.

^You could assume even faster growth but given their current losses, size
limitations, etc... it starts getting beyond optimism to expect _any_ profit.
This isn't google or fb. Uber have competition.

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kgwgk
"For example, we believe that autonomous vehicles will be an important part of
our offerings over the long term, and in 2018, we incurred $457 million of
research and development expenses for our ATG and Other Technology Programs
initiatives."

$457mn in 2018, $384mn in 2017, $230mn in 2016.

"On a quarterly basis, research and development expenses have varied based on
the timing of our investments associated with ongoing improvements to, and
maintenance of, our platform offerings, and ATG and Other Technology Programs.
Research and development expenses have increased in all quarters with the
exception of the fourth quarter of 2018, when investments in ATG were delayed
until 2019."

    
    
      2017:  $83mn $101mn  $91mn $102mn
      2018: $117mn $129mn $116mn  $89mn

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davidmott_
Well, at least Softbank are helping to fire up innovation.

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conroydave
Softbank is EVERYWHERE

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techmortal
Automation will slowly start to creep into most industries. But how safe could
this actually be?

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Gunstig2Snath
Who else have they invested in?

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tyingq
Oof. I'm no expert, but: [https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04/S...](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04/Screen-Shot-2019-04-15-at-12.05.49-AM-768x298.png)

