Uber is an anomaly that breaks the rules. When you raise $8.7B in investment funds, pricing strategies and experiments are nearly limitless.
Travis and Co have stayed two step aheads by making bold moves and ignorning short-term financial performance. They have pulled off a funding coup despite less that perfect financial performances that makes GroupOn’s historical funding bonanza seem quaint by comparison.

Not many companies can sustain a $2B annual burn rate. Those who are using Uber’s burn-the-bridges approach towards world dominance should ensure their coffers can sustain a land-war in Asia before extending their supply lines.

But I digress. With Uber’s financial strength and huge customer base, they have an opportunity to overtake Google’s role as the self-driving thought leader. Although Google has millions of real-time miles driven, Google’s experiment has not included public passengers. Uber does have employees supervising the rides, and the inclusion of the public in their trial puts their experiment that much closer to a without-a-net performance. Google’s recent realignment of their Waymo program has opened the door for Uber and Tesla to grab the crown in self-driving technology. The early winner of the race will have earned a reputation with the public as the technology leader in this high-risk space. Real-time miles driven, PR, and training data will also separate the winners from the also-rans.

It’s going to fascinating to watch. Travis versus Elon. A battle for the ages.