I just want to chime in to say that it is ridiculous that such information is not so easy to come by. Billion-dollar corporations should not be allowed to keep their external investments so opaque! Especially businesses that are publicly-traded.
Also: I don't give a damn if the business isn't publicly traded either. If they're that big they have enough influence over any given market that the public should have the right to know what they're up to.
That is not surprising, or in question. The claim I am questioning is:
> Alphabet has a large stake in Uber.
Since Uber is a publicly listed company, its top owners are public information. Which show Alphabet to not have a significant portion of ownership in Uber.
Sure, but there's massive advantages to bringing it in house. The only reason I could see for them not doing it is that as autonomous vehicles are deployed widely there's going to be a massive backlash from current uber drivers and strategically it might be good for Alphabet to be able to use Uber as a heat shield.
Uber have always wanting to go autonomous cars. They poured a lot of money to try to develop them in-house and I think that they were too optimistic on how easy and quick that would be.
But if/when fully autonomous vehicles become a reality they will shed their drivers, same as everyone else.
