Uber Turns to Saudi Arabia for $3.5B Cash Infusion
I've always been a little confused about uber's capital needs.  When I first heard about uber, the part I thought was super-clever was that you wouldn't _need_ lots of capital because all the drivers would have their own cars.  Leveraging the latent capital of one side of the two-sided market was the genius of it.  (Airbnb too)<p>Same for the staffing -- hook up both sides of the market.  No need to pay anyone out of your pocket -- in fact, probably there'd be some float for you there.  Sure, maybe you have to subsidize one side at first, but not forever.<p>So where's all this cash going?  Is the driver side being subsidized to a ridiculous degree still (this is, actually, my guess)?  Is there a moonlander (driverless car) in the works?  Are the G&A costs off the charts?  How could that be, give that the software does the connecting?  Is the software _that_ hard to write?  I mean, it's good, but it ain't rocket science.  (I'm not sure rocket science is even rocket science anymore.)<p>If I'm right that all the cash is still going to make the fares cheap to encourage up-take, it seems to me like Lyft (or another/any fast follower) is in a fantastic position.  Let uber burn the capital to sell the idea to consumers, and then step in when it stumbles and walk away with the glory and gold.  Place your bets.