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I think you are assuming the worst without any information. It's not surprising in the least if you take a minute to find the back story: The founder started

by chubot 10y ago

I think you are assuming the worst without any information. It's not surprising in the least if you take a minute to find the back story: The founder started a company called 510 systems which was sold to Google, and years later he left Google to create another company focused on self-driving trucks. They obviously have deep experience in the area, and Uber obviously wants that expertise.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
> They obviously have deep experience in the area, The area being flipping companies to large corporate buyers?
fludlight 10y ago
Uber could be buying the company not for the founder's experience, but for that of the team that said founder assembled. In real estate parlance this is called "land assemblage": a developer spends years buying up enough adjacent plots of land to build something useful, then he sells it at a substantial premium to someone with enough local political connections and/or capital to make that happen. There should be a subcategory of tech exits that's called "talent assemblage" where the CEO hires the right people to develop a product and sells it to someone with sufficient resources to see it through. While this isn't remotely as valuable as actually seeing the project through, it does still have considerable value. EDIT: this would be a subcategory of the acquihire
- free2rhyme214 10y ago
  It's an acquirehire and for the technology.
- bigiain 10y ago
  I wonder whether they were upfront during recruiting all those team members that the intention was to "sell them" to Uber? (You know, just like that real estate developer is always scrupulously honest when negotiating for that last plot of land, they always say something like "This is the last piece I need to make my seven digit profit! How much did you say you wanted for it?", and would _never_ try to tell the owner of that plot "This is exactly the same house design that my alzheimer's affected mother has lived in all her life - it'd make her last few years _so_ much more comfortable. Would you accept $market_rate*0.8?"...)

by chubot 10y ago

forgotpwtomain 10y ago

> They obviously have deep experience in the area, The area being flipping companies to large corporate buyers?

fludlight 10y ago

Uber could be buying the company not for the founder's experience, but for that of the team that said founder assembled. In real estate parlance this is called "land assemblage": a developer spends years buying up enough adjacent plots of land to build something useful, then he sells it at a substantial premium to someone with enough local political connections and/or capital to make that happen. There should be a subcategory of tech exits that's called "talent assemblage" where the CEO hires the right people to develop a product and sells it to someone with sufficient resources to see it through. While this isn't remotely as valuable as actually seeing the project through, it does still have considerable value. EDIT: this would be a subcategory of the acquihire

free2rhyme214 10y ago
It's an acquirehire and for the technology.
bigiain 10y ago
I wonder whether they were upfront during recruiting all those team members that the intention was to "sell them" to Uber? (You know, just like that real estate developer is always scrupulously honest when negotiating for that last plot of land, they always say something like "This is the last piece I need to make my seven digit profit! How much did you say you wanted for it?", and would _never_ try to tell the owner of that plot "This is exactly the same house design that my alzheimer's affected mother has lived in all her life - it'd make her last few years _so_ much more comfortable. Would you accept $market_rate*0.8?"...)