Secretly, I think Uber is doomed, but not so much because they fail as a business, or because they maltreat their employees. They're doomed because they're not

Secretly, I think Uber is doomed, but not so much because they fail as a business, or because they maltreat their employees. They're doomed because they're not truly building the future. Uber wants to be the world's transportation infrastructure-- the default way for people to get from A to B. Their thesis is that the way to do this is to write software to hook up drivers with riders. Essentially, a taxi replacement. But this marketplace is an artifact of the fact that cars need human drivers. Without that need, the marketplace disappears. In the next year or two, Tesla will come out with gorgeous, highly efficient, self-driving cars, with fabulous software, all talking to each other on a network that Tesla totally controls. That will put them in a much more powerful position than the company that owns the software to route random cars around. When that happens, Uber will be screwed. Maybe they could build their own self-driving electric cars, but so far they're not doing too well. They're learning, like everyone else, that it's not a problem you can just throw money at. The Model 3 will cost $35,000, and allow drivers to make automated, passive income by having their car drive people around while they're at work or something. Why buy an ordinary car and drive it yourself when you can buy a slightly more expensive car and essentially collect rent? Uber riders care about two things, the experience and the price. Tesla wins on both fronts. Teslas are gorgeous, and feel like spaceships. (Take one for a test ride). And the thing about price is that with self-driving cars, with each ride you're basically paying for electricity plus a fee to the owner of the car for its depreciation. The cost becomes less about server maintenance, and more about who is better at building cars and writing car software. And by the way, you can't just have self-driving cars. If you want to win the unit-costs game, your cars have to be electric. The fact that Uber thinks of itself as a taxi replacement is a sign of their oldness. The end game for transportation can't be a taxi replacement, because it'll be unheard of for people to drive each other around. Tesla will have production limits, of course. But they demonstrate that building the future of transportation consists of (1) building cars and (2) getting them in front of people who want them, and that part 1 is by far the harder and more valuable. I've been dumping my savings into Tesla stock, and look forward to being rich in ten years.