Yes, they COULD licence the tech from someone else, but the price would be too high to make it worth doing. My feeling is that if someone else has self driving

Yes, they COULD licence the tech from someone else, but the price would be too high to make it worth doing. My feeling is that if someone else has self driving technology, Uber has no way of adding value. Tesla, Waymo, whoever - will simply run a taxi service themselves and reap more profits. It's possible that a smaller self driving company might not have the capital to start an actual fleet, but I feel like investors would go for it as it'd be a pretty sure bet, provided the technology is solid. I think Uber outright acquiring another company that has the technology is more likely - again, that company would probably also just start their own taxi service, but it might work if they have different goals - the owners may simply be looking for a short term payout. Uber knows that. All they have is a userbase with an app installed, which isn't of as much value as it is for say, a social media app, because there's no network effect. You don't have to use the same taxi service as your friends do. People will be more than happy to switch to a different service if the price is competitive and it doesn't have a bad reputation. It's not impossible they'd licence self driving tech, but I doubt the economics of it.