tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will* be a PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000 cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will* be a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the hirer is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%) of the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop


"The cars are not truly driverless yet"

so until and unless they are (and I remain sceptical that the industry is
going to get regulatory approve for that any time soon)

It's all words

tim

tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will* be a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the hirer is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

So how do you think current Uber drivers get credit? Do you really think
recent immigrants with no credit history are a better bet than Silocon
Valley's most valuable private corporation?


The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%) of the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Your sage investment advice is wasted here. You should be earning megabucks
advising the likes of these naive companies:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organizat...funding-rounds


Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop


"The cars are not truly driverless yet"

so until and unless they are (and I remain sceptical that the industry is
going to get regulatory approve for that any time soon)

It's all words

No, it's not all words. There is a growing fleet of real cars, driving
themselves on public roads, in multiple cities (soon to include London),
carrying real passengers. Nobody says that fully autonomous, unsupervised
cabs will be released in the next few months, but the technology has made
remarkable progress. It may only be in alpha test right now, but the
commercial release within a few years is entirely believable.

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:30:40 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop

I think you'll find that's the University's testing, and because Uber
funds that programme they get to go "along for the ride" so to speak.

It's also an early testing phase, which the cars won't necessarily pass.
--
Roland Perry

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and
I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of
other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will* be
a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's
not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the hirer
is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

So how do you think current Uber drivers get credit?

But they are all individuals

they each arrange their credit on a personal basis. The lender is spreading
his risk amongst 1000s of people, not just one company

recent immigrants with no credit history are a better bet than Silocon
Valley's most valuable private corporation?


The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%) of
the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Your sage investment advice is wasted here. You should be earning
megabucks
advising the likes of these naive companies:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organizat...funding-rounds

I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers expecting a
return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been measured against
that criteria. You really can't use the measure that VCs are investing as
proof that a venture is guaranteed to be successful. The world is littered
with VC failures, including some that required investments in the Billions.
How much did Microsoft lose buying Skyp?

The sums of money required to buy the number of cars that you need to flood
the world's markets for taxi with autonomous vehicles far exceeds the amount
of risk capital available and needs to move into the world of normal
business funding. These people will be far more circumspect.

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in
Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop


"The cars are not truly driverless yet"

so until and unless they are (and I remain sceptical that the industry is
going to get regulatory approve for that any time soon)

It's all words

No, it's not all words. There is a growing fleet of real cars, driving
themselves on public roads, in multiple cities (soon to include London),
carrying real passengers. Nobody says that fully autonomous, unsupervised
cabs will be released in the next few months, but the technology has made
remarkable progress. It may only be in alpha test right now, but the
commercial release within a few years is entirely believable.

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

tim

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:30:40 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop

I think you'll find that's the University's testing, and because Uber
funds that programme they get to go "along for the ride" so to speak.

It's also an early testing phase, which the cars won't necessarily pass.

It's not really a pass or fail issue. It's an alpha test. I assume the
software, algorithms and mapping database will be continually adjusted
during this testing phase, but no-one is planning to roll out this version
as a commercial release. But these improvements will feed back into the
eventual commercial release, which is probably several years away.

The big step in this phase is that it's not just the private test running
that Google has been doing for years, but a public test, with random
members of the public actually using the cars as a taxi service. It seems
to be a little more ambitious than the nuTonomy trial that started a few
days earlier in Singapore, but is still well short of a commercial release.

As an aside, it's interesting how much much hardware these early
self-driving cars currently need (numerous sensors, Lidar, Radar, cameras,
etc) compared to just the eyes and ears we human drivers get by with.

tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and
I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of
other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will* be
a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's
not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the hirer
is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

So how do you think current Uber drivers get credit?

But they are all individuals

they each arrange their credit on a personal basis. The lender is spreading
his risk amongst 1000s of people, not just one company

recent immigrants with no credit history are a better bet than Silocon
Valley's most valuable private corporation?


The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%) of
the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Your sage investment advice is wasted here. You should be earning
megabucks
advising the likes of these naive companies:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organizat...funding-rounds

I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers expecting a
return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been measured against
that criteria.

Just curious, how much have you invested in VC funds? How any are you
invested in?

You really can't use the measure that VCs are investing as
proof that a venture is guaranteed to be successful. The world is littered
with VC failures, including some that required investments in the Billions.

VCs stop investing early in the many early stage companies that aren't
likely to make it. They don't participate in funding round after funding
round in the flops. Can't you see this in the many reports you get from
your VC investments, as I do from mine?
[I have investments in dozens of VC funds, as I'm sure you must too.]


How much did Microsoft lose buying Skyp?

What is Skyp? It sounds like like a rubbish bin.

If you're referring to Skype, it wasn't Microsoft that first bought it. The
original investors in Skype did rather well when it was bought for $2.6bn
in 2005, only two years after its first release. The later VC investors did
even better when MSFT paid $8.5bn in 2011 (a huge increase from the
enterprise value of $2.9bn in 2009). So Skype has been a huge success for
VCs.

As MSFT hasn't sold Skype, and probably won't, I don't know how you are
trying to calculate the loss you think it's made. But whatever it is, MSFT
isn't a VC. It does numerous acquisitions, some of which it handles well,
and many that it doesn't. But it enriches VCs along the way. I have
first-hand knowledge of this -- do you?


The sums of money required to buy the number of cars that you need to flood
the world's markets for taxi with autonomous vehicles far exceeds the amount
of risk capital available and needs to move into the world of normal
business funding. These people will be far more circumspect.

Again, you seem to live in a different world. Initially, autonomous cabs
will simply replace existing ones, and only in mapped cities. So the
numbers are not huge, and they should be no harder to fund than other
business vehicles.

And, again, if you have such amazing knowledge of the VC industry, why
aren't you selling it to the people who are already making billions, to
help them become even richer? Perhaps they'd like to be as successful in
business as you presumably are?


Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in
Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop


"The cars are not truly driverless yet"

so until and unless they are (and I remain sceptical that the industry is
going to get regulatory approve for that any time soon)

It's all words

No, it's not all words. There is a growing fleet of real cars, driving
themselves on public roads, in multiple cities (soon to include London),
carrying real passengers. Nobody says that fully autonomous, unsupervised
cabs will be released in the next few months, but the technology has made
remarkable progress. It may only be in alpha test right now, but the
commercial release within a few years is entirely believable.

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

I dare say the current cars cost a *lot* more than that. But for someone
as knowledgeable about investing as you, who is presumably a billionaire,
that would be a cheap car...

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."

wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their
current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap,
and
I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of
other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will*
be
a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash
flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's
not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars
are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the
hirer
is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

So how do you think current Uber drivers get credit?

But they are all individuals

they each arrange their credit on a personal basis. The lender is
spreading
his risk amongst 1000s of people, not just one company

recent immigrants with no credit history are a better bet than Silocon
Valley's most valuable private corporation?


The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%)
of
the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Your sage investment advice is wasted here. You should be earning
megabucks
advising the likes of these naive companies:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organizat...funding-rounds

I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers expecting
a
return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been measured
against
that criteria.

Just curious, how much have you invested in VC funds? How any are you
invested in?

what's that got to do with anything

ask anybody who does invest and they will tell you that they expect a 1 in 3
success rate. It's not a secret

You really can't use the measure that VCs are investing as
proof that a venture is guaranteed to be successful. The world is
littered
with VC failures, including some that required investments in the
Billions.

VCs stop investing early in the many early stage companies that aren't
likely to make it. They don't participate in funding round after funding
round in the flops.

So obviously they don't believe it's a flop - that doesn't make them right

It still has a way to go to prove itself.

In any case they are waiting for the bigger fool.

Can't you see this in the many reports you get from
your VC investments, as I do from mine?
[I have investments in dozens of VC funds, as I'm sure you must too.]


How much did Microsoft lose buying Skyp?

What is Skyp? It sounds like like a rubbish bin.

If you're referring to Skype, it wasn't Microsoft that first bought it.
The
original investors in Skype did rather well when it was bought for $2.6bn

I know - they found their bigger fool


in 2005, only two years after its first release. The later VC investors
did
even better when MSFT paid $8.5bn in 2011 (a huge increase from the
enterprise value of $2.9bn in 2009). So Skype has been a huge success for
VCs.

But not for the final purchaser who has already written off a chunk of what
they paid for it

As MSFT hasn't sold Skype, and probably won't, I don't know how you are
trying to calculate the loss you think it's made. But whatever it is, MSFT
isn't a VC. It does numerous acquisitions, some of which it handles well,
and many that it doesn't. But it enriches VCs along the way. I have
first-hand knowledge of this -- do you?


The sums of money required to buy the number of cars that you need to
flood
the world's markets for taxi with autonomous vehicles far exceeds the
amount
of risk capital available and needs to move into the world of normal
business funding. These people will be far more circumspect.

Again, you seem to live in a different world. Initially, autonomous cabs
will simply replace existing ones, and only in mapped cities. So the
numbers are not huge, and they should be no harder to fund than other
business vehicles.

So how's that going to change Uber's business overnight?

1 in 100 of their cars are autonomous. Are they going to charge the lower
fares for these rides immediately, or are they going to make them the same
fare?

If they charge lower fares wont that send a big message to current drivers
telling that they aren't needed (so they will up sticks to the competition
immediately) and if the don't charge lower fares someone else will.

And, again, if you have such amazing knowledge of the VC industry, why
aren't you selling it to the people who are already making billions, to
help them become even richer?

All of my knowledge is generic stuff that I am explaining to you,

It is not a secret

Whether a particular investment is a good one or not is for them to decide,
not for me to tell them, but my point is YOU cannot use the fact that VCs
are investing as proof that a company is/will be successful

It is a nonsense

Three times in my career I have been interviewed for a position with a
newish start up that VCs had funded and I was told the story that the
investors fell of their chair in surprise at the uniqueness of the product.
All three companies crashed and burned 1-2 years later, one after 20 million
pounds of investment from the VCs (I know not what the others had received)

Oh and then there's Ionica, now much money was lost there?

Perhaps they'd like to be as successful in
business as you presumably are?

I'm not a big risk taker, and I suffer for that.

But OTOH I do alright

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in
Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...cars-pitt-stop


"The cars are not truly driverless yet"

so until and unless they are (and I remain sceptical that the industry
is
going to get regulatory approve for that any time soon)

It's all words

No, it's not all words. There is a growing fleet of real cars, driving
themselves on public roads, in multiple cities (soon to include London),
carrying real passengers. Nobody says that fully autonomous,
unsupervised
cabs will be released in the next few months, but the technology has
made
remarkable progress. It may only be in alpha test right now, but the
commercial release within a few years is entirely believable.

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

I dare say the current cars cost a *lot* more than that. But for someone
as knowledgeable about investing as you, who is presumably a billionaire,
that would be a cheap car...

but not if I had to buy 10 million of them

tim

tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 23 Sep 2016 11:01:31 +0100, "tim..."

wrote:



I know

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their
current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap,
and
I
defy
them to find the funding for such.

They won't be rolling driverless cabs worldwide in one go.

That's my point

if, once proven, they don't roll out in London/Paris/Rome/loads of
other
places at the same time, someone else will

The resident of London, Paris, Rome and loads of other places are not
going
to sit back and wait for Uber to reach them with the benefits of
driverless
cars, they are going to expect it to arrive today. And there *will*
be
a
PV
prepared to fund that.

It'll
happen in stages, and I wouldn't expect large, complex cities to be
among the first to get them. And Uber isn't exactly facing a cash
flow
crisis: it has around $4bn in the bank. That will pay for mapping
quite a few cities.

But it won't pay for the capital costs of the taxi fleets for 10,000
cities

It will pay for one (100,000 cabs at 40K each - 100,000 is half the
number
of taxis in London, and I very much doubt that first generation
autonomous
cars will cost under 40K).

Why do you think Uber will buy its self-driving cabs for cash? That's
not
how most business vehicles are bought.

Someone still has to give them all of that credit. Even if the cars
are
lease hired and they don't sit directly on the books for Uber, the
hirer
is
still going to need to be sure of Uber's creditworthiness

So how do you think current Uber drivers get credit?

But they are all individuals

they each arrange their credit on a personal basis. The lender is
spreading
his risk amongst 1000s of people, not just one company

recent immigrants with no credit history are a better bet than Silocon
Valley's most valuable private corporation?


The idea that the people doing that will give Uber 100% (or even 50%)
of
the
worldwide opportunities for autonomous rental cars is just silly

Your sage investment advice is wasted here. You should be earning
megabucks
advising the likes of these naive companies:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organizat...funding-rounds

I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers expecting
a
return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been measured
against
that criteria.

Just curious, how much have you invested in VC funds? How any are you
invested in?

what's that got to do with anything

ask anybody who does invest and they will tell you that they expect a 1 in 3
success rate. It's not a secret

You really can't use the measure that VCs are investing as
proof that a venture is guaranteed to be successful. The world is
littered
with VC failures, including some that required investments in the
Billions.

VCs stop investing early in the many early stage companies that aren't
likely to make it. They don't participate in funding round after funding
round in the flops.

So obviously they don't believe it's a flop - that doesn't make them right

It still has a way to go to prove itself.

In any case they are waiting for the bigger fool.

Can't you see this in the many reports you get from
your VC investments, as I do from mine?
[I have investments in dozens of VC funds, as I'm sure you must too.]


How much did Microsoft lose buying Skyp?

What is Skyp? It sounds like like a rubbish bin.

If you're referring to Skype, it wasn't Microsoft that first bought it.
The
original investors in Skype did rather well when it was bought for $2.6bn

I know - they found their bigger fool


in 2005, only two years after its first release. The later VC investors
did
even better when MSFT paid $8.5bn in 2011 (a huge increase from the
enterprise value of $2.9bn in 2009). So Skype has been a huge success for
VCs.

But not for the final purchaser who has already written off a chunk of what
they paid for it

You used Skyp(sic) as an example of VCs getting it wrong. You don't seem to
understand that it was an example of VCs doing brilliantly well. It was
eBay and MSFT that overpaid.


As MSFT hasn't sold Skype, and probably won't, I don't know how you are
trying to calculate the loss you think it's made. But whatever it is, MSFT
isn't a VC. It does numerous acquisitions, some of which it handles well,
and many that it doesn't. But it enriches VCs along the way. I have
first-hand knowledge of this -- do you?


The sums of money required to buy the number of cars that you need to
flood
the world's markets for taxi with autonomous vehicles far exceeds the
amount
of risk capital available and needs to move into the world of normal
business funding. These people will be far more circumspect.

Again, you seem to live in a different world. Initially, autonomous cabs
will simply replace existing ones, and only in mapped cities. So the
numbers are not huge, and they should be no harder to fund than other
business vehicles.

So how's that going to change Uber's business overnight?

1 in 100 of their cars are autonomous. Are they going to charge the lower
fares for these rides immediately, or are they going to make them the same
fare?

If they charge lower fares wont that send a big message to current drivers
telling that they aren't needed (so they will up sticks to the competition
immediately) and if the don't charge lower fares someone else will.

Uber's drivers are not making a long term commitment; I'd imagine hardly
any of them see driving an Uber car as a lifetime ambition. They do it to
earn a bit of money, but it's long hours for not much income. They'll stay
loyal to Uber only until a better offer comes along. I don't suppose many
drive minicabs for very long anyway. Uber will pay them enough to keep
them, while and where it still needs drivers.


And, again, if you have such amazing knowledge of the VC industry, why
aren't you selling it to the people who are already making billions, to
help them become even richer?

All of my knowledge is generic stuff that I am explaining to you,

Very generic, and ill-understood, too.


It is not a secret

Being a successful VC isn't as easy as you seem to think/



Whether a particular investment is a good one or not is for them to decide,
not for me to tell them, but my point is YOU cannot use the fact that VCs
are investing as proof that a company is/will be successful

It is a nonsense

Of course not. But VCs don't come back for round after round of funding for
the flops. They usually fail early. VCs are ruthless at pulling the plug
or replacing the CEO the moment they smell failure.


Three times in my career I have been interviewed for a position with a
newish start up that VCs had funded and I was told the story that the
investors fell of their chair in surprise at the uniqueness of the product.
All three companies crashed and burned 1-2 years later, one after 20 million
pounds of investment from the VCs (I know not what the others had received)

Those sound like early stage companies, which do have a high failure rate.
The reason they crashed and burned is that the VCs pulled the plug, as they
often do. Don't you understand the concept of funding rounds?

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 04:21:44PM +0100, tim... wrote:

It's possible for Amazon to kill the competition and for it not to come back
again, leaving you in an unassailable position to reap the rewards of
previous work

Once Uber has established in a city, competition can continually spring up
again meaning that you are continually fighting it. There is no path to
killing it off completely (other than making your price so low you don't
make a profit). There are always new drivers prepared to compete with you.

What's different about them that makes it possible for someone to pop up
and start competing with Uber, but impossible for someone to pop up and
start competing with Amazon?

--
David Cantrell | Pope | First Church of the Symmetrical Internet

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