Uber ($UBER) podcast mentions
Every company I talk to, Uber says, we're going to grow 20%, we're not going to grow headcount. Snowflake says, we're going to grow 30%, we're not going to grow headcount. That's what's happening. That is margin expansion. The single largest cost input to every one of these companies are humans and engineers. It's not that they're going to fire everybody, they're just not going to hire them at the rate that they hired them before. And then of course, we're going to have consumer agents in everybody's pocket. You may remember this bet I had with Bill. You know, when are we going to be able to book a hotel using your consumer agent in your pocket? I think we've just gotten that with Muse and with Instinct. This could be another trillion-dollar category, but it's definitely going to consume massive tokens. Here are the 3 risks and challenges. And sorry I'm going so quick, but I want to keep it moving. Regulation, we heard a lot about this yesterday. Power, and then what's going on with interest rates. So, you know, this is the regulation tug of war. Right? And I've heard from a lot of people, they're like, you're on both sides of the issue.
Brad Gerstner · All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · Brad Gerstner: No AI Bubble, Semis Eat the Nasdaq & AI's Take Off Problem · 2026-09-17All right, well, let's talk here about one of Alphabet's biggest moonshot bets, Waymo, which I know Sean has pretty strong feelings of. So in your original episode, you noted that Waymo just raised money at an evaluation of about $50 billion, which was actually down considerably from an earlier estimate of about $200 billion. But it actually appears Waymo is increasing in value as it was valued at nearly $130 billion in its last funding round in February of this year. So this piece of Alphabet, which at one point could have been seen as, you know, just a rounding error, albeit with a lot of optionality, has nearly tripled in value over a year and a half. Now, I know that you prefer Uber to Waymo, at least in terms of business models, but Waymo definitely has some pretty strong fundamentals. They've now driven 127 million fully autonomous miles and are reporting 90% fewer serious injury-related crashes versus human drivers on that exact same mileage.
Kyle Grieve · The Investor's Podcast (We Study Billionaires) - The Investor’s Podcast Network · TIP847: Alphabet (GOOGL): The Megacap That Still Might Be Underrated w/ Kyle Grieve & Shawn O’Malley · 2026-09-17So for anybody who missed it, Daniel and I just did an episode the other day revisiting Uber, and I think I said that it was pretty obscene for Waymo to have the same valuation as Uber. I mean, Uber is doing tens of millions of rides per day and generating billions of dollars in profits with a very proven and quickly scaling business model. While Waymo is still in the cash burn phase, it's losing a ton of money, and its viability as a business model has not not been proven. It's entirely speculative. And then to some extent, it's also dependent on whether competitors are able to make breakthroughs in AV tech that offset some of the first mover benefits that Waymo may have. So as an Alphabet shareholder, to the extent that they can capitalize on Waymo by maybe monetizing their stake partially or fully from a Waymo IPO down the road, I think that's sort of all gravy for us. As an Uber shareholder, I would say I'm pretty skeptical. Of Waymo being able to grow into this valuation. But objectively, the technology is really cool.
Preston Pysh · The Investor's Podcast (We Study Billionaires) - The Investor’s Podcast Network · TIP847: Alphabet (GOOGL): The Megacap That Still Might Be Underrated w/ Kyle Grieve & Shawn O’Malley · 2026-09-17OK, number one, that stinks. But number two, it is easier than ever now to pay somebody for your share of dinner or a cab ride or an Uber ride or what have you. And it's just not happening, especially with, with Gen Z, as you point out in this piece.
Kai Ryssdal · Marketplace · Bond traders take a turn in the spotlight · 2026-09-16Your Persona will proactively learn your habits to make your life easier. For example, when you get off a flight, it should know to get you an Uber from the airport to your hotel. Reactively, it will be able to help with all kinds of things like canceling subscriptions, negotiating bills, or even DoorDashing your usual Chipotle bowl, knowing exactly what you like. Elite. Persona is also the only AI system—
Speaker K · TBPN · Third Party Evaluators, Fed Hikes Rates, Zuck Pushes Back On AI Slowdown | Jeremy Allaire, Tomasz Tunguz, William Layden, Justin Beroz, Eli Wachs, Sean McCarthy, Tom Mueller · 2026-09-16This is sort of like a slight aesthetic thing I believe in very strongly. The names of companies are often very predictive of future failure or success. So I'd say PayPal was a— was a very friendly name. It was the friend that helps you pay. Napster was a bad name. It was the music sharing site. You nap some music, you nap a kid. That sounds like sort of a bad thing to be doing, and it's no wonder the government then comes in and shuts the company down within a few years. So you want to be very careful how you name companies. In the sharing economy context, I like Airbnb way more than Uber. Airbnb sounds like this very innocent virtual bread and breakfast, this very light, non-threatening sort of company. Uber, that sort of sounds like a bad name from Germany sometime in the 1930s. You know, what are you exactly above? Maybe the law?
Speaker G · TBPN · Third Party Evaluators, Fed Hikes Rates, Zuck Pushes Back On AI Slowdown | Jeremy Allaire, Tomasz Tunguz, William Layden, Justin Beroz, Eli Wachs, Sean McCarthy, Tom Mueller · 2026-09-16And this is probably something that, again, from a government regulatory perspective, I think Airbnb is a vastly better name than Uber. And on the social networking side, I would say that I actually think Facebook was a very good name. I think MySpace was sort of a more problematic name. Facebook was— you can say that all these social networks involve both reading and writing. Unlike real life, you learn to— you have to write before you read. You first have to write some things about yourself, then you read more about other people. Over time, reading dominates writing. Facebook was about learning about people around you, about the real identities at Harvard. MySpace started among wannabe actors in Los Angeles, and it was about them coming up with fictional narratives around themselves, and then sort of a lot of other people in LA who are generally like that. That's fine.
Speaker G · TBPN · Third Party Evaluators, Fed Hikes Rates, Zuck Pushes Back On AI Slowdown | Jeremy Allaire, Tomasz Tunguz, William Layden, Justin Beroz, Eli Wachs, Sean McCarthy, Tom Mueller · 2026-09-16Aggregators kind of won the demand platforms— Amazon, Netflix, Uber— in the 2000s and the 2010s. But Lou, do moats exist in the world of artificial intelligence? Because it seems like one exists for 5 minutes and then another model's released and everybody moves over to ChatGPT, and then, oh, Muse is released, so now we— everybody's trying out Muse. It seems like these are incredibly fragile moats, or Or do you see it differently?
Travis Hoym · Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing · Do AI Moats Exist? · 2026-09-16So let's explain what that means. Because if you're not familiar with this, for example, Uber is a good example. If you pay $20 for an Uber ride, Uber does not count that as $20 in revenue. That is $20 in what they call gross bookings. The take rate, which is usually about 25%, is going to be Uber's revenue. So $5 in revenue, $20 in gross bookings. That's the way that they would report it. And what you're saying is that Anthropic, at least from what we know right now, is saying we have $20 in revenue. From what we know.
Travis Hoym · Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing · Do AI Moats Exist? · 2026-09-16Then you have to figure out what the fuck you're going to do with your life. Yeah, because you bomb on Kill Tony and you're an Uber Eats driver and you're like, oh no, man, what is my life now?
Joe Rogan · The Joe Rogan Experience · #2555 - Ron White · 2026-09-16Yeah, I think, I think that's right. But I think, you know, with the 1,200, think about it like 1,200 kids in a high school. They may need a hall monitor. Maybe they have the most powerful agent being a hall monitor that's taking the interests of the human developers and making sure There's lots of techniques to get at this. I think what people should realize is that early stages of any technology— when I was at Uber, people thought Ubers were not safe relative to taxis. Now people think robotaxis are not safe relative to Ubers. People have to understand there's a learning curve there and there are ways around this. Or they could just stop. They could just stop some of these things until they figure it out. And this is the sort of tension you get between people who want to pre-regulate like Europe and those who want to hold companies responsible for good products being developed that are aligned and safe, not releasing them until they have those dimensions in them.
Emil Michael · Squawk on the Street · 10AM Hour: DoD’s Emil Michael on AI Fears, Fed Decision on Deck, C-Suite Warns about Fuel Prices 9/16/26 · 2026-09-16Bloomberg Government's Kate Ackley reports those talks could set the stage for the U.S. and China extending their trade truce beyond one year. Back on Wall Street, we're watching shares of Apple, they are up about 1%. The Information is reporting the iPhone maker is working on an enterprise server with its own chips that could incorporate Nvidia's networking equipment. Nvidia at the open is higher by 0.8%. Walmart is little changed. The big box giant's teaming with nonprofit insurer SCAN Health Plan to sell Medicare Advantage plans to seniors. The bet that Walmart's data can push down healthcare costs. Uber shares are down nearly 1% at the open. The rideshare company's expanding Costco deliveries through Uber Eats from 17 to 47 states. Costco shares little changed to the downside. And former President Barack Obama has shared some sad news. His family dog Sunny has died. The former first family took in the Portuguese Water Dog in 2013 at the start of Obama's second term.
Nathan Hager · Bloomberg News Now · Stocks Halt Slide Before Fed, Attack Reported Near Hormuz, More · 2026-09-16Go to Salt Lake City Airport and do Uber. I'm like, that, that place is packed all the time. I don't know.
Rachel Cruze · The Ramsey Show · Wisdom Starts Where Debt Ends · 2026-09-16I'm just, the law says you have to be 25 to drive Uber. Okay.
Speaker E · The Ramsey Show · Wisdom Starts Where Debt Ends · 2026-09-16I'm trying to think if I drove it. I think I, maybe that was a new thing. Cause when I drove Uber, I don't think I was 25 yet, but all that to say, I think we need to, we can hustle.
George Kamel · The Ramsey Show · Wisdom Starts Where Debt Ends · 2026-09-16