When does Uber run out of money? I think the timeline on their R&D projects is longer than their runway, and I'm not sure how many more people would be willing to write Uber a 10 digit check.
It's like they're stumbling forward blindly hoping that at some point their books balance.
I don't think Uber has any strong competitive advantage in the self-driving space relative to all of the other players. I've been wrong about these things before. The thing that may put them at a disadvantage is their history of ignoring regulations compared to companies like Google. Even if they develop the technology quickly enough they may be screwed because a competitive technology is the one that gets licensed by the DOT because other companies play by the rules.
That said, I didn't realize just how far ahead Google/Waymo is with regards to self-driving cars. If you check out the report of autonomous vehicles (HN "discussion" here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13554796) they are already operating on highways with zero problems! The data is limited, but that is promising.
I think that's a fair perspective and I don't discount the capabilities and talents of the people working at Uber, it's the people running Uber that I don't believe are capable of steering the ship.
A friend of mine who has been an executive at a couple tech companies have chatted about the "no grown-up" phenomenon. Essentially, you can have a ton of super-talented people but if there isn't a 'grown-up' (irrespective of age) providing the managerial/fiduciary discipline (think Steve Jobs and Elon Musk as the epitome of this) then the challenges of running a successful business will quickly outpace the efforts of the talented engineers working there.
The number of teams/engineers that unilaterally work on overlapping projects or projects that don't serve any purpose can rapidly drown the needed forward progress.