if i had to guess, buffet realizes that self-driving cars are many more years away than uber has runway, and regulators are shifting to classify drivers as employees, increasing labor costs. profitability gets pushed out, creating a cash-flow problem for uber, which buffett can take advantage of.
that was disappointing. i'd welcome a well-supported rebuttal. sure, he might think those things (neither of us knows) but they're totally beside the point.
Uber is currently positioned to win when they can get self-driving cars. Drivers are Uber's biggest expense.
he may even have been asking to be preferred debt, so that he gets paid before other debtholders. if the company fails, he’s still be first in line to get paid to limit losses in that case. that’s the downside protection.
if he still believed in the company even as it underperformed, the debt could be converted to equity (probably at very favorable conversion prices), basically buying the equity at a discount. he’d then be in position to exert some measure of control over management.
in most underperforming cases he at least gets his money back plus some interest (not bad, but not great). in some cases, he gets cheap and possibly preferred equity in uber that’s already worth more than he paid, and possibly a lot more eventually.