Uber is not in the S&P500. And no fund manager is consistently doing better than the market. "Stupid index fund money" looks pretty smart in that regard.
Uber is part of some indexes; S&P500 isn't the only one. The efficient markets hypothesis is obviously false, although from a distance it's usually a decent approximation.
And in case I'm about to get downvoted for violating the consensus -- 100% of my long-term investments are currently in index funds. But with the growing share of indexed investments, this is a very interesting question.
There are currently trillions of dollars (and growing) following the simple momentum strategy that index funds represent. It almost beggars belief that this is not, and will never, be exploited for gain.
And the other factor is this: if it is skill, do the high-fees still give you a better risk-adjusted return?
Yes. With your standard 2 and 20 fee structure, you don't pay performance fees on anything below 8% returns. Performance fees are where bonuses come from, so anyone coming up short sees capital and employees disappear overnight.
RenTech has a 40+% performance fee on their Medallion fund because it consistently generates 60% returns YoY.