Uber Sold Its Self-Driving Dream. Now It Owns Everyone Else's.
Remember December 2020? Uber offloaded its self-driving vehicle division, ATG, to Aurora Innovation. Tech pundits rushed to declare it a complete surrender. The narrative was simple: Uber tried, burned billions of dollars, failed, and crawled back to relying entirely on human gig workers.
Except that isn't what happened. Not even close.
Over the past two years, Uber quietly pulled off one of the sharpest pivots in corporate history. Instead of spending staggering sums trying to build a single robotic driver, Uber signed deals with or directly invested in roughly 30 autonomous vehicle companies. Way