4 Years In – Uber raises 1.2B at 17B valuation (blog.uber.com)

I think what they're doing is great. But does anyone else feel like "job creation" is a distracting data point? I can't help feel that companies like Uber are really just positioning themselves early for the self-driving car revolution that is coming. They will be in a very good position and heavily incentivized to switch to a driverless model once the technology arrives. Perhaps I'm premature in my expectations of how soon this will realistically happen.

They're making the world a better place.

Technically they're raising at $18.2B or $18.4B in the typical sense of the word "valuation" since the 17 is pre-money.

Also, as an investor in such a late round, there are likely multiple provisions for getting your money back such that while a large investment, it may not be particularly risky. Even if Uber crashes and burns and gets acquired for only $3B, investors in this round probably still double their money.

There is more discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7859084, so we'll call this one the dupe.