20VC: Uber President on The Untold Uber Stories: Travis, China and Self-Driving | Why Autonomy Is Existential | How to Beat DoorDash to #1 in Food with Andrew MacDonald

Andrew MacDonald, Uber's longest-serving employee and now President and COO, shares untold stories from the company's early days, including the brutal battle in China and lessons from Travis Kalanick. He explains why Uber chose to divest its self-driving unit to focus on core rides and delivery, and why markets like India and Brazil will delay a fully autonomous future. MacDonald also reveals an internal 'SWAT team' of 30 elite AI engineers and argues that companies that don't adopt frontier AI models risk being unbundled by competitors. Finally, he discusses why chat-based interfaces aren't the right solution for everything, echoing Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky.