Strategy question
If you were a product manager at Uber, how would you decide whether to switch from the driver model to the self-driving cars model?
- Instacart
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Strategic decision-making balancing cost, timeline risk, and market readiness for a phased, not binary, transition.
How to approach it
- Clarify the decision scope: a full switch is unrealistic near-term, so frame it as when and how to phase in self-driving.
- Assess readiness: autonomous tech is proven only in limited geofenced areas today, like Waymo in Phoenix, not general-purpose urban ridesharing.
- Weigh economics: self-driving removes driver-pay costs long-term but requires massive capital and city-by-city regulatory approval.
- Weigh risk: safety incidents with autonomous vehicles carry outsized reputational and regulatory risk compared to human-driver incidents.
- Propose a hybrid path: partner with existing AV operators in limited geofenced markets, as Uber actually did with Waymo, rather than a full switch.
- Define the trigger: expand only where per-mile AV cost drops below human-driver cost with comparable safety data, market by market.
What a strong answer includes
- Grounds the answer in real AV readiness, geofenced not general-purpose, rather than assuming full self-driving is imminent everywhere.
- Frames this correctly as a gradual, market-by-market decision, not a binary switch.
- Names the real economic tension: capex-heavy AV investment versus flexible but costlier human labor.
Common mistakes
- Answering as if full self-driving is ready to replace drivers everywhere today.
- Ignoring regulatory and safety or liability risk, a major real constraint for AVs.
Likely follow-up questions
- Which city would you pilot this in first and why?
- How would you communicate this transition to existing drivers?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop