Qasar here (x-YC founder and partner). So im building a simulation company. Not commenting on Uber specifically but the reason lots of companies don't have great efforts is simulation is actually really hard. It’s not building a web application (tested methodologies, established best practices, lots of experienced engineers in the space...etc).
You can get a lot done (and get wonderful demos) through research vehicles. The issue with sim is similar to the issues with AVs as a whole - getting to 90% is much easier than getting to 99.9999%.
Also, there is this weird thing in AV (and specifically in-house sim) where pointy-haired managers think "if we put 30 SWEs on the problem - we'll make progress!". While raw eng horsepower matters in some software problems, when you are on the line between research and engineering, more SWEs might actually make getting a robust product up harder.
Another thing we've seen is in-house efforts overfit solutions. They don't really have a wide viewpoint (nature of how secretive the space is), and therefore go down paths which are just plain wrong but no one is there to challenge them.
You can get a lot done (and get wonderful demos) through research vehicles. The issue with sim is similar to the issues with AVs as a whole - getting to 90% is much easier than getting to 99.9999%.
Also, there is this weird thing in AV (and specifically in-house sim) where pointy-haired managers think "if we put 30 SWEs on the problem - we'll make progress!". While raw eng horsepower matters in some software problems, when you are on the line between research and engineering, more SWEs might actually make getting a robust product up harder.
Another thing we've seen is in-house efforts overfit solutions. They don't really have a wide viewpoint (nature of how secretive the space is), and therefore go down paths which are just plain wrong but no one is there to challenge them.