In the age of artificial intelligence and the race to popularize autonomous vehicles, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi isn’t betting on long-term plans, he said in an interview for an episode of CNBC’s “Leaders Playbook,” set to air on Wednesday.
“If you think you’re planning five years into the future, you’re kidding yourself,” Khosrowshahi said. All you can do is be honest with yourself, your team and “prepare yourself for the probabilities.”
Khosrowshahi considers autonomous vehicles in more cities to be a probability for his company at some point, he said. Uber has inked corporate partnerships with companies like Waymo to work toward making self-driving cars more accessible to consumers, he added.
But nobody knows exactly how long it’ll take for autonomous vehicles to become any kind of norm — so instead of spending most of his time trying to plan for a specific timeline, Khosrowshahi spends “60 to 70%” of his days prioritizing “the near term” future, he said.
For Khosrowshahi, that means spending a majority of his time focusing on smaller day-to-day details or objectives that are six months out, he said. “We’re constantly, as a company, grinding to get better and better in the little details of everything that we do,” said Khosrowshahi. “I get to have fun with the other 30% of my time thinking about the long term.”
