Uber CEO: Softbank deal, Waymo settlement were about "peace"

Why he went forward with the Softbank deal:

• "They were very knowledgeable about the space,” he said of Softbank, which had already invested in ride-hailing companies like Didi Chuxing in China. "I think that Softbank is very smart, deep-pocketed money,” adding he'd rather have the company as an ally than a competitor.
• "They are looking at a lot of adjacencies around electrification, batteries," and so on.
• "[Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son] is a visionary —if a visionary wants to make a bet on you, let’s make it happen.”

On last week's settlement with Waymo:

• The case "was a very, very significant distraction for our teams that are working on autonomy... It put [the autonomous driving team's] really good work under question mark.”

• "Neither company is particularly happy with the settlement, which means it's probably a good settlement.”
• "I was happy for Alphabet, or Google, to become a bigger investor in us.” (Alphabet's VC arm, GV, first invested in Uber in 2013.)

Uber has bigger transportation ambitions than just ride-hailing: "Cars to us are what books were to Amazon," Khosrowshahi said of the Seattle giant.