Funding & BusinessUberAIAndrew MacdonaldClaude Code

Uber president says AI spending is getting 'harder to justify'

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Uber president says AI spending is getting 'harder to justify'
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Uber President and COO Andrew Macdonald said on the Rapid Response podcast that the company exhausted its 2026 budget for Claude Code within about four months and that it is difficult to draw a clear link between rising AI token usage and delivery of more useful consumer features. Reports note Uber spent about $3.4 billion on research and development in 2025 and company leaders are discussing token consumption versus headcount as AI costs grow.

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Key Points

  • 1Andrew Macdonald said "That link is not there yet" when asked whether increased token use for coding tools like Claude Code is translating into materially more useful consumer features.
  • 2Multiple reports say Uber exhausted its Claude Code budget for 2026 in roughly four months after encouraging internal adoption.
  • 3Uber reported about $3.4 billion in research and development spending in 2025, and executives have discussed weighing token costs against headcount.

Scoring Rationale

The COO's public comments call into question the near-term ROI of enterprise AI spending at a major platform company and touch on budget, tooling, and tradeoffs that could influence other firms; impact is meaningful but not immediately market-moving.

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