alt Hacker NewsEmbrace, extend, extinguish.
The sad reality is that it is practically impossible to tell a good act apart from one with ulterior motives. It could be just a cross promotion, but it could also aim to be friendly to lawmakers or to grow in ridership with the goal of extinguishing the competition.
The VC playbook heavily suggests the latter
Exactly. No way to tell what's behind this. Once waymo has total market dominance and exists in every city, it's hard to imagine them continuing to support local transit. The thing about Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is nobody suspects it during the Embrace phase because good motives and bad motives look exactly the same.