We recently compiled a list of the Jeff Bezos Investments in 2025: 12 Companies Bezos Is Investing In. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) stands against the other companies Bezos is investing in.
Since leaving his position as CEO of Amazon in 2021, Jeff Bezos has been quite active. He has been investing in real estate and companies, staying involved with Amazon and Blue Origin, and becoming close to President-elect Trump. “I’ve actually never worked harder,” he told the New York Times last December.
Jeff Bezos has directly invested in at least 108 startups across all industries since 1998, when he was reported to have invested $250,000 into Google. Although he does not publish his returns nor do the firms in which he invests, he has made early bets on several companies that have gone on to launch some of the most high-profile tech IPOs in the recent decade.
He certainly has enough cash to play with. According to Forbes, Bezos has sold around $32 billion in his main company shares since its initial public offering, including nearly $14 billion last year. He is now the third richest person in the world, with a net worth of $237 billion.
Although Bezos has spent a lot of time and money on yachts, aircraft, and real estate since transitioning from CEO to chairman of Amazon in 2021, he remains actively involved in his venture portfolio, advising portfolio firms and assisting with investment selections. However, Bezos isn’t as engaged as, say, a typical large venture capital firm: he was only the lead investor in one funding round last year (for Swiss-Mile), which means he likely didn’t acquire significant stakes in the majority of the companies, and he isn’t known to hold a board seat at any of the startups he has backed.
Two of the companies Forbes contacted said that a Bezos spokesman asked them not to discuss with the media about the Bezos investment, but those who did speak favorably about it. Swiss-Mile’s Bjelonic, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, made the following comment:
“What I was most surprised with was actually how well he understood the technology behind the Al training. He would ask questions about reinforcement learning, imitation learning, how it works, going all the way to the details of the physics elements that are needed on our side.”
Regardless of how invested Bezos is in any given company, publicizing his name as an investor provides marketing exposure.
The autonomous robot business is still in its early stages of commercialization. Bjelonic compared the business to a “blue ocean,” predicting that in ten years, hundreds of robotics startups will fail while only a few will flourish. It will take years to determine whether those bets pay off.
However, the chances may be in Bezos’ favor, in part because he can combine his economic expertise with the fact that he will almost certainly be able to invest in any firm he chooses.
According to Columbia Business School professor Michael Ewens, the “best” and “hottest” startups reach out to people like Bezos first.
“In general, he’s a very good investor, because he’s getting calls. He’s first in line.”
A close up view of a hand holding a smartphone, using a ride sharing app.
Methodology
We examined the investments of Bezos Expeditions, Jeff Bezos’ family office, to identify key companies he’s invested in. All selected firms are publicly traded except the last one, and the stocks are ranked in ascending order using Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds in Q4 2024 to gauge hedge fund sentiment for stocks. The portfolio also includes one of his most recent private company investments, which is ranked last on our list.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 166
Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) is America’s largest ridesharing company. The corporation leads both the worldwide and US ride-hailing markets, accounting for 25% of the global market and an impressive 76% of the US market. The corporation maintains its market dominance by presenting significant barriers to entry through its vast network of 171 million consumers and vast pool of drivers. Through consistent increases in trips and users, this dominance has allowed it to consistently achieve strong growth in gross bookings and revenue.
The stock is up by more than 18% year-to-date as it posted solid Q4 2024 results and upgraded its 2025 guidance, making it among the list of stocks included in Jeff Bezos Stock Portfolio. The fourth-quarter performance of Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) is strong in spite of challenges like currency headwinds and brief delays. A larger user base and more frequent travel resulted in an 18% boost in gross bookings year over year, which in turn contributed to a 21% growth in revenue. Bookings in the mobility industry surged by 24%, proving the potential of Uber’s business strategy. These outcomes show its consistent performance and operational resilience in the face of external obstacles.
The growth of AVs will be advantageous to Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) because of its established infrastructure and sizable user base. This strengthens its dominance in the transportation industry of the future by allowing it to team up with companies like Waymo or Tesla to easily and affordably set up autonomous vehicles for its large audience.
Looking ahead, Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) still has great development opportunities, especially in its delivery and mobility areas, which have a lot of room to grow. The company’s wide range of services, including recently launched options like Uber for Teens and Uber for Business, have improved client interaction and led to an increase in reservations and trips.
Overall UBER ranks 2nd on our list of Jeff Bezos’ Investments in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential for UBER as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than UBER but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.