He may be a Tesla-driving founder of a billion-dollar company, but Sebastian Thrun can't be an Uber driver anymore.
Onstage at the O'Reilly Next:Economy Summit on Thursday, Thrun recounted how he loved being an Uber driver — if only for a day.
"If anything at all, it gives you a fantastic dinner conversation," he said.
A former Google executive, who founded the company's self-driving car efforts, Thrun discussed his short-stint moonlighting as a driver for the ride-hailing service.
He took his Tesla to the Uber car center to be inspected, but had to help them through the process. Then he picked up two passengers who both gave him five stars.
He was pretty proud of it, until he was suddenly locked out of the platform.
"The sad part is, for whatever reason, I can't get customers any more," Thrun said.
Thrun wasn't too distraught — he does have a lot to do as CEO and cofounder of online education company Udacity, which just raised $105 million in funding. In fact, he thought it was kind of great to be relieved of his duties.
"I think the ability to take these jobs quickly and lose them is great," Thrun said.
