Super Pumped _ The Battle for Uber - Mike Isaac Page 0,3
wasn’t until 2017 when the New York Times broke the story of how Uber used Greyball to evade the authorities that Portland officials fully understood just how Uber had carried out its subterfuge.
But by 2017 it was too late. Uber was up and running in Portland—legally, even—a fixture of the city, in regular use by citizens who praised its convenience. Kalanick and his team had violated local transportation laws, and instead of being exiled, they had found enormous, game-changing success.
Kalanick and his forces had flouted laws in Portland, and in scores of other cities. But ask a typical Uber employee at the time—and even some supporters years later—and they will tell you they didn’t see it that way. Greyball was consistent with one of Uber’s fourteen company values: Principled Confrontation. Uber was protecting its drivers while confronting what they saw as a “corrupt” taxi industry that had been protected by bureaucracy and outdated regulations. Concepts like “breaking the law” weren’t applicable, they believed, when the laws were bullshit in the first place. Kalanick was convinced that once everyone used the service, it would click—they’d understand that the old way was inefficient and expensive, and his way was the right way.
To some extent, he was right. As of this writing, Uber operates worldwide. It is present on almost every continent, with copycats and competitors trying to mimic the growth and power Kalanick achieved in the eight years he was at the helm. Uber has struck deals with local governments to become as ubiquitous as public transit, and is working on a future in which the cars that people request will drive themselves.
And yet, Uber is not always seen as a success story. Uber’s rapid rise was nearly undone in 2017, as the company faced the consequences of years of Kalanick’s boundary-pushing behavior, unabashed pugnacity and, eventually, the CEO’s own personal decline. Kalanick’s story is whispered as a cautionary tale for founders and venture capitalists alike, emblematic of both the best and worst of Silicon Valley.
The saga of Uber—which is, essentially, the story of Travis Kalanick—is a tale of hubris and excess set against a technological revolution, with billions of dollars and the future of transportation at stake. It’s a story that touches on the major themes of Silicon Valley in the last decade: how rapid developments in technology can crash into long-entrenched labor systems, throw urban development into upheaval, and overturn an entire industry in a matter of years. It is the story of a deeply sexist industry, fueled by gender imbalance and a misguided belief in a tech-supported meritocracy, blind to its own biases. It is the story of the sweeping but poorly understood ways that startups are financed today, and how this can affect the leaders, employees, and customers of fast-growing companies. It is the story of the ugly decisions made around user data and personal information as technology firms seek to exploit consumer data. But most of all, it is a story about how blind worship of startup founders can go wildly wrong, and a cautionary tale that ends in spectacular disaster.
Travis Kalanick and his executive team created a corporate environment that looked like an admixture of Thomas Hobbes, Animal House, and The Wolf of Wall Street. This toxic startup culture was the result of a young leader surrounded by yes-men and acolytes, being given nearly unlimited financial resources and operating without serious ethical or legal oversight. At war with outsiders and among themselves, the company engaged in spying, backbiting, and litigiousness as it struggled for power and supremacy over a multi-billion-dollar empire.
As a result of Kalanick’s actions, Uber’s valuation was cut by tens of billions of dollars, competitors that might have been vanquished were strengthened and found new footing around the world, and the company faced a half dozen federal investigations into its sordid history. More than once, investors and employees worried that the entire future of the company was at stake.
As a Bay Area resident and professional journalist during the past decade, I saw Uber rise to power right in front of me. I witnessed how quickly a transformative idea can change the urban fabric of a city, and how strong personalities can have an outsized effect on shaping the way a startup operates.
I began covering Uber for the New York Times in 2014. Those were Uber’s glory days, when Kalanick’s cunning and street-fighting sensibilities helped to outwit competitors, seal billion-dollar financing deals, and make Uber’s global conquest seem inevitable.