Super Pumped _ The Battle for Uber - Mike Isaac Page 0,51
from upset users protesting the potential ban. De Blasio ended up shelving the proposal.‡‡‡‡
The strategy was extremely effective. So effective, in fact, that Uber decided to systematize and weaponize it across the company. To this end, Uber hired Ben Metcalfe, a caustic, outspoken British engineer who described his job on LinkedIn as building “custom tools to support citizen engagement across legislative matters” to drive “social good and social change.” Metcalfe and his team built automated tools that the company used to spam lawmakers and rally users. With easy, in-app buttons, users could send emails, texts, and phone calls to elected officials whenever an important legislative matter was up for debate. By 2015, more than half a million drivers and riders had signed petitions supporting the company across dozens of states. After Uber sent out a mass text message asking for support, petitions began gaining new signatures rapidly, in some cases as many as seven per second.
If all else failed, theatrics and pageantry worked, too. After the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission blocked Uber from operating in St. Louis, Sagar Shah, Uber’s local general manager, called local television news stations and print reporters to the MTC offices, where a line of Uber employees marched up with nine white, 15-by-12-inch file-folder storage boxes labeled “1,000 PETITIONS.” After stacking the boxes high against the front door of the MTC, Shah delivered a short, lofty speech on democratic ideals and “listening to the voices” of the people supporting Uber.
After the cameras were turned off and Uber officials had left the scene, a reporter decided to look inside one of the boxes the company had left. It was filled with six-packs of plastic seventeen-ounce water bottles, as were the eight other boxes that accompanied it.
On another occasion in New York City, Josh Mohrer, the brash and contentious general manager who led Uber’s Manhattan office, organized a rally on the steps of City Hall to take a stand against Mayor de Blasio. Mohrer’s team had pushed out alerts to drivers and riders in the days prior, asking them to show up on a sweltering June day to “make your voice heard to your elected leaders.”
Not many drivers or riders showed up to the protest. To make it look like Uber had grassroots support, Mohrer ordered his employees to rush from Uber’s Chelsea office to City Hall, where Mohrer led them in a chanting protest. Mohrer never let on to reporters or city officials that the protesters, sweating in black, Uber-branded T-shirts, were paid employees of the company.
It didn’t matter. In both St. Louis and in New York, Uber’s tactics worked. The lawmakers backed down.
Chapter 12 notes
‡‡‡‡ De Blasio got his revenge and imposed a cap in 2019.
Chapter 13
THE CHARM OFFENSIVE
Travis Kalanick couldn’t figure out why everyone hated his guts.
Feelings had no place in the business world. Being cutthroat was a quality to be celebrated, not hidden, in a CEO. When it came to describing an executive, “pugnacious” was never meant to be an insult.
Kalanick had proven himself to all his doubters. By 2014, Uber was a transportation behemoth, backed by the best of the best in venture capital and expanding globally. His company was growing so fast his rivals could barely compete.
And yet every time he looked at his mentions on Twitter, he’d read at least two or three tweets from random people calling him a jerk. Two technology reporters in particular—Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr—seemed to be on jihad against Kalanick, blaming him for the “asshole culture” spreading throughout Silicon Valley. GQ had made him look like a caricature of a “bro,” a dirty word in techland. The opening sentence of a Vanity Fair profile—which he had hoped would be balanced—said he had a “face like a fist.”
“What the fuck?” Kalanick wondered. He didn’t think the public perception of him matched up to reality.
Every time someone cited Uber’s belligerence, they cited Kalanick’s attitude toward Lyft, Uber’s closest US competitors. Reports that Uber employees were hailing Lyfts and then trying to recruit the driver were met with disgust—something that confused Kalanick and Uber employees. Business, they thought, was supposed to be a competition. Logan Green, Lyft’s CEO, was a good tactician. But Kalanick outmaneuvered his rivals every single time. And he felt fine trouncing his competition.
One prime example: Kalanick’s network of spies in the Valley—mostly made up of other tech workers and venture capitalists—picked up early rumors of Lyft’s new carpooling service. To get the jump on Lyft, Kalanick tasked his chief product officer, Jeff Holden, to