Jeff Hirsh Read: July 2024
Inspiration: Heard a summary of Uber’s story on a podcast and wanted to learn the full tale
Summary
Written with the help of ChatGPT, below is a brief summary to understand what is covered in the book.
“Super Pumped”, published in 2019 by reporter and author Mike Isaac, chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, focusing on its controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick. The book reveals how Uber’s aggressive tactics and toxic culture led to rapid growth but also significant internal and external conflicts. Isaac details the company’s battles with taxi unions, regulatory challenges, and the eventual ousting of Kalanick in a boardroom coup. Through interviews and unpublished documents, the narrative exposes the darker side of Silicon Valley’s startup culture, highlighting the consequences of unchecked ambition and unethical practices. Ultimately, “Super Pumped” serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of prioritizing growth and innovation over ethical considerations.
Unedited Notes
Direct from my original book log, below are my unedited notes (abbreviations and misspellings included) to show how I take notes as I read.
Travis Kalanick born in california to middle class family, son of civil engineer and ad saleswoman, math whiz from an early age, enrolled at UCLA 1998 during internet boom, founded Scour with classmates as a Napster for files (not music), grew quickly and Travis dropped from UCLA, looked to VC money from Ron Burkle and Michael Ovitz—Ovitz twist Travis/other co-founders for control as threaten to sue for breach of contract when Scour asked to look elsewhere as needed money so then Ovitz get control for $4mm in the end, however soon hollywood went after Napsters then Scour for billions in lawsuits on copyright law and Ovitz betray again as turn back and distance, Kalanick hated VC from then on (Ovitz was CAA founder and former Disney President), Kalanick loved the startup hustle, bubble in late 90s fueled by low interest rates and cheap capital, fed then raised quickly 99/2000 and slowed faucet of capital—biz then needed real cash flow to operate and few had this so collapsed (was a very interconnected web of companies too as many use each other for product), Travis then found Red Swoosh (peer to peer marketplace) and sold for $20mm to Akamai, post financial crisis had 3 ingredients for next tech boom: mass broadband internet adoption/computers at home, Amazon Web Sevices took burden off programmers as gave them infrastructure and plumbing, and then the iPhone was key as Steve Jobs brought to life initially 2006, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins was close confidant of Jobs, Jobs initially not want third party apps on iphone want all in-house, then 2007 changed his mind and asked Doerr/Kleiner to spearhead $100mm for apps, App Store became wild west in 07 as programmers saw so much money to be made simply thru using AWS and submitting code to Apple for review, Garrett Camp had the original idea for Uber as frustrated with cabs in SF, post-Red Swoosh Travis became a “funding shepherd” for other founders and invested a bit and gave advice at his swanky apartment, Garrett Camp has also sold a startup and had this nagging idea for UberCar which he kept telling Travis about, Garrett wanted to own the cars/garages but Travis not like that, Travis liked idea though and once convinced Garrett not to own cars then Travis agreed to run Uber (even though enjoy life as funding specialist), Ryan Graves brought in as first hire to be CEO but didn’t work well so relegated to manager role and Travis as ceo, launch via desktop app 2010 and quickly develop mobile all—huge hit in SF, Oct 2010 got cease and desist from SF transportation authority, but ignore and change name to Uber not UberCab, now looked to launch across new cities, recruit private drivers by giving them free iphone wit uber app and huge discounts to riders, driver bonuses for x rides, uber foot the bill so losing lots of money to get scale, Uber into 2012 was solely using livery drivers (professional) then Lyft (fka Zimride) launched idea of peer to peer car sharing for all and took off with Uber taking notice and Travis decide to lean in instead of try to get regulators to thwart—introduce UberX, Travis ran uber with a win at all costs mentality, this meant trying circumvent rules from Apple, spying on Lyft, secret data collection to gain edge, undercutting prices based on spying, relied on endless pool of venture capital to bankroll loss making model, culture of uber was very lax/bro and bad environment for employees globally where toxic culture spread without concern by Travis and no HR, Tim Cook and Apple threaten to pull uber from app store when discover secret spying software installed in an update (2013/14), travis continue push for Chinese market despite Didi competition and local backing—lost a ton of money and then sold uber ops to Didi for 17.7% Didi stake (very valuable but travis didn’t like to lose), toughest stretch for uber late 2016/early 2017 as had exposes on toxic culture of harassment go public (sparked by blog post of former engineer Fowler) and then deleteuber hashtag once admitted turning off surge pricing at JFK airport protest made clear their business practices, 500k deleted uber accounts (even more deleted app), then Greyball controversy where came out that uber used hidden code to target law enforcement and avoid uber detection in areas where not supposed to operate (constant spying), Kalanick also joined Trump advisory panel amidst all this and deleteuber grew from that such that Travis quickly step aside, Kalanick bring in Eric Holder to investigate culture issues—would reveal even more and be worse then Travis intended, also faced anger of Larry Page as Uber poached Google’s head of autonomous vehicles (Waymo) Anthony Levandowski and bought his Otto company for 600mm not long after Levandowski left Google (and downloaded thousands of files before he left Google), Google filed big lawsuit and eventually Travis had to fire Levandowski but damage was done, Spring 2017 more unveiled on Strategic Services Group which was essentially spy operation arm of Uber but kept off premise/undercover so no real links—spied on competition globally, info collection, follow execs of other companies and politicians, lots of subterfuge and hiding/deleting documents, summer 2017 Holder report shared with board—shocking 100s of pages of infractions, recommend Travis take leave, Emil Michael fired, bring in independent chairperson to lead, as 2017 got to summer time post-Holder report things got more tense and divisive and VC backers Benchmark turned on Travis and had support of many other funds (incl Fidelity)—sent letter to Travis to take time away, Travis did agree but basically backchanneled the whole time so board/VCs went further for full coup/push Travis out, Travis refused to not meddle in Uber operations, VCs threaten to take fight public and reveal Travis’ backdoor scheming but at last hour Travis agree to resign, CEO search follow with Meg Whitman as the one they wanted, Immelt of GE another idea backed by Travis who remained on the Board, then third option was Dara Khosrowshahi who was ceo of expedia with engineering background, Meg was HP ceo and leaks really bothered her, eventually board was split and Benchmark said they’d drop lawsuit vs Travis for his meddling during “absence” only if Meg voted in, board soured and vote turned from deadlock to Dara,
