Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Reprint Edition

Halfway through and yes, it's quite remarkable. It is like the author was hiding behind doorways in some conversations.So far, and admittedly I haven't seen all of it, I think it feels fair and even-handed, not over-sensational.The writing is also very good -- fast reading and I'm finding myself obsessed with this story.Hard not to compare it to Bad Blood, equally juicy. The difference is that we all saw this -- we were all riding Ubers and loving the convenience and celebrating the fact that is has transformed urban transportation.And we all knew someone who worked there and hated the culture -- but who wanted to stay to cash out.Will update more in a day or two, with more thoughts and details.UPDATE: <100 pages to goI am obsessed with this book and the story. I find it so amazing that such a large, transformative company was run just so poorly. I'm at the point where Bad Boy Travis is taking a break from the company -- and I do feel sorry for him, up to a point. I don't feel sorry for the enablers -- some whom I think Isaac let off pretty lightly. In fact, many of the characters he describes show up (at least up to this point) as quite admirable, such as the CTO Thuan Pham, among others.I cannot wait to talk about this book with friends and observers. I am less sanguine that it cannot happen again, and again and again, because the whole startup/crazy money chasing the next big thing/bro culture has no reason to change.UPDATE: finished the book and just raced through toward the end. I think everyone interested in startups/disruption and tech in general should read this book, for what it says about the whole cycle of money-funding-new-ideas.Was riveted by the ins and outs of Benchmark's actions and how one of the most founder-friendly firms in Silicon Valley, could push out a CEO who controls the shares and the board!Yes, I loved reading the book but am saddened the the problems will not go away because there's too much money sloshing around looking for the next big thing, with investors all FOMO about the next bro startup. Kalanick, who Mike Isaac described as having a philosophy of "Ayn Rand meets Wolf of Wall Street," is part of the system, not an outlier. Susan Fower's "very strange year" at Uber is happening again in firms all over, venture firms are ignoring women founders, and tools like AI propogate the same old ideas. Sigh.Still, it's great to dissect how this very visible company jumped the shark, and keep the conversation going about how Silicon Valley, innovators, and investors can do much, much better.OK, sermon over.Thanks for reading.

This book is a very entertaining read, full of Silicon Valley gossip and what seems to be well-researched facts. The story is so ludicrous that it's sometimes hard to take it seriously. Travis Kalanick appears to follow in the footsteps of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, all great visionaries but - at least to a degree - socially inept and narcissistic. I highly recommend this book if you are curious about the details of the Uber story. I had followed a lot of what is mentioned in the book real-time, like Susan Fowler's blog post, but having the context around it helped. I had to laugh out more than a few times about Kalanick's Bro-speak, the way he modified the Amazon values will forever be entertaining to me. Sadly, a lot of harm was done to a lot of people, including female employees and, especially, Uber drivers. In the end, there is no excuse for Kalanick's behavior apart from a disregard of other human beings over his own need for achievement at all cost. Last, the details on how Kalanick infringed the privacy of Uber users and public officials is truly disturbing. It's a question mark for me why nobody had to go to jail for what happened. I guess, white color crime is punished by firing people with a golden parachute. Sad.

I never heard or read anything like the items in this book. Such an amazing read!!! I thought the show exaggerated but apparently not! A must read book!!!

A shocking to me number of people named in this book are folks I know from having been in SF and Silicon Valley since 2005. So not sure I have an unbiased way of reading this excellent book. But biased as I am (towards the camp that Uber represents a lot of bad patterns) this book was a fantastic read. Engaging and well written and clearly exceptionally well sourced.The story is far from over but ending just after the IPO is as good a place as any - though I anticipate that there may need to be further updates/postscripts added to future editions of this book. Editions which I’m confident will likely be needed as this book should be part of a library of books recommended to anyone building or considering working at a startup.

Great details, learnt a lot about the VC world...formidable powerhouse, true unicorn...and true entrepreneur...dramatic ending....:)

Nice read, I liked how the writer built the story & writing style in a very narrative fashion.It feels a bit like reading fiction rather than just an essay or a business chronicle.Full of dialogues and witty remarks, behind the scenes.Really good story to understand the world of Silicon Valley & VCs. No wonder it was adapted in a TV series.

Narrativa completa e abrangente sobre tudo que envolve uma startup - concretização da ideia, empreendedores, investidores e relação com a sociedade. Imperdível para quem quer entender esse mundo

I really enjoy true story books. For some reason I cannot get into "make belief" stories, so I enjoyed this book for that reason along with a few others. The start-up World of Silicon Valley is cut throat and this book explains exactly what into the making of Uber, and primarily about it's founder. Uber is a huge success but it could have failed at a few different points, so made it interesting to learn about thing - a lot of things I never knew about the company. The author is a journalist as well, so he writes a good read that is easy to follow, he explains things well, and it's a solid read. I would recommend this book if you like reading about true events and tech start-ups.

Excelente libro para conocer más a fondo la historia de Uber. El 1er capítulo es un poco amarillista, pero con el avance de cada capítulo se puede ver la parte más interesante y objetiva se cómo se forma la empresa, cómo llegaron a los problemas que tuvieron y los retos de una startup de ese tamaño. Si bien en algún punto se habla de todos los malos manejos de Travis Kalanick, se ilustra la influencia que tuvo (para bien y para mal) dentro de la organización, la industria y el nombre de Uber como una compañía de disrupción indiscutible. Excelente lectura si te gustan los negocios, las startups de Silicon Valley y la tecnología.