Super Pumped

Good history of Uber under Travis Kalanick, somewhat marred by the author's anti-tech editorializing.

I really enjoyed this deep dive into the history of Uber and flew through it!

This book is a captivating ride (pun intended). Very hard to put down.

Mike Isaac was ostensibly the right person to write this book as he had been reporting on Uber for all of its years since inception. His 200+ sources and their inside scoops make the story very credible. Only by stringing together all of the public fallouts created by Uber & Kalanick himself, you start to understand how the sh*tshow year of 2017 was an unavoidable outcome of the “super pumped” bro culture that Uber perpetuated (except for - of course - Kalanick sadly losing his mom in a tragic accident).

What I like is that Isaac doesn't paint Kalanick as a con artist (which he isn't). Kalanick is just the ebullient and charismatic entrepreneur who hasn't been kept in check by his immediate environment and through Uber's corporate governance. The question is though whether without Kalanick flouting the rules we would've still been still stuck with the notoriously inefficient and customer-unfriendly taxi industry.

This story is absolutely bonkers.

Fast-paced. Well researched but has the quality of a narration that lacks input from key people who were in the room. This has a short shelf life so has anyone bought the movie rights yet?

Oh and yeah, Uber has problems.

What could have been an extremely linear and pessimistic read, ended up shining a lot of insights and behind-the-scenes, of potentially one of the biggest start-ups in the latest decade. Loads of learning around leadership and execution.

Never doubt that one small group of sociopaths can change the world! Inspiring.

An unexpectedly hilarious and shocking look into one of the weirdest, most driven psychopaths in the Valley and his gaggle of hangers-on, flunkies, handlers, and investors.