Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Mike Isaac's Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber is an absolute page-turner. The author masterfully kept me completely hooked; it didn't feel like reading a business book, but rather an intense, real-life action movie. A thrilling and highly recommended deep dive into the Uber saga.

Super Pumped tells the story of Uber, from its inception as a black car-hailing startup to one of the biggest private companies of all time. The story as it's told is quite compelling-- it cobbles together interviews with VCs, current and former employees, allies as well as adversaries of Travis Kalanick's, as well as bystanders. It's quite clear which accounts the author finds compelling and which he's more apt to dismiss. In all, it does present a work of deep reporting that tells a fascinating story. My biggest gripe is that it's rife with odd factual and narrative errors. A lot of these things are easy to find via a cursory Google search. Others contradict themselves a few pages later. Just a few-- the author writes that a modem that downloads at 1.5MBPS is "thousands of times" faster than one that downloads at 28KBPS. Simple math tells you that that isn't the case. Similarly, the author declares Kalanick to be a savant because he could calculate the approximate time it takes to get somewhere given the average speed and distance remaining. Maybe those kind of calculations are tough for an elementary schooler. After that, it's not difficult. These errors don't take away from the book's message, but they do cause one to wonder whether the author had a copy editor. Other errors are factually wrong. For instance, founders are described as a rare species, of which each company can only have one. Conveniently, that's not true of.... Uber itself, which was notably co-founded by Kalanick and Garrett Camp, as well as its main rival Lyft (Logan Green and John Zimmer). But it's not even true of old tech giants-- Mark Zuckerberg was certainly the lone face of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter... but Microsoft was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and Google by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. How that got past a copy edit is beyond me. Others are less obvious but equally off the mark. Cooley and Paul Weiss, for instance, are presented as powerful Silicon Valley law firms. Cooley certainly fits the bill. But Paul Weiss, while a very prominent New York law firm, not only doesn't have a strong Silicon Valley presence; it is one of a relative few New York powerhouse firms that don't have an office in the Bay Area at all. Such errors, together, lead me to question some of the factual reliability of the other claims made in the book. So while I enjoyed the book itself, I'm not certain how much of it to believe.

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 go I 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.

I just finished reading an excellent new book that was just released last week. It is one of the best written and thoroughly researched books about the technology world that I have read. It’s the complete inside story of Uber from it’s earliest beginnings all the way up to and including the ouster and replacement of its founder and egocentric CEO Travis Kalanick and how the company he started came perilously close to going down in flames and for which the jury is still out. I really enjoyed this book and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in the Silicon Valley world of startups, big money venture capital, technology, rampant arrogance and all things excess. The author, Mike Isaac, is a senior technical reporter for the New York Times who has closely followed and written hundreds of articles about Uber since 2014. This is a GREAT read!!!👍👍👍👍👍

From an ex tech journo, who has read every book on the Valley and knew the Uber story before reading this, the book can br sumed up in one word: brilliant. You won't put it down once you start. Amazing story, told well. Super pumped. Respect.

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.

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 found [super pumped] by Mike Isaac to be a fantastic read! The book was both informative and inspiring, filled with useful insights that can be applied in real life. Ubers’s journey and innovative ideas are well-captured. ''

Professionally written and a superb, engrossing story. It follows the initial start up and evolution of the idea from an elite limousine service to one where anyone with a car can become a taxi driver. The use of ex spies to identify potential law enforcement officials and then the development and use of the 'grey ball' software to evade them is breathtaking. The negotiations with venture capitalists are instructive. The use and misuse of customer data is an important case study. The denouement where CEO Travis is forced out is riveting and instructive about corporate governance. Travis leaves with $5 billion after 8 years work but casualties along the way.