Transcript
A (0:03)
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com welcome back to Infamous Everybody, a Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media podcast. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis.
B (0:40)
I'm Natalie Ropamed.
A (0:42)
And we are here today to discuss a company that has become synonymous with urban luxury, I would say, and also urban taking advantage of people who only can work as gig laborers. And that would be the company called Uber. Now, I probably started using Uber, I don't know, four years ago, I guess I would say. And at first, the idea of getting into a car with a strange person, often a man, was really foreign to me. I mean, I just couldn't believe I was doing this. Like I was putting myself in what felt to me a little bit like being in harm's way. But over time, obviously, the convenience just trumps any concern over danger. Or does this guy really have a license? Or is it actually the man driving the cab that I see on my photo here? Or did he somehow barter his license on the black market? I mean, there's so many things that go on in the underbelly of Uber, in addition to the company itself, which has had a rise and a fall and a rise again, and in a lot of ways still, I think, has a lot of the DNA of its original founder, Travis Kalanick, who is, you know, your typical Silicon Valley guy, once held the world's second highest score for the Nintendo Wii tennis video game. He paces so much that his dad once said that he wore a hole in the carpeting on the floor. If you've never heard this before, Amazon actually has these 14 principles for leadership, which is, you know, all curiosity and being open, having backbone, but at the same time accepting it when everybody in the boardroom says you're wrong. And Travis's values were things like always be hustling or super pumped. And that is actually the title of the book about Uber that Mike Isaac wrote. That is excellent. Everybody should go out and read it. It was the basis for a limited series on Showtime that was also called Super Pump, about this bizarre character.
C (2:59)
How sticky is it really? If someone rides twice, we have him for life.
A (3:09)
So today we're here to talk about Uber. Is it a good company? Is it a dangerous company? There's been a big news break about sexual assault in Ubers, which was very upsetting and destabilizing to me. I don't know if you guys have read that on the news recently, so we'll get into that as well. But we're going to start from the beginning and talk about who is this and what is this company that many of us have interacted with on a late night, at a dinner, whatever, in a different city and you just jump into somebody's car. So welcome, Mike. Thank you so much for being here.
