From the Bottom of a Bottle 🍷 with Phil. Rare whiskey. Uber war stories. Immigrant hustle.

In this episode of The Early Podcast, I sit down with Phil Mikhaylov, early Uber operator and founder of Unicorn, the fastest-growing marketplace for rare spirits and wine.

We talk about growing up as a Soviet-era immigrant, grinding through Uber’s wild early days (from slogging Lyft drivers to launching Uber in India), and how a lifelong obsession with bottles, time, and craft turned into a $150M+ business.

This is a conversation about hustle, execution, ownership, and building something that lasts — one story at a time.

🎧 Birth-year bottles

🚗 Uber chaos

🦄 Building Unicorn, the biggest wine and spirits biz anywhere: https://www.unicornauctions.com/

🔥 Turning “no” into “YES”

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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW:

The Early Podcast is where host Max Crowley, Uber’s #25 employee, sits down with the earliest builders behind today’s most iconic companies. No fluff, just raw stories from the trench years when your startup could still fail tomorrow.

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