The dramatic rise and fall of Uber against the backdrop of Silicon Valley's era of upheaval and upheaval.
This book by award-winning journalist and New York Times reporter Mike Isaac presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber against the backdrop of Silicon Valley's era of upheaval and disruption. Uber raised billions in venture capital and, under the leadership of an energetic and ambitious founder, promised to revolutionise the way we transport people and goods. Almost immediately he became a unicorn, companies with billions of dollars in market value, and it seemed to join the ranks of other tech giants, like Amazon, Apple or Google.
However, the subsequent development of events has gone down in corporate history more as a cautionary tale about the intricacies of startup culture, it has literally become a deterrent example. Isaac recounts the fierce clashes with taxi unions and drivers, the toxic company culture, and the unscrupulous, borderline legal methods Uber used in its quest for dominance. Finally, it also shows how venture capitalists, fearing for their billion-dollar investments, exercised their power and took control of the startup: In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the company's aggressive CEO, was ousted from his position in a coup led by his own company's board. It capped a year of a continuous string of disasters that have dogged the transport services giant.
While Uber has catapulted to the top of the tech world, it has also become a symbol of all the negative aspects of Silicon Valley.
The War on Uber is based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees and many previously unpublished documents. It is a thrilling tale of ambition, deception, incredible wealth and underhanded behaviour that reveals how technological and financial innovation resulted in one of the worst periods in American corporate history.
