E95: Trump’s Potential Transportation Secretary on Growing Uber | Emil Michael
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Hey, upstream listeners today on upstream, we're releasing a conversation I had on turn times show in the arena june twenty twenty three with host Jessie gene and guest a meal. Michael, a meal was formally chief business officer at uber and tels stories of some of the most intense moments he saw during the company's rise. Recently, it's been reported that silicon value executives have recommended to president trump that he choose a meal as secretary of transportation without further a do please enjoy the .

episode on our debug pisos of in the arena were being transported into a tumultuous period for uber. Told to the eyes of our guest and meal, Michael, i'm also joined by cohoes erik torn burke. I started founder investor in podcasting.

A meal was famously the chief business officer at hubert during their media I. C. And Frankly, incomparable growth from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen as well as C E O travel colonic s right hand. Few leaders in tech have accomplished so much in terms of raw user and revenue growth as well as funding success. Also, few leaders have personally experienced so much turmoil.

So I get home back to office. Wick, travis and then edu, who is always in the meetings, calls me his to do something. We're about to announced a billion or investment.

And D, D, and this was the same day we can just not with tim cook, and he's picking our brain about our china business. And I was, I was like, oh my god, I ve got played by two book. Holy yeah. That was my feeling.

Today, he joins us to go in depth on the hashtag delete uber campaign that gripped the company. And Frankly, social media read large in early twenty seventeen. Personally, I was taken back by a meals, humility and gender about this painful period, and I enjoyed his reflections. And now he might have handle pio moments differently. Like uber unsuccessful bids to acquire rival lift.

We are here today joined by very special guest, a little Michael, former chief business officer at uber, one of the most iconic companies of justice and as entrepreneurs a career um and we are very lucky to have you a meal. Thank you so much .

for joining in the arena.

And so we're we're going to jump write in as we do. And uh, we d really love you to humorous and um we're going to skip right to very intense moment and your unique guesses sense that there are just so many intense moments that we we no one knows where we're going right now. There's so so many options um but we're going to jump to when delete uber starts trending.

And um you know there is a big piece about IT. And what i'd like you to do, if you will, is is try to actually before you just tell us about that moment, would try to recognize like where you what's actually going on in your day, like tell us because I I love to understand your true perspective. Like where you when you find this out, if you can, if you can remember that I don't remember that detail, but the more like bring me to life for us, you can that that be .

amazing yeah for sure you present. Trump was elected in november of sixteen and augured, january of seventeen. Seven days after that, he did something like the, I think he was the migrant ban or something.

So you ban some form and immigration into U. S. And the taxi drivers at G, F, K decided to, uh, do sort of all strike.

And there are people protesting in the airport. So this is january twenty seven, like a week after the ancient is specially cisco is on fire about the world that this is point. And I think come on vacation in mexico and get call from travel. I don't hadn't taken vacation in forever and I get a call saying you'll never believe this. But we suspended surge member.

Uber had surge pricing and IT was very controversial people on my god, you charged me triple Price during a snowstorm um and we had had for years to try to explain how that was a good thing that IT make sure there were rise available. So we suspended surge during the strike. Um and one guy who is on twitter, some blogger was like uber trying to break the strike. And here you're like we were not try to break the strike. We were trying to you know get protesters home from the airport was like a good act of goodwill, like no good deed goes unpunished and he said we should just delete uber um and then he he was .

on twitter.

that's a tweet, IT was a tweet and IT went incredibly viral and IT was sorted like this, holy cow, what did we do wrong um and you're talking about five hundred thousand people deleted their u grap.

And that's like on that day, we're like over the .

course over the course the next three days.

okay. But I mean that's also incredibly short.

Yeah and you know uber the revenue for users really high, right? If you wrote uber ten times among the twenty box two hundred, that's a big deal and hundreds of millions dollars in lost revenue for something that we're like, what do we met? Like what do we do wrong here? And and in retrospect, you I was there sort of with a my phone bringing off the home, trying to talk people.

And IT was the most helpless feeling i've ever had because this thing took off, no matter how you explained that they didn't matter. People angry. This thing i've gotten out there.

I was an easy protest, a act to pull up your phone, hit you, who did you hold down on the your bra, click the x and delete IT. So IT was sorted like the eza protest. Made IT a bigger thing as well.

Sort like to welcome about. I think you could wire money out right away. Made IT crick more gover quickly IT was that kind of think IT was IT was an amazing feeling of like holic our in an environment now take a free fall .

like it's yeah that .

and you can even have time to explain IT and IT doesn't matter that does not even .

explaining that does is not even going to help the type of people who are taking that action so your on vacation are you like? I want to imagine I like, are you like litter on the beach? And then this is just like, oh my god, I like, where is my laptop? Or like, I don't know, I just as to someone who is not had any any crisis that reaches level at all, but have my own crisis. Entrepreneur is life.

I just want to know, like how you felt and what did you have to do? Like were you able to do anything at that point? 嗯。

i was at dinner at the pool, at a pool side thing, eight o'clock evening ish. And I was like, I going to go to take this call. And then obviously they can never went back to dinner. I have to tell people dinner with guys a role, get to the top, you know, a party coverage and some hotel mexico, and then you hit the tweet stream just to see and then see getting more angry, more viral, more serious. What a widespread more of my friends or people I know going to meal I keep where did this on on dms and and then so me then trying to explain to at least people who know me. I said, like at least they'll listen to me and they did but then think that's a small set of people how they make fifty phone calls or no fifty eight holes .

you saved as fifty users .

thought they were messenger so like maybe I want to amplify this. At least people would understand um what had happens when IT stops and IT was just your helpless sss and anxiousness sadness that the employees who um you know works so hard to uber who are doing the right thing felt that their company was doing the wrong thing because their parents were calling them going like what are you doing at this company he was he was because most of ly started so Younger people so they haven been through as many of these kind of moments right um so calling the key leaders ah to help them understand IT was IT was IT was quite a kick off to what was no you bad two thousand seventeen .

for you totally kick up ter totally comedy so I you mention something that I want to to go deeper brand, which is like internal com. So when something like this that happens, you or in uber situation, I think all of us know probably too much about the extra nal comes like we know too much relative to this situation like what was going on the media and what not. But but you're mentioning the very real personal situation.

You've got Young employees who are trying to pass this, trying to explain their family um what else is going on an internal connect. You have a slack that's like blowing up or do something create like a hashtag dely uber slack channel to debate. Like what else do you deal with internally at in a moment like that, that would help us imagine what really like to be working there.

The is a very difficult situation. Deal something this because this was so unique, like ginza, last time you heard of a even today a mass delete APP campaign, right? So so you you try to put out your message, uh, like our P, R team on twitter saying, hey, we suspended surge.

For this reason, we are not really trying to do, uh, you break to strike. We're not strike break ers. But no one's listening to that.

No one cares what at uber is saying on twitter right there. So IT was this sort of like scrambling and and the weirdest part of IT was usually in crisis. There's something to do, and there was kind of nothing to do except damage control with the people like our investors.

What happened explains them, and they're okay. I get IT. What do we do? And like, I don't know what do we do? We tell the world the truth and you sustain IT like we plan, you know, a future pr thing. We're go on TV and talk about IT who know. But as one of these the most weird crisis have ever been in, because now do we do nothing sort of wrong, but there was no way to correct IT .

having a real business, in fact. So it's not even just like a bad press un. It's like there's a very real business impacts. You're feeling that of us on your reforest casts. I don't I don't know i'm i'm hypothesis zing here, but you're always some and people are like way my models are wrong. Like it's like it's a business situation, not just you know every press situation could be that, but it's has a real impact immediately.

And I will give lift credit for this. That night they donated a million dollars, said you like we did, no joke, we think. No joke and I was like, that is a hard core stuff. Oh my god.

media you get .

know it's super so and they're like a little basically delete where come on over the left there was an amazing term move.

There's so many layers to this one and one of them is political as well, which i've thought a lot about um personally just like what is how do you even have an appropriate commentary as a company when it's a White how political issue but somehow this is all everything like world into one thing. It's like a business problem, press problem. It's visual. It's affecting people and its political with prompt and like all these personalities, how do do you have to eat the political stuff internally as well? Like our people actually fired .

up about that yeah mean talking about that. So then the next, like the very next crisis that happened there was that president trouble invited all the tech leaders to the White house, mary go, and industrial leaders, mary barrow, sy of jam, you on mask a tip, cook all all these folks. And travis, right? Because uber was a very important company of this time.

And on the heels of that, uber and travis became the you Better not go to the trump thing because, you know, we're going to continue deleting the APP things. So imagine this really like cooking as a new ministration. We have a business that has can be impacted by transportation regulations, labor regulations, whatever presidents invited you and other CEO the same your employee based going go, go.

Your customers are going go, go. And you for some reason become the focus of this whole twenty person 谁 要 and you you had here to call the president and said， I I can't I can't go, sir. You know, this president and so we were, like, hand is, how do we get here where, you know, somehow will the target of the ire of what had happened in that election and the of these participation of things that other people have done became so so clearing ly controversial.

But, uh but yes, so you have people at the company in a world, do you ignore the president? Do you ignore your customer like what you do? So is IT was a really unique time.

i'd say will ue your interview in a moment after our words, our.

It's also just incredibly distracting internally. Like do you feel as an executive like we have so much others stuff to work on? I mean, obviously, ly IT is so important in the first three days you talk about IT, but does IT actually become just like the internal topic for a month and you're like, I wish we could focus the business or something. I just wonder how that feels when you're there and there are just, you know, growing a business just hard in general.

yeah. I mean, these these sorts of things are totally defocusing because you whatever you have travel, you have planned up to cancel whatever sort of planning meetings. You're early in twenty, you actually about sixteen, you're thinking about your head and everyone else is watching twitter TV reading about this.

So like the home point b party basis distracted. Um so he does he does have a real cost to uh efficiency and your productivity at the company. But you know the people's top well, who else is going to deal deal with this stuff, right? Who else is going to talk to you? Go to a uh, improve to all hands with good people who are scared about what this means for the company.

So you that's where your real leadership skills have to kick in and try to find how to allocate your time, how to get what does getting passed problem look like? How do we say how do we not fall so far behind on the productivity that we're trying to do um how do we fix this? So next time we're sort of a little like more understanding of the environment, I don't you don't trip into something like this again. So it's that's incredibly distracting.

Was there a person who felt incredibly bad because they made the decision that kicked IT all off? Was there someone just like Carrying corn? I just have to know who was just like curly in this interest like, oh, don't look at me like I was broke the company um you know because I also helping that person. I've had help again, different context, that person through things I was there one person .

who was like whole teams that decided there's one person who incentive sence out of tweet saying, hey, we are suspending surge pricing due to the no problems at G, F, K. And he was not a senior person because we we empowered Younger people to to do this stuff in terms of where there was a weather crisis or you things like that, so that people didn't think we're taking in the energy of of hurricanes, you know, those kinds of things.

And so, you know, we had a whole protocol about doing this, and someone did IT, uh yeah that person and was like how you obviously were. They were not doing the wrong thing, but just got unlucky. Just a commentary .

on the times you return about twenty seventeen. This is a time where goober, and there are some other companies who were busy like almost punching bags for for people who just didn't like tech. They were calling a bunch of nerds like tech grows as if they were doing like cocaine or something all the time, like doing the greatest things.

They are just nerds building these companies. And there was, what's different now is tech learned. I feel like industry built immunity to attacks from inside the company would be like less than one percent of employees, or just a handful of employees who would go out to journalists and they would concoct this, you know, story that was out of line with what was actually happening.

That was very negative to the to the company. And I feel like we learned, uh, enough from this that we started to build our own like internal media, even if just on twitter, like people who had just push back and that kind of culminated, elon is the most like you stronger example of someone who just as fuck you like you're wrong. And if you are guys, the government and you're fired and you know, i'm gonna speak just like contradict and public. And I feel like if uber was having those crises in twenty, twenty three, you could have maybe done something similar. But maybe the time we just as an industry had to be apologetic because we just didn't have the the resources to like you directly fight fight back, that was the advice we're getting right is like, you know just take .

IT yeah you know there was a turning point in two thousand and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen were the tech press became much more critical a unless your agent lation about startups and more about you, the chAllenges, uh, in them and IT was a IT was a long term change, but a dp changed. And at that time, companies well didn't have their own channels, their own twitter followings.

They didn't sort of have their internal um sort of calm things structured in a way to to be responsive to these types of things. Um so yes, we're caught a little flat footed. But today, I do think you know companies can withstand some of these things, especially when they're not true. They contain them. They and then also there's and this is a bad thing, but but people don't trust the media more today than they did seven years ago. So everything they hear is taken with a grain of salt um yeah you there is a lot of bad sites to that for as a country but right now least is always time for another version of the story or someone else's point of view on that story and that often leads people like, okay, it's good fight I don't know who to believe you know i'm going to condemn anyone or praise anyone. And IT seems like .

two approaches are either the the elon approach or the travel approach. Either you totally outside of the the media building heads down and IT seems like they're crushing IT or you're like, you know in the media every day and you willing to conflict you know push back on things that are wrong and and make sure that .

your you're narrated getting across yeah there are a few companies like prior B N B who just are somehow because they're talent able of a flow above at all. I did there just, you know, it's the nicest company. You would never think that I think bad happened in airbnb and he just has a persona in a way of talking about this company that's really uh, translate ort of some of this food fight thing that I find I find really impressive.

I think it's really impressive. I have I am a generally extremely optimistic person, but I have a every streak of still concerned that people that just the the desire to rip someone off a petiole is so strong that the higher the petiole there's .

just a matter of time for brian.

just the fall, the more bones are there to crush at the end. I just really I really hope that that's completely wrong. I'm an optimist, I hope, but IT IT IT cares me a little bit that is just maybe not yet know in a sad kind of way, hopefully. Hofus ly.

that's incorrect, hopefully. I mean, like I I joke with people that elan's caved in america. If you take down elon, you're taking the american dream and immigrant built all these great companies.

And yes, it's got got things. But but yes, we have that nature in our in our press and so on to take down the top garage, which we hope doesn't doesn't take down everybody. There is no heroes. Then why?

What are we transition to a different story? Maybe it's transition to the the china one because that one was so high stakes in so many ways. I mean, I would be scared doing business in china period at at a high level based on what IT has happened to other other people in in china recently when you take us through like being on the ground, doing some of these, like some of the the most intense are crazy things that that happened there.

yeah. So in two thousand fourteen, but you have imagine yourself back sometimes, you know, a nine years ago now, the optimism of U. S.

China relationships was at its peak. Mark zek berg would go there and try to events president SHE to get facebook. Uh, there. Uh, tim cook was there all the time. I mean, look is like maybe we can open up and there might be a chance where we can do business.

There are chinese where a government was taking about giving banking licences to command sax and IT was IT was still for the same president but just a different time. And you know, we have this business that didn't seem sensitive. This was the social media didn't have sort of problem.

You know any you a uh way of sort of changing what people think about chinese is the government. So we are to slide through um as not really a tech business or social media business. And IT was amazing because a lot of chinese folks wanted to work for american company because I was just excited in different the mayors in china who care about transportation in their cities.

They love us because they were like, they don't want a monopoly, like idea, nothing, they want to us. So every time I go to a different city in china, the mayor wanted meet with me or travis is like, sit down and have t and talk about welcome and city. And do you want this had in this building? And what can we do for you? Then you like, this is amazing.

The competitive environment, however, was like that feels i've ever seen, I mean, talk about D, D, D, which was to make a Better texting or drivers saying, who was not going to pay you this week to try to cause a rush at our office, you know, with employees and I doing some fact that being fao, I didn't love being followed every minute in china when I was there. I didn't love getting the same hotel room everyday knowing that you feel feeling like I was being observed and in the room and all these things. But, uh but yeah was boost wild d times out there and good times and think god we sold the company two hundred year two thousand sixteen because in today's vironment this is none of this is possible.

Um so those were good times have been doing the acquisition in sixty days and and the way I did IT was with three in Hilton dollars from the public investment from in salted may have to down sixteen the next day I called my counter party dd and I said, you know we've got three and half billion more dollars to blow in china if you want to fight this war or we could figure out a deal and like you, me, I came over with cisco. You know, we kept their phones outside. I don't always tap in the phone shades drawn.

I was only allowed in there with her and her whole team until SHE trust him enough. And I was allowed to bring my people to try to come to a deal. And then we met a secret location in meco, you to close the deal.

Lawyers, we didn't leave for three days. You know, uh, high, high intensity environment. They didn't want the chinese regulatory authority ties about you to sign in and close at the same day and tell loral employees. And I was I was while times so that has to .

be kept that has to kept super interrupts in every, in every way, like how you just describe some of the mechanic. But how do you go about how do you go about secret keeping on that level? Because we were just talking about showing about the tes of so many people, you know, governments who do want to know all these details. Like is there any other besides just whisking layers away to make you feel there's more to IT? I want to know I wanted know how you keep the deals so big you know under raps like how else what else goes into that?

I mean speed is a weapon, right? Speed last year o um and that actually forces negotiators on both sides to actually come to agreement sooner. So IT forces actually, yes, supporting function.

And IT was you know you had to have lawyers under like triple double secret and a right and then um you had that increasingly over time, bring more more people into the deal and swear than the secrecy. Y and you know, we kind of got lucky that we got the sixty days without knowing. But I will I never forget the day that this was announced.

And I had to go to our employees in china who were so dedicated, they bled over black. And I had to tell them that we got sold and were like a room full of correct, crying employees who had just made a tone of money. But we're devastatingly sad and I had gene in my counterpart there and as a look there missing this, they are not monster ers because the competition was so feet that everyone fought.

The other side was a monster. Um IT IT was one of the most wild experiences that ever had in. And there was some weird things that happened in china.

When you have a chinese subsidy, if they have two chinese citizens, sign the dogs so they technically owe the company. So I allocate the two people who owned the uber china company who, if they absconded, that, you know, was a problem. So you had any other effort to do this, to get them in the same place, to get this like docks with red wax on them. He was very, very complicated thing to do in sixty days.

And then this is like, I don't remember when different when each different ChatApp comes out, like signal all the different set that something another like just detail i'm cares about is even to communicating internal late. Like how do you make sure that this stuff is not getting out? I don't feel like i'm a super paranoid person, but I just feels hard IT just feels like technically hard to make sure that your messaging, you don't actually put someone on C, C, just stupid stuff.

You know like so is there is there any other mechanics to that? Like was there a chat up that was you know Better at the time? Or are you just like on slack and cept just on the channel? We're like, I hope this is .

really super luck symbol. So slack infiltrated goober yet into thousand sixteen OK. So people are using telegram or or text or telegram. Um you was a good APP for that but also i've learned that my emails were like people send me an email and my report my answers would be yes, no or call me that was that was IT so that um no email that I wrote with the details that you could be floating around so I would keep a lot of IT. I had a core team around me that we're like deal machines, but yes, it's hard to keep that stuff uh, down.

But you know uber was a pretty secretive company generally and governmentally zed, so we sort of how to help start start on that. And dd didn't want IT either because they didn't want their employees to think they were. They lost and they had to buy uber. So we all had the same incentive here .

there there is no asim tric. You weren't worried. There is no asm tic warfare from that component. IT was everyone others name. Motivation is just more of a technical thing like, uh, as someone who has occasionally put the wrong persons on cc, I just very no.

yes, no call me that's yeah yeah exactly.

I am learning things. I'm learning things because that yeah honestly, that's a good time.

And and the acquisition is that as simple as someone throws out a number, the other party throws out the counter number and you come somewhere middle or like what .

what was that actually like? You know I an like, you know the the the is chinese companies are headquartered if they want reign investment in the commons, they are emerging in commons corp. With you know two chamans corp, but and in private to private deals and almost going as a ratio. What ratio of the resulting company do I get right?

It's like a blends like you pouring water into a copy. Its like how much yeah yeah got IT .

and you know you there's a lot of chicken there because you're doing subsidies to get ride your moving market. Ture, china has I think hundred cities with ten million people over the U S. Has like one.

So you the vast set of china and the amount of expenditure. So there is a lot of incentive for us to get that deal dance for stuff ts and money and for them so they could stop subsidizing um to do that. So i'll just comes down to the ratio. But but the complexity of the cross border deal with the regulatory where where the was was serious.

And I think we talked in a previous interview that you can lift almost Scott there um and that that was a big missed opportunity for .

for both sides. Twice I was super favorite the deal um just because again, the subsidy war was just unhealthy for the system right um uh and I got I got there once and then john zimmer and h blew IT from from lift side because uh he didn't want to agree to sort of convict like usually a power company, the leaders can quiet stay and on for a couple years as they best into some some amount of what they do.

I didn't want to agree to that um uh because he didn't trust that we were given that he was for him you were talking about like hundreds of millions of dollars A A prime to then a few hundred to go and he he's he blued on that point and then another time travel just didn't want to do IT because they thought, you know, we have the upper hands there. And I think, you know, how do we done that? The U.

S. Marking are the U. S. Marketplace of a lot healthier for right here.

But that didn't happen. And we go with lift now. Lift now is trading three and half billion dollars. They raised eight billion .

dollars just i've going to go super general if you human me what like what takes is you have from a human perspective on those two deals that don't come to formation that you just mentioned. Like IT does sound IT. The numbers can work, everything can be good. And human being who has just bled to start something has to sign on the deadline. And so what have you learned anything as a leader and that would make you feel like those deals maybe could happen or .

you'd know what to say? I spend a lot time figured about this, and I often tell people don't read these negotiation books because that with the negotiation books or a makin's y tells you cking .

kinsey doesn't have the answer.

You're blowing my mind. It's all sort of just have have the story of the other half is what is happening with this person on the other side of the table. What is the elemental calculus? And their mental cus includes emotions, that called feelings of winning or losing, where they are in their life and so on.

And you, over time, if I really incorporated that into my thinking and negotiations. So what would we've done different with zimmers? In this case, I probably should have gone with house and sound of him. We like let's talk about this because that this is not the case when we you don't build something great and just done, you like just went there and met ham where he was at emotionally and IT was the money thing too. But just like really kind of work IT out. And on the other thing we travel, say, I probably should have, you know, just you know said let me illustrate what this world looks like and this world looks like and been pushing about IT, but um because he didn't like those guys.

so Normal when you spend your time in battle, it's Normal to not like. And then based that that success can be, some of the coach shows with ema is like, ultimately that people are like, well, now we're one. And then and then you hear about all these flame outs where acquisitions are terrible.

And it's usually because that root, the people sit across the table were like, fuck you, you know and then you asked people to all play nice later when theyve been, you know, so that makes perfect sense, but it's like, what can we all learn? Because often, you know, the other side could be positive if those people could all come to that place. Yes.

you you could bring friends. This is that you like, here's how we do IT right? And this will be called this be business people about this. This makes sense.

So now it's just you, who do you want to spend time with her, ron? And how much? So let's just break that problem down into its chunks and and then then you might realize that, okay, well, this is public doable for like a really smart business deal if this is the coma of what this looks like and that illustration of what this looks like um is really powerful negotiating tools, IT would have been in helping someone .

live in that new world. Like how like basically illustrated you about like little like i'm going to over exaggerate. Yb, but to the extent where you're like, you want a nice or office and the other previously, just because you love the office and that's you're going to feel great if you walk into the building and that's your office, like getting to a place we like, let's let's live this world that makes like.

yes, it's not appear in a it's like it's like what happens every day because when you break the downs every day and you know cooked haven't see this guy once every three weeks like, you know whatever .

yeah you're going to do a meeting together once whatever yeah will .

continue our interview in a moment after a word of our sponsors. I want to say way to the the tim cook and apple stories because I know super prompt got that wrong. They got a lot of things wrong. Most of the be wrong.

I thought he was just a documentary. Was not fit .

yeah we can talk about what the things that around you ve also talked about IT, but maybe let's let's talk about the the tim cook and apple make that so interesting, so intense, would you learn from that?

Yeah well, so we had, I would say, three meetings with with tim cook and apple. We were traveling, were together. And I don't know if everyone does this being apple, but their multitude meetings. And I don't know how the sea of largest company world has that much chinese man, but he did because he would, like, we were in china.

He liked that, that we were doing what the first bit APP APP step was, making something change in the real world, in real time, and getting revenue was a lot of we were doing maps, and he was computing with google maps. So we had a lot of relevance to him and to our brain, storing meetings and travels with pace around pace. And all them were really productive and great.

And then two, two different meetings want word stuff happen. So we had, we thought he was picking our brain, this latest meeting about china and trying to china, how are you doing in china to try? And china, and we are very open.

So like you do an N D A with apple or tim cook, you just kind of go talk to tim cook. It's not, you know, it's not. You can is harder. Ask for D, A, or something like that from a get like that. So I got home there back to office wit travis.

And then E, D, Q, who is always in the meetings, calls me he to tell, were about to announce a billion or investment in D, D, and this was the same day we had just not with to cook. And he's pricking our brain about our china business. And I was, I was like, oh my god, I get played by two. Holy, well, we did. That was my fear.

How does that feel like do you feel like, wow, he's playing forty chats or are .

you do we out tick? Do you do .

tex similar like w tf?

I think yeah, that's exactly that is so like maybe you going to told me the courtesy. I still to share something with you, but you know, he was like, basically sorry, yes, play your big boy ball and the big .

boy ball how but that coming back to the people dynamics, like do you actually feel like that is fair play and is just that he made a calculated choice and obviously you're gona trust him was? Or do you feel it's actually kind of a weird move because who knows what you know he needs to do in future rounds with every person he is going to meet, he feels IT feels a little strange to me, even though you are super powerful, but I know seems like .

not a long term game kind of move. Yeah, I wouldn't done that in reverse. And I think the reedited and I had known each other for years. He called me, and he knew IT by the tone of his voice that this was not something he would probably do either. So it's definitely one of those things that I put in my brain to remember those kinds that go that some people do that and some people don't. I want, i'm not one of .

them and you don't know who they are like any different circumstances, don't know who that person is know because you know just ah and I think that's a this is another general question. But coming off of you know everything that happened in two thousand seventeen and everything happened in general, do you come away from these experiences in business as you go forward? You do many things now like a little more paranoid like i'm just curious about the how how IT all hits.

more able to deal with IT and more paradigm right? So i'm more paranoid about um internally what I really didn't understand that when the company is being sort of attacked from the outside um there's a lot of people inside who sort of rebel gans the company agree with what the outside people saying that's leaks happened.

You're not one team like against the yes.

yes, especially when it's repeated. And in sort of you every day, there's something there and that disunity is is very hard to Operate against. And so what I do IT again, you know you'd have to sort of you deal with the disunity like get the people out, make really hard decisions really fast um or fix them. You and some of these things are harsh. Like what elan did you at twitter is the criticize for IT so he took a slack channel or everyone complain about back work.

Is that okay? Everyone on that gone fired and did you and I know why he did IT um because of this, he said he didn't want the internal recension at any cost because he said that's going to break the company on the on the other hand, i've learned that you to just be paranoid about cascine crisis once something feels vulnerable, so many other people see that vulnerability. I wanted write or talk about IT, so it's really bad.

Things don't come in once they have become in like three or fies. Um so you can't have to be prepared for a sustained sort of situation and you do have to have stronger, stronger internal messaging about what you're doing and why and repeat IT, repeat IT, repeat IT, repeat IT. But having repeat that, the worst thing in the world is how your P R team turned against all of you, which we have that because they're act even imagine they're magazine access and we just didn't .

know IT was too late. I I think a lot about selection filters in the same context of like how do you sure you can go like you on to that channel of all people complain about our company and be like, hey, thanks for out in yourself like you are fired um that also create a certain culture. After that you have worried obviously if we aren't going to do that again.

You know so is like a one timer usually. But how do you prevent people from coming in the first space? Like do do you have thoughts who are going .

na be just loyal during hard times? Yeah.

come about section filters. How do you kind of create that filter coming in? And I just I member like hire ing. But can you broadcast a certain message of like to make sure that people come aligned? Um did you have an opportunity to do .

that if you feel I mean, I think yes, you can do that to a largest agree will never perfect right uh brand ARM from coin base memo that he sent out um we sort of a version yeah which which is a version of this is who we are if you if you you should know IT on the way in. And I think companies need to be smarter about that. We were pretty good about that.

Um but we got big so big so fast, we went from two hundred employees to twenty thousand and three years. So in so many countries, in so many different ways that there was no way that filter was going to be strong enough because no one to ever grow that fast like google, nobody terms of number employees um but I do think you you can and should have filters like that. I think it's court.

It's almost responsible to build the company and not have a filter like that these days um because you are gonna mismatch. And I do think we're a little bit of a bar market now. You're in the a little bit more in the driver seat to be choosy on who you let in and who you want in. Um but some of the tongs gets set to is is where we used to use to joke if you're complaining about the cafeteria food, your boss will be are you not being manage well, right? Or no no key water or we're going to have cheap food or you have there are messages you can send by how you spend money and how you do things which again, sort of attract or repel certain kinds of people.

right? There's no amount of corporate values that that can get around some of those actions that actually tell people how you feel about things and make them stick around or not at the .

is zoom ing out a bit when you think about the the legend of uber and how IT continues to be be told and will be told. What do you think is most of misunderstood, even from people with tech who you know not just people who've only seen the show or something, but people who who are around during this time, you know not to do brim necessary, but with tech, what do you think is is most most understand?

You know, there's this notion that the rule breaking or bending the rules on right turn was was a bad thing. One shouldn't have done that.

And if you think about that, you're like OK wall um if we take the world as IT is and you to come to sort of the sort of small movies of these taxi people created their car tells they do with the politician and that sort of pay ola skin that they had, if you don't break that well, then you're going to have the old system. And so we broke IT as people like why you break IT and you're like, well, because this is a Better system. Prevalence Better for drivers is Better for renters.

And guess what we want, you know why? Because china, india, us, brazil, russia, all them now legalize, right? Sherry, most of the world have listened to their citizens and said, you were right.

We were wrong. And so had we not done that and we play by the rules, we would have still been in that world. And you know, I think it's misunderstood that will the world moved? Because we moved IT and every country in world now we adopt to something that's Better for their citizens.

And therefore we were vindicated. IT was a form of corporate civil disobedience. Like, these were wrong, these were wrong and and we were gna diode y them because they were wrong, and we we were doing something is right, and we were vindicated by brother and be illegal all over the world.

essentially now. And if but I feel like in silken valley, the culture at one point prize these things, I do feel like IT has been the concept of that's not prize or not. Good to to kind of question the SaaS quote and just effectively, if there are some statute somewhere that says you didn't do IT right, you're wrong.

Like I don't know, it's more shocking. Isn't IT more shocking that people in I think of that? Like, I don't know. Didn't something like g didn't the snake starting its own tail or something at strange to even hear you say that that's the misunderstood part because that sound very cool part.

I think I think is a little bit of this this sort of narrative, this the entire tech narrative has has made that not a prize value. Move fast and break things is not bad. IT was good, right? There are these things where um you know I can do this. Let's stop IT it's bad. You know not about what good you could do.

So there is a little bit more focus on the negative, which I don't understand because our government works slower than I ever has, that you like, okay, we should we wait like what do we do? Do we just wait for something to happen um or do we try to do IT? You know.

do you wish that you could have been more a bit more slick and I say slick and both the positive and maybe negative ways like maybe transcended above IT all the way that you describe bran chest I or a bit a bit more like elon and just been more aggressive given that you guys were already thrown in the food fight and IT was hard to to get outside of .

IT against your will. I thought about this a lot I think a really hard question in some ways I believe that had we turned the corner a little bit toward being a little more just you like a little earlier um because we went from insurgent to the man really quickly like we were we were the underdog and then in like eighteen months we became the overdog get very fast and we'd lown suber is or in ninety two countries were on magazine covers out of service in the world was fast growing and and that made the spotlight shiner and had we sort of like smooth some of the edges a bit and realized that like, hey, we're now we're people are going na rooting for us more against us so we have to take a different approach um was probably the Better answer at that moment.

You we are talking about how you had government push back at times we were talking off air how at one point you at A A swat team descend in one of your regions like tells about one of the crazy, crazy experiences there.

This relates to sort of the things that people understand about uber, like the resistance was unbelievable, right? This last vegas, what we launch in last vegas, a couple of police offers sort of ordered the the a car, poor guy, and the rules up to pick up the interactive cry and they're a fully dress sw team with machine gun taking about the car to arrest them and you're like you the fear that caused um in italy the taxi boxes were so serious they put pictures of our female general manager on the on the pot light posting saying no you should hurt this person essentially um all over the city you all kinds of crazy rules.

In south korea, IT was IT was legal for foreigners to take a ride share, but not legal for koreans to take a ride share. So for korean gotten in uber, they would like a rest. The korean person, you know, L A, had rules on the color of socks you could wear.

You know, you know, germany had to rule that if you took someone to the airport, you couldn't take another passengers back to the city and go only back to city and they go back to the airport. And IT was called to return to base rule to protect the limo industry. I mean, you had all kinds of rules are like, you know that you're facing that were kind of insane and we were yeah we we were not following these rules because they were done and they .

are bad for everybody. W closing here. I N T have both had our own versions of crisis where some people stepped up and were super loyal and some people, some people step doesn't the back in our own way and um and use that at at a much bigger scale.

I'm curious when you advise people who've gone through versions of what what I just discussed, do you say, hey, to advise them? He never think about IT again, just like move on with life, like it's just business that happens. You say like k use that as motivation to like beat them in whatever you do next. Like how do you get over when someone like really fox you over?

It's really hard to especially if it's your life's work or it's sort of so a mission that you are that you were on that was taken from you or something .

so much money.

significant vert, because because of that. So never want to tell people just again, make this filter on the front end a lot Better and forces you, least you do that's forward looking, backward looking. You have a responsibility to make sure that this doesn't happen anyone else, if possible.

And so this person or this firm um is out there, you uh behaving this way, you you should be a resource for either entrepreneurs about how they behave. You know that's just how IT is and it's so factual then you maybe these firms will change if they know that there is consequences or these people will change those consequences to their actions. I mean, I don't think is about indictments, but IT is about making sure we're paying a forward to the next people. So that doesn't happen at that and that sort of the mindset I would put them in, and that's more constructive.

You've very constructive in this interview and meal. Thank you so much for coming on in the arena and sharing your journey with us.

Upstream with athon bird is a show from a turpenay, the podcast network behind moment of them and coding or revolution. You like the episode, please leave review in the apple store.

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