TRAVIS KALANICK
episode 2
Broadcast date: June 22, 2017
Travis Kalanick co-founded Uber to revolutionize the way we move around cities. However, he finds himself leaving Uber as CEO at a critical time for the company.
Join Mike and Chad as they deconstruct how Travis thinks. From dialling for dollars to rapid scale. The episode goes deep into Travis' 8-year tenure at Uber discussing the Good and the Bad.
Travis Kalanick Interviews
Fireside Chat with Travis Kalanick and Marc Benioff
Dreamforce Video
Published Sep 17, 2015
Virtuous Circle: Fireside Chat with Travis Kalanick and Arianna Huffington
Internet Association
Published on Nov 10, 2016
Chad's book recommendations
Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination
Adam Lashinsky
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Simon Sinek
Uber Movement Site
Lets Find Smarter Ways Forward
Scandals this year
January: Drivers were protesting against President Donald Trump's executive order that barred travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.
February 21: Scathing blog post alleges sexism and gender bias inside Uber
February 22: New York Times article 'Inside Uber's Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture' published
February 23: Uber finds itself in a bitter legal fight with investor Google
February 28: Dashcam video shows Kalanick in a heated argument with an Uber driver
March 3: Report reveals details of Uber's 'Greyball' tool
March 17: Leaked data shows Uber's self-driving cars still rely heavily on human
Amazing Achievements (8 years)
6B revenue, 60B valuation
12k employees
Massive Scale
Created millions of flex jobs
Massive data play
Fights against regulators and old taxi monopoly
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Chad Owen: Hey, Chad here, just to let you know that Mike and I recorded this episode the same morning that Travis was forced to resign as CEO from Uber by its investors. Stay tuned for our thoughts on Travis's history at Uber and how he's navigated the unprecedented growth and controversy during his tenure.
Thanks for listening now onto the show.
Mike Parsons: Welcome to the moonshots podcast. In fact, episode two, we're back and I am your cohost Mike Parsons, and I'm joined by the man with the plan, mr. Chad Cohen. How are you, Mike? I'm doing great. Uh, I'm enjoying the sunshine here in Bucharest and I trust you're keeping up your end in summertime. They're in New York.
I am. What's a what's taking you to Bucharest. Bucharest is work, work, work, um, building a very, uh, interesting app for a large coworking space with all sorts of. A magical door and entry IOT and cool stuff. So keeping me out of trouble, you might say, yeah, I just got back from your old stomping grounds in San Francisco, uh, filming a TEDx conference, TEDx Soma there last week and, um, be on the lookout for some new videos on the Ted channel from, from that conference.
Yeah. What was it like shooting a shooting, a Ted. That must have been pretty cool. That was fun. I had the easy job, I think the curation and the PR and, and, and getting all of the speakers and presenters up to par is probably the hardest part. It's easy to show up, uh, with the cameras, but, um, I thought everyone did an amazing job and, um, Just, you know, kudos to the TEDx Soma team for putting on an amazing right.
And the one thing is to me, really signature about old Ted events is my gosh, do they get their speakers? Like on point really claim a very, very smooth, um, did you get to see how they do that? Like how does, how do they get everyone? So we'll prepare a lot of rehearsals. Yeah. And they just, yeah, I think they kind of relentlessly, uh, be sure that everyone's on point, um, you know, cause they want to create an, you know, a great experience for everyone.
Um, and, and so that they can, you know, get on to the TEDx, you know, media channels and, um, You know, be promoted there as well. Oh, right, right. Right. Of course. Cause if it's TEDx it, it's not a guarantee posting into the Ted network. So if they do a great job, lots of rehearsals. Yeah. Everyone's shiny. Hmm. But enough enough about me.
Yeah. What do we got on the dock at this week? My question to you. So we have to admit that at least is probably we're expecting, uh, Jeff Bezos, which we had told everyone we were going to do, but, uh, the little news ferry, uh, took out a thing. So we changed things up. So what's, what's installed this episode.
Well, I think it would be hard for us not to talk about Uber. And I'm the founder CEO, Travis Kalanick. So that's who we've queued up. Yeah. And, um, I've got to say it culminated, uh, news of this week just for atlases in case they haven't heard, uh, Travis, he's taking a leave of absence from the company and it really, he comes at the end of a whole series.
Of scandals for the company this year. Um, I put a bit of a list together. He, uh, Chad, um, but for you, what's been the most striking scandal at Uber over the last six months. It's really hard to overlook the fact that Eric, how old are the former attorney general of the United States? Uh, his firm has been hired to look into, um, in discriminatory, uh, and yeah.
You know, shady dealings within the company. So for me, that's kind of a hardest thing to have. It is it's really like sending in like a, a Jedi Knight had to come and, uh, um, to do a one over on the place. And, uh, you know, what was interesting the company has in fact adopted all of his recommendations. Of which at the core of it was basically pulling apart, uh, Travis, the CEO's role and assigning out his work to other individuals.
But I need just, just for such a hot startup for, for a startup that has achieved so much. I think it's important to put the last six months into context. And to also realize what achievements have actually, um, being, being done there at Uber. So, first of all, just in eight years, they've hit 6 billion in annual revenue.
They have a valuation of post 60 billion. They're now at well over 12,000 employees. Uh, enormously valued for the private sector, fastest growing company. Um, they've created millions of flex jobs. One thing I wanted to ask you, Chad, like every time, I mean, no matter what country my, I mean, the Uber is for all of the challenges that they have with them.
They love the flexibility that the job offers. What do you, what do you often get from, from Uber drivers when you're driving around? For me, it's always been, I love that I can choose my own hours, but I wish that I got paid more. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's so true. And, um, it's a, it's a big price to play, uh, for the flexibility.
I must say that, um, what I really ping on the company as being an, a massive achievement is how they've, they've gone into cities that have gotten monopolies, particularly with taxi licensing and they have fought and busted them open. And. You know, it started in San Francisco when I was living there. But actually if I remember this story, right, wasn't the fight with New York, pretty feisty for Uber.
Yeah. It has been in most of the large markets, um, that have entrenched taxi industries, like, especially London, I think London in New York where some of their biggest, uh, regulatory fights, um, And, but they're still here. Um, but they've gotten kicked out of cities like Austin in the much smaller markets, but you know, progressive grassroots movement, I think to, to have them do a deeper background checks on their own.
Yep. That's been a big issue. They had a terrible scandal in India. Um, where one of their executives, which for five for accessing, uh, the case files from an alleged, um, rape, uh, incident, uh, they've had of things. I had one of their female engineers come out and talk about what's been happening at the company.
Uh, I mean, there's, the list goes on. They're in a legal battle with Google, uh, For, um, uh, this, the alleged stealing of proprietary data we also had in February he's moment. Do you remember the dash cam video of him talking to a driver? Yeah. And he kind of, um, he kind of told him, Oh, you know, I don't really want to listen to your agreements is tough, you know, tough shit.
Sorry. And then, I mean, and this is what we're talking about right now is just what's happened so far this year, which is additionally their Grable tool, which was avoiding regulators in cities, allegedly. And then. Um, there was a big issue that they're supposedly, uh, autonomous vehicle technology is large.
It was largely done manually by some elf in the back. It really is. And this is just in the last six months. He was, he was, uh, uh, entangled with president Trump. I mean, and this is just the last six months. So it is really, uh, you couldn't write a story, uh, this dramatic and it all goes in light of really up until the last year or so.
They've been a heavyweight champion of the world in San Francisco. They've, um, they've really been leading the pack. And I think that it's just such a stark contrast in such a, a full, quick fall from grace. Right? I don't, I don't remember many, uh, companies may be Zenefits comes to mind. Uh, I can't remember a company that's gone sideways so quickly.
Can you? No. And I think that's why. We just had to take this episode to, to dive a little deeper into some pieces of media that can give us a little bit of a window into. Uh, Travis is thinking over the past couple of years, as he's, as he's talked to other, um, you know, big, uh, big names in media and in tech.
Right? Right. So we've, we've, we've gone for actually, um, be constructing two different interviews, right? Uh let's let's talk about these two. So the listeners, if, if they're interested, they can, they can call up the entire interview. So tell us about them. So if you search a fireside chat and Travis Kalanick on YouTube, you should find one from.
Uh, 2015 with Mark Benioff of Salesforce. And then you should also find one with Arianna Huffington in November of 2016, uh, a few months after she was, uh, installed on the board of Uber. That's right. That's right. And I think we should, we should put one thing in context here. They're a little softball, um, because Ariana is.
As you mentioned, she's on the board. So it's all pretty subtle stuff. Um, but he does reveal some really interesting things Mark on the other hand, uh, a little less, uh, softball, but still very generous in, in, in the interview. So it's not quite the, uh, the rigor of, of a Ted or maybe a Recode. But we, we dug up some great nuggets, um, that gives us a peek into the mind of Travis.
And I think also too, there's a lot of lessons to learn here. So do you want to fire up the first clip and introduce that one? Sure. And this is just Travis, trying to succinctly explain the business model of Uber, at least how he. Uh, sees it, um, as, as the kind of, uh, marketplace or platform, uh, that they've created at Uber it's, it's sort of that consistency in you getting a pickup in a, in a short period of time and you having that sort of safe, efficient ride from point a to point B and where, you know, so of course, on the operation side, that means, you know, we need to get thousands and thousands of partners on.
Our system all the time, literally every week, we're onboarding thousands of people in San Francisco. Right. Um, and yeah, you know, for a thing like Dreamforce, we're gonna, we're gonna actually start doing, you know, additional onboarding, you know, weeks ahead of time. To make sure that we're planning for this kind of thing.
So we have to, we have to predict demand so that we can then match it with supply. There's an operations marketing and operations aspect, which is okay, how do we get more partners on the system? How many do we need? How do we get them on the system? How do we streamline that onboarding? Um, there's a filtering process to make sure they're qualified and they're Uber.
And then, um, once they're on the system, uh, they're providing rides. And so you need to make sure that. You know, we need to do everything we can to make sure that those routes are good. Um, that they're, they're getting people from point a to point B efficiently. And so a little context for that clip, uh, he's really just explaining the, the reactivity and scale that Uber brings.
Like. So Dreamforce is a conference in San Francisco that brings tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand people to the city. So they'd predict that demand and know that they have to onboard more partners or drivers, uh, to be able to meet the demand of moving people all around. And, um, it, from what I've read, it really seems like they have a very streamlined process to get as many drivers on board as quickly as possible to meet this demand, which, which is really interesting in how they predict it.
Um, and then actively. You know, try and, and meet that demand before it actually material. Right. So, so I can definitely confirm the city literally does come to a standstill, uh, during, uh, drainful WaKIDS, it's an absolute nightmare, to be honest. I think that there's a really big thing inside of here. I think why we love this clip.
Is, uh, for all of our listeners who, uh, you know, working on new ideas, uh, trying to bring disruptive products to market. The model they're using is what we call this two sided marketplace. And you can think about Airbnb as another great example of this what's critical is, and it's, this is the, of this, this type of business model is you must tenuously be recalibrating.
You'll supply and demand because the, the greatest challenge they face is having either too many drivers or not enough they are at because they don't operate, uh, the vehicles. They are pushing, uh, operational responsibility ownership, uh, to the driver. So they really have to create a very seamless way for them to continually get new new riders.
On the other hand, you know, they always need to supply new riders for the drivers and it's sounds very simplistic. Um, but it's incredibly hard. And, um, this is really the first step in them creating magic. The second thing that I think is really in here. And I'm sure you can imagine is how much data they are collecting on both sides and the sort of predictive analysis they can do with that.
So this is the key is using the data to continuously create that, that equilibrium. So just to see how amazing they really are as a company. Can you actually remember the last time. Chad, can you remember the last time you waited more than 10 minutes for an Uber? Um, I think it was maybe when I was catching a flight at like 3:00 AM or 4:00 AM, but yeah, it was a while ago.
Right. And if you think about life before Uber, not only have I waited 20 or 30 minutes for cabs. But when I was living in San Francisco, trying to get to the San Francisco airport, I twice was stood up by the yellow cab company and the, the techs actually never came at all and basically was around the time that Uber was just starting in San Francisco.
So by using the two sided marketplace in this predictive and analytical thinking, They have made things and to go back to our Ilan show, they have made things well beyond 10 times better. It's it's um, it's phenomenal. The improvement they've they've, um, added to getting around cities. I, I think it's fantastic.
So, um, this really is at the heart of, of their success. Yeah. And another interesting point along with the data is, um, Uber's not a public company at this point, but they've, they've. Uh, disclosed a lot of financial information that a normal public company would, I think, kind of to get themselves prepared to eventually go, go public.
But what you realize is all of that data that they collect allows all of these companies that are interested in investing in them know and build their own financial models for the success of the company. They can see. How many new writers are coming on month after month. And they can see this, this growth trajectory.
I mean, in my opinion, that's why. That's why they've been able, that's why they raised, you know, a billion dollars or over a billion dollars in, in a round of funding because the data and the numbers speak for themselves. Yeah. So if you, if you want to look at this a bit further, Chad, there's a movement.uber.com is a website that they've actually, um, um, built where you can actually dive in some anonymized data and check it all out.
So. Also for our listeners, we'll put it in the show notes, which you can get@moonshots.io, but that's also a cool, cool way to check out some of the data stuff that they're doing. What is this next next clip on our lovely friend, Travis County.
That's a, I think this is one that you were going to introduce, but just a quick bit of history on Travis. He dropped out of UCLA, um, like so many. Uh, startup founders, um, and work with some friends on a company called scour, which was kind of a precursor and contemporary to Napster, you know, file sharing media sharing, um, and took his learnings from that company and founded red swoosh, which, um, kind of took that file sharing technology and took it to the enterprise.
You know, how, how to efficiently distribute media. Um, For enterprises, you know, pre Amazon, AWS, and other content delivery networks that are kind of so pervasive today. Um, but yet he had some interesting stories about, you know, the beginnings, um, At Edinburgh. Okay. Let's, let's jump into our next clip. And, um, here, uh, Travis is talking about the very early days of starting the company and the role that he played in getting, um, limousine companies to participate.
In in, at the time, a very unknown project. We, uh, yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm putting in the sell sheet and just old school. I'm I'm, you know, the, you know, the term is like dialing for dollars. I'm calling up every limo company I can in San Francisco and I'm calling them up and your pitch at the beginning of your first pitch, you know, they hang up on you right away and then you start getting it.
And it was like, I want to be your biggest customer. You know, I can, I can help you make 50% more in a week, you know, and that's where it starts. And how, how was that received? How were those calls? So as sort of those calls, a third of the calls, you know, basically I got hung up on before I got to the core pitch.
Okay. A third of the calls they heard about a minute and a half, and then I got hung up on and then a third were like, this is interesting. So dialing for dollars, huh? Um, I can actually see him. It's it's, it's almost like boiler room style. Right? You can just imagine him hitting the phones. I wonder if he had like this huge bell, if he got a deal, I mean, that seems pretty spot on for him.
Um, I thought this tall told us a lot about the, not only what they did to kind of that style, right? Chad, like this diamond for Douglas. Yeah. And this was before they had any kind of tech product too, you know, I think it's often overlooked sometimes if people think, well, you know, the genius is in building the technology, but I think, um, in Travis's tenacity and just going after these companies, um, is really how he's able to find product market fit and say, Oh, well, there's all these limousines that are idle for half the time.
Why can't me and my buddies. And, you know, pay them and, you know, go out on the town Lincoln. Right. Right. And, um, going back to the two sided marketplace, uh, idea that we mentioned earlier, crucial, like, uh, he goes on to talk about how everyone wanted to get. Onto this, uh, service before it was an app that he actually needed to get lots of drivers on.
So he was just hitting the phone book and, and getting, getting people in. So very good insight. And just to the hustle that you need to have in the early stages, uh, of a company, um, you want to introduce, uh, our next, uh, next one, Chad? Yeah. These, these next two clips are, I think Travis is interesting. Um, Statements around, you know, what the, what the product, uh, that Uber is delivering and what they're doing.
Um, so, uh, so here's, here's him explaining the, the three different pillars of the product and kind of what Uber does. It's three things for product, one convenience, easier to get around, super efficient, reliable, all those things we talked about too. It's affordable. Right. And three, a certain amount of magic.
You do those three things. You basically know everything Uber's going to do. If, if something's moving from somewhere to somewhere else in a city. That's our jam. Hmm. I love that's our jam. I know. I just feel it would be appropriate to high five right now. I mean that fist bump. What do you think it'd be a fist bump for trap.
Yep. Well, I think he sees a lot of his work as, as jamming. If you listen to other interviews that he's done, I think that's kind of a core way in which he works, you know, surrounding himself with other. Um, other highly driven people, talented people and just sit down and, and, and jam. Right. Right. What did you think of his, uh, three pillars of products by habit?
How did that resonate with you? It goes back to you talking about reliability and you know, how, how long do we have to wait for an Uber now it's really practically no time at all. And so I think that metric for them has, has worked. I think that driving down the time. You know, to get an Uber and just, you know, getting your.
Getting you and passengers to their destination as quickly, I think, has really worked out for them. Totally, totally. And that's at the heart of their, their 10 X model making things 10 times better. They are really making massive inroads there. And we'll talk about that a bit later as well. Um, I'm, I'm really keen to, to play the next couple of clips, because as I said earlier, like the scale these guys have achieved in such a short time is the chats totally ridiculous scale.
I mean, I want you to think about when most companies that folks are working in, uh, maybe 20, I need to a hundred people. And when you add another 10 or 20 to that, it feels like a lot. These guys are adding thousands and thousands of employees every quarter. It's, it's really quite ridiculous. So we can hear him talking with Adrianne, Ariana this time.
And, uh, talking about some of these, uh, the growth of Uber, you know, to give you an example, three years ago, we were 200 people and we're 10,000 people today. Right. It's like three years ago, we might've been doing, I don't know, 50,000 rides a week. And we're closing in on a hundred million rides a week.
Wow. So, so gazillions of rides all the time, but, but I think the thing we can really relate to is literally their offices are growing by thousands and thousands of people and that's happening all the time. So, um, remarkable. When you think it's only been. Around for eight years and Uber as a company, since even this recording is now almost at 12,000 people.
Um, and along with all of this scale, uh, I think Travis is being presented with lots of, uh, lots of surprises. So in this next clip, he's going to be talking to Mark about the biggest surprise he's had on the journey so far. Okay. I mean, my last company, the biggest we got was 12 people. Employees. Right. And for most of the time it was me and one engineer, like the first four years, I wasn't really getting a salary those years.
Like, so I know what it's like to be an entrepreneur. And entrepreneur usually means what it means that, so I think the thing that's just the most surprising, you'd never expect that you don't plan for it. You shouldn't plan for it. Is this kind of just huge. Impact and growth and size and all of this. And as quickly as it's come and there's a lot of lessons to learn.
There's a lot of, I mean, if your company is going to grow like that, you got to grow too. Um, Hm. I feel like he's really starting to get to how we ended up with him taking a leave of absence. All these scandals. And I think he's really presenting us, uh, with he's giving it a little as a little window into the challenge he's faced with that, that scale.
How did you, what did you think of that, Chad, when you, when you heard that from him? Yeah. It's interesting. Cause Mark posed it as like a, what was, what's been your biggest surprise and I think Travis kind of answered as what his biggest challenge has been. I think, I think at the core. Travis is realizing that he's on a rocket ship and he can really only do so much to steer the course of that, that, that massive growth.
And I think he's beginning in this interview in 2015, he's beginning to understand like what he needs to do as a leader and as a CEO for the company, um, to. Yeah. To keep the company on track and for it to do well, not just, you know, for the customers and investors, but also for their own employees. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you can just imagine, right. All of the taking care of the ride is taken care of the drivers, this stuff, the regulators, this CDs, I mean, it's endless, right? Yeah. And I, I think this next clip too, um, Is some interesting foreshadowing, um, you know, again, taking in context, this, this clips from 2015 and then based on all the, the, the news that's been breaking here, you know, at the beginning of 2017, you know, the values that a founder has for his or her company is usually a reflection of their own values.
So for me, I don't differentiate between my personal values and my. My company's values. They're very much the same. Um, and so I try to live by them, regardless of whether I'm on the clock or not. I couldn't resist putting this clip in. I think it is a little bit of a gotcha for Travis. Um, but it's maybe a sign that he was overlooking, or I don't want to say being flippant about, uh, you know, building an inclusive and respectful culture, but, you know, he did say this probably at the same time where many of these, um, Issues within the company began.
Right. And what's, what's critical here is that at the heart of what he's getting to is sort of a contradiction, is that the values that he says are his he's clearly not active. Um, so I, I do feel a little, um, a little, um, Uh, I understand when you already, we have this context of how hard it was, uh, for Travis, at Uber to get from scrappy to big and to scale, um, and to kind of pull over himself here.
It really just tells you that the guy needed already in 2015, he needed help. Uh, so it really, to me makes me go, what were the board doing? Were they just on the rocket ride and enjoying it? Um, because you know, they did bring in Arianna way to light because, you know, the problems had well and truly set in.
Um, but he really kind of trips over himself. He, in my opinion, yeah. I want to turn the question to you, Mike, actually, you've been a part of companies, large and small founded on your own. And, and part of companies have been founded by others. W what's been your experience in managing that, that people growth, you know, within the company going from one person to five people or from a, you know, five people to 500 people.
Wow. Um, so definitely, um, my thing is that once you hit 20 people, um, all the practices that, that got you to 20 people, most of them don't work anymore because you need to insert middle management. So the founders are not able to. Just be jamming as Travis would say. And so it does really, really change.
And I think, you know, hire slow fire fast, man. Like, you know, just be so rigorous on who you hire. Um, the, uh, the best quote I can give you there is Mark Andreessen says, you know, you're only as good as your worst person. And I think it's so true. So people because it's convenient, not because it's adding something.
Um, is often a big mistake. And, and really, because of my experience, I would, I would say as you know, uh, as a, as a, usually as a founder or co founder, I have to admit that in the end, it's really upon the founders. When, when values and culture get off track, it can be easy to blame others, but in the end of the day, it's on the founders.
Nobody else. Um, and just, it has to, it's got to work at the top because, uh, you can't just assume it's just going to, um, it's just not going to happen. Um, for everybody, you know, it's lead by example. And so that's probably what culminated in Travis kind of finally taking back and. Uh, you know, taking a leave of absence now, he's, he's kind of owning up to that in a way, right?
Yeah. Total respect. And obviously we should mention that his parents were in a tragic boating accident and his mother actually passed as a result. And so his dad's not well, so there's a lot of things happening for him. Um, but from the Uber side of things, I think that this, this next clip we're going to play.
Is really starting to, to touch, not on the values, but on really we're shifting over to the business side. What's the end value that they're creating and how does the business model work out of that? So this next clip is him talking about this idea of how they actually create time rather than take it.
And we're not selling your time. We're actually, um, we're giving time back. We're making. Your time more valuable. Um, and we believe that sort of, you know, we, we have these like four sort of dimensions of magic. Yeah. Uber and, um, one of them is about time and giving people that time back. So, so yeah. Because of what we do.
I think it, it makes a lot of sense. I, I don't say, Oh, we're not a Silicon Valley. You know, we're not a Silicon Valley company because we think of a different, we're just not a media company. Um, and so while media companies might take a little slice, we will give more than that back, uh, through efficiency.
And that's kind of what we do. Hmm. What now you've been exposed to the media world a lot. How did, when you had this one, Chad, like, what was your first reaction about, you know, taking time, paying for time monetizing time? What, what was your foot? I think it's really smart on his part to position Uber in that way against all of these media companies that are vying for people's time.
I think if you ask him, he would say that, you know, time is. Our biggest luxury and his aim is to give that back to people, you know, through the convenience and the reliability of the service. And I think that that's how Uber sees a greater good that they're giving to people is they're giving people their time back in a way.
Yeah, and I totally buy that, right. Because I think about how exploited my time is by social services, such as Facebook and how they're monetizing my private information. Um, you know, you like the fact that Uber doesn't have that. I mean, how do you feel about that companies like Facebook and Snapchat monetizing your, your, you as the being the media yourself and your, your private information.
Well, I, I personally am not on social media at all. I think partly it, because of that principle, like I am a little, uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't like that. I don't like that feeling that, you know, if you don't know what the product is, you're the product. Um, and so our, our, our, our time and attention is that product.
Um, as not to say that I, uh, you know, flitter away my time with other pursuits, but, um, It's an interesting job from Travis to companies like Facebook and Snapchat and Instagram saying, you know, our business model doesn't rely on, uh, monetizing people's time and attention. We're actually giving that back to people.
Trying to think. It's interesting though, that in a way, if you take a social network such as Facebook, or you take an Airbnb and Uber, they're all walking this fine line of exploitation, right? Yeah. I mean, it, they're, they're finding the arbitrage, right? It's like, can we get the drivers to drive for a low enough price, you know, to get all the users on board?
Um, And, you know, if they can, then their business model works, if not then than it does it. Yeah, I am. I find this really interesting. What I love about their business model is how clean it is because the people using our pain, whereas the, the, the. The challenge that I have with Facebook is in the end of the day, they're exploiting their customer to, to resell that to a third party.
And that's just feels dangerous to me, um, from just thinking pure business model perspective, because, you know, you're essentially beholding to the trust that your users have of you. And if you ever, uh, break that, I mean, it's easy to break and hard to gain. So it feels long term, you know, the likes of Google, Facebook, Snapchat, et cetera, have quite a big risk around trust, uh, to a certain extent through behalves, but there's more of a direct relationship.
You pay them. You're the customer, your pain, you're receiving the service and that there's not this introduction, um, of a third pane party. However, there are obviously drivers, um, involved in the, in the picture here. Um, Very interesting. A breakdown on time, right? Yeah. I'm, it'll be very interesting to see, you know, how the Uber business model plays out, you know, can, can they make Uber, you know, cheaper than owning a car?
And if so, does that mean that no one will own cars. They'll just Uber around everywhere. It that's what they're betting on, but we have to, you know, we'll have to still wait. Right, right. So what's, uh, what's coming up next week. We've got, we've gone into, into the time head space. Um, I think he got another clip on more of a personal angle, right?
Yeah. I think one of Arianna's initiatives, um, with her own company thrive global is, um, Speaking about the benefits of sleep and, and distressing yourself, you know, to not overwork yourself, which I think is in some ways indirect conflict with Travis's, um, you know, history as an entrepreneur and CEO at, at, at Uber.
And so here's, um, here's Travis kind of talking about, um, How he's matured, uh, through the years while working as CEO of Uber, if I'm super honest, like I was, you know, I, as an entrepreneur, I've matured over time. Right. And so I was I've, you know, I'm less mature today than I will be tomorrow. And. Um, yeah, I used to, I used to think that not sleeping was a good thing, a competitive advantage.
And it was really interesting because I was sort of in my own process of maturation as an entrepreneur, which I've been, you know, since the beginning, but I was sort of realizing that that was dumb. And then we meet. Hmm. Oh, I just found that the, that, uh, such a telling, uh, insight into the growth he's been on.
Um, and I hear that and I just think, wow. And he's been able to get the company this far. I mean, it seems, seems, I don't know. Who's gone on the biggest scale-up Travis or the company. Yeah, I think, um, for anyone interested in a, in a deeper look into, uh, the history of Uber and Travis beginnings, there's a brand new book called wild ride inside Uber's quest for world domination, uh, written by Adam Lashinsky who's, uh, wrote the, some books about Apple and, and others.
Um, it's really great. You should, you should check it out. We'll put it in the show notes, but I think. My answer is I think Travis has been forced into the biggest transformation, uh, simply because for one person to be in charge of the company over the, this growth trajectory, you know, no one has done that as quickly, uh, in the CEO position as Travis, like he's, as far as I know the only person that's had to go through that insane growth in such a short period of time.
Not only for the company, but for himself personally, which is why it's interesting, um, that he connected with Arianna Huffington, who is seemingly on the outside, kind of a very opposed personality in a way. Yes, I think, but I think that's exactly what he needs. And, um, I think that, you know, I was reflecting on this and what to me is really obvious is how exceptional Zuckerberg was because Zuckerberg went into recruited Sheryl Sandberg.
And what is clean now is travel. Travis really needed his own Cheryl didn't me. And so, so it really sets him up, um, You know, I was thinking about other, what I call the cursed founder CEO. And it reminds me of Jerry Yang, uh, founder and CEO at one time of Yahoo. And then I was researching this. Have you ever heard of the, uh, uh, this guy called David, uh, Nella, man.
Have you heard of this guy? No. Okay, so check this out. He founded a jet blue, but he's also founded like three other airlines. And he's like the, the, the world's biggest archetype of the cursed founder CEO, because he always founds and then has to move on. So he found, um, jet blue. Um, I'm going to look up this list of companies while we're chatting.
It's um, it's off the charts the guy has like, and setting up an airline. It's no small pass, right? Yeah. I mean, very few people have done it. Yeah. So he's, he's done Morrissey. WestJet JetBlue and he's now currently the Azu Brazilian airlines CEO. So amazing to have, have done all that, but I just, I just see a lot of challenges ahead for Travis.
And I think he was, you know, if I could pinpoint one thing organizationally, he doesn't have a Sheryl Sandberg. It's nice to have Ariana, but, um, he needs a, he needs a share on, I don't know if he can come back from this, what would you say? Yeah, I think. Uh, at the, at the start of Uber, someone that was very integral into helping Travis, uh, run operations was Ryan Graves kind of one of the early, um, early people at the company.
And I think that they've just, they just haven't recruited, did enough experienced executives fast enough. I don't think they realized how fast that they would have to do that. And I think that that's, what's kind of come back to bite them now. Um, They were on an unprecedented accelerated growth rate, you know, they just didn't know simply how quickly they had to hire people and find their sheriffs.
And, yeah. Yeah. And so we want to be fair to Travis here. This growth is unprecedented, so you know, what you're hiring for today could be very different tomorrow, but he did attempt to get, um, uh, a guy called Jeff Jones, who was the CMO at target. And, um, Jeff actually joined. Um, but he lasted only six months.
And when he, when he left, he left, um, in a, not too, uh, easy way. Uh, he, he really said the culture is rotten and I'm outta here. So, so there were a few others that around the same time as well, where. I know that Travis and the executive team in advance did, you know, dozens of hours in hiring in vetting and hiring these people.
But. Um, and they didn't last very long. Yeah. And so one of the greatest ironies here is that for all of the role of the tech and business success, how limited that is, if you don't have the people thing. Right. So they've got great product, great business model, and the people is where they fall short. And this reminds me of a great framework for our listeners.
If you're wa before you get too deep into, you know, your, your little innovation or your disruption or product. Think about your, your new company, uh, in these terms, people, product and profit. And you've got to have all of those three working together and quite clearly, and you know, Travis has, has really excelled with great product with great business model.
It doesn't own a single car. It's all good. But not having people. You're not having the culture to support that. I mean, you would need, literally have needed the golden state warriors of executives, um, in order to get this job done. So in fairness to him, it would have been one in a million chance of having the people.
Yeah. You know, they're in the unfortunate or fortunate, depending on how you see it situation of, of being in. That, that hyper growth trajectory that, that no other company has experienced to date. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think, you know, we could, we could jam on, on PO Travis for hours, but I know we have one more great clip around this idea of story, which, which I think speaks a lot to, to where Uber's at.
Do you want to, do you want to set this up for the listeners and we'll, we'll give one last clip, uh, a run. Oh, I it's, it's an interesting kind of meta commentary. You know, here we are sitting here, you know, talking about, uh, Uber and everything that Travis has done or not done there. Um, it's just an interesting reflection on the, his part, um, about the power of story.
If you grow like we've grown and you don't, you're like a black box, you're not telling your story. You're showing by example and an action speak louder than words, all of these things and people fill that box. With whatever gets clicks, you know? And so, so you need to, one of the things that we, you know, that has an N w a guy with an engineering background, you have to learn how to, how to tell your story.
Um, I, you know, he's so right. Um, you know, when you're pitching for investment to customers, when you're even trying to pitch people, you're recruiting to your company, you need to have the story. And, and I think I would defer to Gino. You must know Chad Simon Sinek and the power of Y, right? Yeah. I love that book.
Right for our listeners. We'll put it in the show notes, go to moonshots, uh, dot IO. Um, this is a really incredible book and it, what I want to characterize for, for everyone is like, you have to realize that most engineering, uh, entrepreneurs and innovators like Travis, um, they are obsessed with what they do.
Okay. We have a widget that does something, right. And this is their preoccupation. Right. But the problem is other human beings really don't care so much about the, what they care about, how you do something. And the hat is more like, how are you different? What's the style. What's the way in which you get the, what dumb that makes you so special.
So often in, in, in. Executive, uh, speak. It's like, what's your USP or your point of difference. Um, but even more so, so at the, the biggest point of it, it's like, why are you doing this? And, and I always try to Franklin people don't say why you were doing it, but also why are you doing this in terms of what happens in the world?
When you do your thing in your special way, what's the net positive impact. And you can see, but what Travis is saying, Is, uh, they were going so fast. They were busy with the watt and everybody sort of disconnected with how they were doing things and why they were doing things. And I felt that if he had had that framework where he could have talked about that, uh, I think he could have done a much better job at least externally don't you think?
Yeah. And I think just like you said, it's his circumstances that really forced him into the what and the execution and making sure that it happened. Um, and that it didn't, you know, that things didn't just unravel for him, which could have been, it could have easily been the case. Right. You know, Uber would not have gotten to this point of over $60 billion valuation without Travis, Sarah at, at the helm.
But I think he's in this clip really finally realizing, well, you know what, we probably didn't do the best job of telling our own story. And now we're going to make that, you know, more important in a core part of what we do. Yeah, and I, and I think you can still see the journey he's got because he's still a little bit, um, and if, if, if folks go and have a listen to the entire tour, he's still a little bit blaming others for filling in the gaps of, uh, of the story.
Uh, he's got to make a little bit of a jump to, Hey, my story, I have to, I have to own it, but I think he, he think he could get there. Um, But, you know, when I reflect on this, I guess like with the benefit of hindsight, Chad, what, where do you think, uh, he could have done things differently? What are the few things that you take out of this, like note to self?
What are the big learnings on this one from, from looking at Travis? I think you put it well, when you said, start with, with the Y and. With, with Uber, I think focusing on, you know, their core service of moving people and things within cities and how that gives people more time to do the things that they want to do and giving partners or, or drivers opportunities to earn a living.
I think those are. The core elements of Uber's story, you know, focusing on the drivers that are able to make an extra buck, to buy a gift for their daughter for their birthday and, uh, getting cancer patients to their appointments. These are things that I know that they are doing. Um, but somehow that's not, uh, they're not.
Yeah, it's just not coming through all the noise. Um, and so I think they've been stuck in this reactionary mode instead of like discovering and going deep into their own story and really owning it and really, um, you know, Pushing it out there in an offensive way. And, um, by having that, that frame of telling your story better, um, you look at the contrast between him and Ian and man Ilan is so out in front, like he's just got the world awaiting his next, his next announcement.
Whereas with Uber, you can tell like the they're insane, they're on the back foot and they're just continually. Um, protecting and defending. Um, so for sure, I love it. I do think, um, another big learning for me was, you know, Travis doesn't have to have all the answers, but he, they needed to, to, to bring a council Yeti on board, he desperately needed to Sheryl Sandberg.
Right? Yeah. It's it feels like, like a mini, he needed a mini Ariana, um, to be full time on staff, not just a board member. I mean, he paid, he needs a much sooner. Oh, it feels like two years ago, right? Yeah. Um, yeah. So any other things I think with the benefit of hindsight, he could have done. I'm not sure that I have have much to add.
I would, I would just like to know more about, about Uber, uh, from, from Uber, from Uber insiders. I, again, I don't think that they, if, from my perspective have done a great job of sharing that information, you know, w I think a lot of yours in my exposure is these, these articles, you know, that are getting clicks as Travis says.
And, um, At some point, you know, Uber is going to have to see the media as an ally for them to be able to, to share their story. Um, but I mean, I'm not a PR strategists, so I don't know that I have some specific strategies. Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's this. I mean, it's a bit controversial, but maybe they, they just pushed too hot on the gas pedal.
Maybe they. They, it got a little too rough and bouncy along the way. Maybe they needed to just slow down. Like maybe Uber eats one of the newer initiatives. Maybe they should have put that on the back burner, you know, kept the trains running on time. So to speak because it seems like they just got a little too close to the sun.
Um, but luckily, you know, obviously there is some waste in there he's taking a time out. Um, the question is they have to get leadership in place. Um, that don't function. They don't only functionally get the job done, but behaviorly in terms of culture, um, really get it right, because as we said, they've got the business model, they've got the product.
It's it's whether they've got the, the people, the culture, um, to nurture a neutral of these, uh, You know, possibilities, it's such a force for positive change in the world, but yeah, a lot of, a lot of hygiene and homework to get done in the meantime, remarkable story. Yeah. And I'm glad we were able to, uh, to get together and kind of put this podcast, um, together on such short, short notice.
You know, we wanted to kind of jump onto the, under the, the media cycle and be sure that we, um, You know, providing you our listeners some information and in context for. And what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And a great contrast to our first one. I think, um, Chad, you want to give a shout out? We got some great, um, feedback and support from folks.
Um, you want to give a shout out to some of those folks? Yeah. Thank you everyone. To, uh, to listening on our first podcast on eon Moscow specifically want to say thank you to Travis and Christine and Shannon, uh, for your reviews and feedback on the show. Um, It means a lot to us, uh, that you take the time to, you know, go on this journey with us exploring the lives of these innovators, disruptors founders.
And, uh, in the, in the great companies that they're, that they're trying to build, um, I'd encourage all of you to follow everything that we're doing here@moonshots.io. And, uh, Mike, do you have anything else to add? Let's let's say, well, we should, um, uh, Say that short of, um, some more news fairies dropping.
We will do, uh, Jeff Bezos, uh, for our next episode. So looking forward to him, uh, I put in right up there with Ilan. What about you, Chad Ilan, Jeff greatest innovator of our time. Where were you coming at? I don't know. I'm really kind of falling in love with the story of, of Amazon as I'm doing kind of some deep background research.
Um, I think in terms of law, I think Jeff Bezos has the longevity on Elan. Um, so we may just need a little bit more time to see, uh, to see where both of their companies end up. Yes. And we should mention that, that Jeff's been busy. He just bought a little company called whole foods, which is very exciting, kind of different coming from different places on culture day.
You know, Jeff is, is very hard on value and price. Uh, whole foods is certainly, certainly not that. So what, in combination, we're going to be studying that in the, and discussing that in the next show. Um, I think we should invite listeners, send us all your ideas and feedback. Um, please, uh, we need you guys to tell us what works and what doesn't, uh, the show notes.
Chad, we're going to put all of the show notes together with all the goodies from this episode, where will they find those show notes? On moonshots that I owe and please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, your pod, catcher of choice. You can also find us on SoundCloud, um, and leave us a review.
We really appreciate it. Absolutely. All right, Chad, great chatting all things, Uber and I can't wait to talk about Amazon and basis next week and speak to you next time. Thanks. Bye.