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Super pumped : the battle for Uber
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2019
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Kirkus Review
A gripping journalistic drama that reveals the details of Uber's meteoric rise and precipitous fall.As a Gerald Loeb Award-winning technology reporter for the New York Times, first-time author Isaac has a front-row seat to Silicon Valley's hotshot companies and founders. In the early 2010s, that meant covering the "unicorn of unicorns" (startups valued at $1 billion or more), Uber, and its founder, Travis Kalanick. As the author clearly shows, the startup worked quickly, subversively winding its way into major cities (even internationally) and breaking dozens of local regulations en route. However, at the same time, the company's value skyrocketed as it continued to accept massive amounts of funding from several major Silicon Valley funders. Through hundreds of interviews, Isaac pulls back the curtain on the appallingly destructive and misogynistic "bro" culture that was lurking in the shadows. Kalanick was indeed a Wizard of Oz-like charactera magical tech founder who could do no wrongbut he was ultimately revealed as a troubled and deeply flawed leader. It's nearly impossible not to compare this book to last year's superb Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou, which told the story of Elizabeth Holmes and the now-defunct biotech startup Theranos. The difference here is that Uber was a wildly successful and entirely real company. Like Holmes, Kalanick was slowly found out, leading to Uber's disastrous 2017, which Isaac calls one of the single most destructive years for a corporation in American history. The book is not only an indictment of Uber itself, but of Silicon Valley's founder-worship of the early and mid-2010s, during which those with that holy title were often "treated as Platonic philosopher kings." It will force readers to reconsider their use of Uber and other ride-sharing companies.A page-turning, noteworthy book that adds to the growing library exposing Silicon Valley's not-so-glamorous underbelly. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Summary
New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller

A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic story of Uber, the Silicon Valley startup at the center of one of the great venture capital power struggles of our time.

In June 2017, Travis Kalanick, the hard-charging CEO of Uber, was ousted in a boardroom coup that capped a brutal year for the transportation giant. Uber had catapulted to the top of the tech world, yet for many came to symbolize everything wrong with Silicon Valley.

Award-winning New York Times technology correspondent Mike Isaac's Super Pumped presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against an era of rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley. Backed by billions in venture capital dollars and led by a brash and ambitious founder, Uber promised to revolutionize the way we move people and goods through the world. A near instant "unicorn," Uber seemed poised to take its place next to Amazon, Apple, and Google as a technology giant.

What followed would become a corporate cautionary tale about the perils of startup culture and a vivid example of how blind worship of startup founders can go wildly wrong. Isaac recounts Uber's pitched battles with taxi unions and drivers, the company's toxic internal culture, and the bare-knuckle tactics it devised to overcome obstacles in its quest for dominance. With billions of dollars at stake, Isaac shows how venture capitalists asserted their power and seized control of the startup as it fought its way toward its fateful IPO.

Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a page-turning story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history.

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