Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Hardcover – September 3, 2019

Halfway through and yes, it's quite remarkable. It is like the author was hiding behind doorways in some conversations.So far, and admittedly I haven't seen all of it, I think it feels fair and even-handed, not over-sensational.The writing is also very good -- fast reading and I'm finding myself obsessed with this story.Hard not to compare it to Bad Blood, equally juicy. The difference is that we all saw this -- we were all riding Ubers and loving the convenience and celebrating the fact that is has transformed urban transportation.And we all knew someone who worked there and hated the culture -- but who wanted to stay to cash out.Will update more in a day or two, with more thoughts and details.UPDATE: <100 pages to goI am obsessed with this book and the story. I find it so amazing that such a large, transformative company was run just so poorly. I'm at the point where Bad Boy Travis is taking a break from the company -- and I do feel sorry for him, up to a point. I don't feel sorry for the enablers -- some whom I think Isaac let off pretty lightly. In fact, many of the characters he describes show up (at least up to this point) as quite admirable, such as the CTO Thuan Pham, among others.I cannot wait to talk about this book with friends and observers. I am less sanguine that it cannot happen again, and again and again, because the whole startup/crazy money chasing the next big thing/bro culture has no reason to change.UPDATE: finished the book and just raced through toward the end. I think everyone interested in startups/disruption and tech in general should read this book, for what it says about the whole cycle of money-funding-new-ideas.Was riveted by the ins and outs of Benchmark's actions and how one of the most founder-friendly firms in Silicon Valley, could push out a CEO who controls the shares and the board!Yes, I loved reading the book but am saddened the the problems will not go away because there's too much money sloshing around looking for the next big thing, with investors all FOMO about the next bro startup. Kalanick, who Mike Isaac described as having a philosophy of "Ayn Rand meets Wolf of Wall Street," is part of the system, not an outlier. Susan Fower's "very strange year" at Uber is happening again in firms all over, venture firms are ignoring women founders, and tools like AI propogate the same old ideas. Sigh.Still, it's great to dissect how this very visible company jumped the shark, and keep the conversation going about how Silicon Valley, innovators, and investors can do much, much better.OK, sermon over.Thanks for reading.

Mike Isaac's Super Pumped on Uber is an overall good first effort from the NYT journalist, although it doesn't live up to the high watermark set by John Carreyrou's Bad Blood on Theranos.Super Pumped truly shines in its later chapters: Isaac's blow-by-blow coverage of Uber founder Travis Kalanick's ouster kept me on the edge of my seat, as did his description of the successor CEO selection process. Isaac is without a doubt a stellar reporter, having unearthed a number of details I did not know from previous coverage of the (in)famous Silicon Valley company. He is thorough with the scoops and maintains a consistent voice throughout.The things I liked less about Super Pumped could all be ascribed to the fact that Isaac struggles somewhat in making the transition from writing newspaper articles to writing a book. The beginning and ending chapters are linear, resulting in a smooth story. The middle chapters' timeline doesn't follow the same path, resulting in a more confusing narrative as there is a lot going on: Uber's growth in cities, outside the US, as well as its challenges. At times, Isaac is more concerned about highlighting how the journalistic scoop unfolded rather than zooming in on the actual story. Additionally, Isaac's providing a few sentences on background is perfectly acceptable for a newspaper article, but seems "jumpy" in a book. For instance, we've already been introduced to Plouffe (Uber's political strategist) in the prologue, no need to reiterate his resume in Chapter 12 - it's just an unnecessary "break" in the story.Other nits to pick: Isaac mentions that the term "unicorn" was coined in 2013 by a venture capitalist, but doesn't call out that venture capitalist’s name (Aileen Lee) - a bummer for a book where the treatment of women in tech is a prominent subject. Also, I occasionally scratched my head at the author's apparent obsession with people's height. Few of the characters escaped a comment on that topic, even when it seemed irrelevant to their story (with the exception of Bill Gurley, of course).I'm grateful for the read though, not least because it ends on what I think is an optimistic note. Isaac shows us glimpses of the seeds of redemption for Kalanick. I'm hopeful one day I'll read the book on that story too.

I just finished reading an excellent new book that was just released last week. It is one of the best written and thoroughly researched books about the technology world that I have read.It’s the complete inside story of Uber from it’s earliest beginnings all the way up to and including the ouster and replacement of its founder and egocentric CEO Travis Kalanick and how the company he started came perilously close to going down in flames and for which the jury is still out.I really enjoyed this book and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in the Silicon Valley world of startups, big money venture capital, technology, rampant arrogance and all things excess. The author, Mike Isaac, is a senior technical reporter for the New York Times who has closely followed and written hundreds of articles about Uber since 2014.This is a GREAT read!!!👍👍👍👍👍

A shocking to me number of people named in this book are folks I know from having been in SF and Silicon Valley since 2005. So not sure I have an unbiased way of reading this excellent book. But biased as I am (towards the camp that Uber represents a lot of bad patterns) this book was a fantastic read. Engaging and well written and clearly exceptionally well sourced.The story is far from over but ending just after the IPO is as good a place as any - though I anticipate that there may need to be further updates/postscripts added to future editions of this book. Editions which I’m confident will likely be needed as this book should be part of a library of books recommended to anyone building or considering working at a startup.