Mike Isaac – Norton: £19.99
It is not unusual in Silicon Valley for head office to lay on dinner for the employees. The cost is nugatory in these fabulously money-rich tech companies and it encourages people to work past quitting time, and eat before going home. It is typical of Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, that he gave this practice a twist – he stipulated that dinner would not be served before 8:15 p.m. And that story is about the most benign thing we learn about him in Mike Isaac’s wonderfully lucid account of Kalanick and the business he built in his own monstrous image. Dazzling growth, commitment to excess, chicanery, toxic culture, contempt for the rules and a single-minded determination to fight dirty and win big, Uber may be the most egregious exemplar of the great Silicon Valley enfants terribles.
Have you taken an Uber recently? … Are you sure you still want to?
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