Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber PDF

Author: Mike Isaac

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 0393652254

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Now a SHOWTIME® original series starring Emmy winners Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kyle Chandler and Academy Award nominee Uma Thurman. Now streaming – Only on SHOWTIME. Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, Fortune, Bloomberg, Sunday Times A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice “If you want to understand modern-day Silicon Valley, you need to read this book.” —John Carreyrou, New York Times best-selling author of Bad Blood Hailed as the definitive book on Uber and Silicon Valley, Super Pumped is an epic 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. 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. 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.

Billion Dollar Loser

Billion Dollar Loser PDF

Author: Reeves Wiedeman

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2020-10-20

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0316461342

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A Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller: This "vivid" inside story of WeWork and its CEO tells the remarkable saga of one of the most audacious, and improbable, rises and falls in American business history (Ken Auletta). Christened a potential savior of Silicon Valley's startup culture, Adam Neumann was set to take WeWork, his office share company disrupting the commercial real estate market, public, cash out on the company's forty-seven billion dollar valuation, and break the string of major startups unable to deliver to shareholders. But as employees knew, and investors soon found out, WeWork's capital was built on promises that the company was more than a real estate purveyor, that in fact it was a transformational technology company. Veteran journalist Reeves Weideman dives deep into WeWork and it CEO's astronomical rise, from the marijuana and tequila-filled board rooms to cult-like company summer camps and consciousness-raising with Anthony Kiedis. Billion Dollar Loser is a character-driven business narrative that captures, through the fascinating psyche of a billionaire founder and his wife and co-founder, the slippery state of global capitalism. A Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller “Vivid, carefully reported drama that readers will gulp down as if it were a fast-paced novel” (Ken Auletta)

The Cult of We

The Cult of We PDF

Author: Eliot Brown

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2021-07-20

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0593237129

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WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.

Whistleblower

Whistleblower PDF

Author: Susan Fowler

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0525560149

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“A powerful illustration of the obstacles our society continues to throw up in the paths of ambitious young women.” —The New York Times Book Review “Important . . . empowering.” —Gayle King, CBS This Morning "That [Fowler] became a whistle-blower and a pioneer of a social movement almost seems inevitable once you get to know her. Uber should have seen her coming.” —San Francisco Chronicle Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR Susan Fowler was just twenty-five years old when her blog post describing the sexual harassment and retaliation she'd experienced at Uber riveted the nation. Her post would eventually lead to the ousting of Uber's powerful CEO, but its ripples extended far beyond that, as her courageous choice to attach her name to the post inspired other women to speak publicly about their experiences. In the year that followed, an unprecedented number of women came forward, and Fowler was recognized by Time as one of the "Silence Breakers" who ignited the #MeToo movement. Here, she shares her full story: a story of extraordinary determination and resilience that reveals what it takes--and what it means--to be a whistleblower. Long before she arrived at Uber, Fowler's life had been defined by her refusal to accept her circumstances. She propelled herself from an impoverished childhood with little formal education to the Ivy League, and then to a coveted position at one of the most valuable companies in the history of Silicon Valley. Each time she was mistreated, she fought back or found a way to reinvent herself; all she wanted was the opportunity to define her own dreams and work to achieve them. But when she discovered Uber's pervasive culture of sexism, racism, harassment, and abuse, and that the company would do nothing about it, she knew she had to speak out—no matter what it cost her. Whistleblower takes us deep inside this shockingly toxic workplace and reveals new details about the aftermath of the blog post, in which Fowler was investigated and followed, hacked and threatened, to the point that she feared for her life. But even as it illuminates how the deck is stacked in favor of the status quo, Fowler's story serves as a crucial reminder that we can take our power back. Both moving personal narrative and rallying cry, Whistleblower urges us to be the heroes of our own stories, and to keep fighting for a more just and equitable world.

Facebook

Facebook PDF

Author: Steven Levy

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 073521316X

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One of the Best Technology Books of 2020—Financial Times “Levy’s all-access Facebook reflects the reputational swan dive of its subject. . . . The result is evenhanded and devastating.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[Levy’s] evenhanded conclusions are still damning.”—Reason “[He] doesn’t shy from asking the tough questions.”—The Washington Post “Reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire.”—NPR.org The definitive history, packed with untold stories, of one of America’s most controversial and powerful companies: Facebook As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO—who has enormous power over what the world sees and says—never has a company been more central to the national conversation. Millions of words have been written about Facebook, but no one has told the complete story, documenting its ascendancy and missteps. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life, or the imperative of this book to document the unchecked power and shocking techniques of the company, from growing at all costs to outmaneuvering its biggest rivals to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram, to developing a platform so addictive even some of its own are now beginning to realize its dangers. Based on hundreds of interviews from inside and outside Facebook, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

Troublemakers

Troublemakers PDF

Author: Leslie Berlin

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 145165152X

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Acclaimed historian Leslie Berlin’s “deeply researched and dramatic narrative of Silicon Valley’s early years…is a meticulously told…compelling history” (The New York Times) of the men and women who chased innovation, and ended up changing the world. Troublemakers is the gripping tale of seven exceptional men and women, pioneers of Silicon Valley in the 1970s and early 1980s. Together, they worked across generations, industries, and companies to bring technology from Pentagon offices and university laboratories to the rest of us. In doing so, they changed the world. “In this vigorous account…a sturdy, skillfully constructed work” (Kirkus Reviews), historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the Internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, ASK, and the iconic venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In the space of only seven years, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital, and advanced semiconductor logic—were born. “There is much to learn from Berlin’s account, particularly that Silicon Valley has long provided the backdrop where technology, elite education, institutional capital, and entrepreneurship collide with incredible force” (The Christian Science Monitor). Featured among well-known Silicon Valley innovators are Mike Markkula, the underappreciated chairman of Apple who owned one-third of the company; Bob Taylor, who masterminded the personal computer; software entrepreneur Sandra Kurtzig, the first woman to take a technology company public; Bob Swanson, the cofounder of Genentech; Al Alcorn, the Atari engineer behind the first successful video game; Fawn Alvarez, who rose from the factory line to the executive suite; and Niels Reimers, the Stanford administrator who changed how university innovations reach the public. Together, these troublemakers rewrote the rules and invented the future.

Information Wars

Information Wars PDF

Author: Richard Stengel

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Published: 2019-10-08

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0802147992

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A “well-told” insider account of the State Department’s twenty-first-century struggle to defend America against malicious propaganda and disinformation (The Washington Post). Disinformation is nothing new. When Satan told Eve nothing would happen if she bit the apple, that was disinformation. But today, social media has made disinformation even more pervasive and pernicious. In a disturbing turn of events, authoritarian governments are increasingly using it to create their own false narratives, and democracies are proving not to be very good at fighting it. During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, former editor of Time, was an Under Secretary of State on the front lines of this new global information war—tasked with unpacking, disproving, and combating both ISIS’s messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, during the 2016 election, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again; Putin tried to make Russia great again; and we know the rest. In Information Wars, Stengel moves through Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and introduces characters from Putin to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Mohamed bin Salman, to show how disinformation is impacting our global society. He illustrates how ISIS terrorized the world using social media, and how the Russians launched a tsunami of disinformation around the annexation of Crimea—a scheme that would became a model for future endeavors. An urgent book for our times, now with a new preface from the author, Information Wars challenges us to combat this ever-growing threat to democracy. “[A] refreshingly frank account . . . revealing.” —Kirkus Reviews “This sobering book is indeed needed to help individuals better understand how information can be massaged to produce any sort of message desired.” —Library Journal

Wild Ride

Wild Ride PDF

Author: Adam Lashinsky

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0735211396

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Uber is one of the most fascinating and controversial businesses in the world, both beloved for its elegant ride-hailing concept and heady growth, and condemned for CEO Travis Kalanick's ruthless pursuit of success at all cost. In 'Wild Ride', Adam Lashinsky, veteran Fortune writer and author of 'Inside Apple', traces the story of Uber's meteoric rise: from its murky origins to its plans for expansion into radically different industries.

The Airbnb Story

The Airbnb Story PDF

Author: Leigh Gallagher

Publisher: Virgin Books Limited

Published: 2017-02-16

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780753545584

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In 2008, two broke art school graduates and their coder-whiz friend set up a platform that - in less than a decade - became the largest provider of accommodations in the world. Now valued at $30 billion, Airbnb is in the very top tier of Silicon Valley's 'unicorn' startups. Yet the company has not been without controversy - disrupting a $500 billion hotel industry makes you a few enemies. This is also a story of regulators who want to shut it down, hotel industry leaders who want it to disappear and neighbourhoods that struggle with private homes open for public rental. But beyond the headlines and the horror stories, Airbnb has changed the terms of travel for a whole generation - where a sense of belonging has built trust between hosts and guests seeking a more original travel experience that hotels have struggled to replicate. This is the first, definitive book to tell the remarkable story behind Airbnb in all its forms - cultural zeitgeist, hotel disruptor, enemy to regulators - and the first in-depth character study of its leader Brian Chesky, the company's curious co-founder and CEO. It reveals what got Airbnb where it is today, why they are nothing like Uber, and where they are going next.

The Upstarts

The Upstarts PDF

Author: Brad Stone

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0316388386

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ONE OF AMAZON'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 A look deep inside the new Silicon Valley, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Everything Store Ten years ago, the idea of getting into a stranger's car, or a walking into a stranger's home, would have seemed bizarre and dangerous, but today it's as common as ordering a book online. Uber and Airbnb have ushered in a new era: redefining neighborhoods, challenging the way governments regulate business, and changing the way we travel. In the spirit of iconic Silicon Valley renegades like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, another generation of entrepreneurs is using technology to upend convention and disrupt entire industries. These are the upstarts, idiosyncratic founders with limitless drive and an abundance of self-confidence. Led by such visionaries as Travis Kalanick of Uber and Brian Chesky of Airbnb, they are rewriting the rules of business and often sidestepping serious ethical and legal obstacles in the process. The Upstarts is the definitive story of two new titans of business and a dawning age of tenacity, conflict and wealth. In Brad Stone's riveting account of the most radical companies of the new Silicon Valley, we discover how it all happened and what it took to change the world.