The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World

by Brad Stone

It was going to be a global mega-unicorn death match—over the largest transportation market in the world.

Yet the true measure of an entrepreneur is how well he or she can identify new opportunities, and so, not surprisingly, in the fall of 2016, both Brian Chesky and Travis Kalanick were ready to talk about the future.

Competing makes you strong because it means you’re serving riders and drivers better. As an entrepreneur, you want to see if the way you’ve created is a way that can work. Sometimes it’s really easy to go and acquire a competitor, but we resisted that.”