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

by Brad Stone

he pissed almost everyone off,” she told me. And yet. By December, with Uber spreading like wildfire through the capital, and knowing that its users were ready and willing to defend the service, Cheh and her colleagues saw the writing on the wall. On December 4, the Public Vehicle-for-Hire Innovation Amendment Act defined without ambiguity a new class of sedans that could be dispatched via a smartphone app and could charge by time and distance. It passed the Washington, DC, city council unanimously, garnering even Jim Graham’s vote, without debate.18 “The real issue is how receptive the government is to the progress of the people,” Kalanick told me a few years later. “It’s not about the city council or the government, it’s actually about how the incumbent industry is persuading them, let’s say, to do what I would consider the wrong thing.” Ultimately, he added, “DC was very receptive. But it took them time to see it and feel it.” Uber had flexed its political muscles for the first time, and won. A new tactic was then added to the playbook: when traditional advocacy failed, Uber could mobilize its user base and direct their passion toward elected officials. Uber was not the first company to employ this tactic, but it quickly became among the best at it. In its ensuing first wave of political battles—in places like Cambridge, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Chicago—Uber would enlist the support of its customers and, usually, win. Kalanick had broken every rule in the advoca...

Uber Political Strategy