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

by Brad Stone

That fall, complaints by taxi drivers and yellow-cab fleet owners about a new unlicensed competitor started to pour into the offices of city and state regulators. They claimed it was illegal and should be shut down. So on October 20, 2010, four months after the launch, when Graves was at a board meeting at First Round Capital with Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, four government enforcement officers walked into the tiny UberCab office. Two were from the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulated limousines and town cars, and two were from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which regulated taxis. The plainclothes officers flashed badges, and then one of them held up a clipboard with a cease-and-desist letter and a large, glossy head shot of a smiling Ryan Graves. Waving the photograph around the room, he demanded: “Do you know this man?”

Uber's first regulatory crisis