Sunil Paul, a serial entrepreneur and longtime transportation geek, was experimenting with a different way of offering rides to people with his San Francisco–based startup, Sidecar. Paul saw what Uber was doing and appreciated their intensity and aggression. But Paul realized there was a much larger market opportunity in what he called “peer-to-peer ride-sharing.” That is, instead of focusing on professional limo drivers, Paul wanted to convince normal, everyday people who owned cars to become part-time drivers themselves. The way Paul saw it, the roads were already packed with underutilized
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