“There’s been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture that if you ask for permission upfront for something that’s already legal, you’ll never get it,” Kalanick once told a reporter. Kalanick evidently believed there was no way Uber could win if it played by the rules—his competition certainly wouldn’t. The founder’s instinct proved correct. Uber’s guerilla tactics far outmatched the resources and technical acumen of government workers or taxi operators. In Seattle, for instance, Austin Geidt dropped in like a paratrooper, quickly hiring
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
