[MBA China (Reuters) - Whether you love him fearless ambition, or hate his hard-nosed, Travis • Karan Nick is a long-term occupation headlines company villain. Since Uber took the lead in connecting a city man and driver who is looking for a taxi through a simple smartphone app, his private company, run at the San Francisco headquarters, has become a global phenomenon. In 2016, Uber, now in 76 countries, provided $20 billion worth of travel services and captured $6.5 billion in revenue. As the business flourished, investors in the startup continued to make heavy bets on Kalanick's creations. So far, the company has raised $17 billion in debt and venture capital and has astoundedly obtained valuations of up to $69 billion. At the same time, Karanic himself became notorious. In the eyes of many people, he is an entrepreneur who is self-righteous, defiance of any successful law, and unscrupulously pursues victory. As a Uber's masculine commander, he has spawned a corporate culture full of gender discrimination.
In the forthcoming book "Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination", Adam Lashinsky, executive editor of Fortune, retells the company order. The shocking rise of the process, and the various criticisms it has encountered along the way. He talked about the journey of the Uber story and also experienced a turbulent beginning: before the book was written, Karanic initially threatened to smash Rasinsky's writing plan, and he authorized another writer to write a biography. . Over time, Karanic finally became merciful and agreed to cooperate. Rasinski conducted several hours of interviews with him and other Uber executives. In an excerpt of your sneak peek, Rasinski walks with him on the streets of San Francisco, trying to figure out a tangled question that the CEO faces: Is the public's perception of him realistic? Is he really a jerk?
Although the clock has been pointed to 7:30 in the evening, the summer sun in San Francisco is still shining. I arrived at the Uber headquarters on time and prepared to conduct an extensive interview with CEO Travis Karanic. Since Uber has always been known for his long working hours, I was a little surprised when I saw that there were only a few scattered people in the office. Now in mid-July, young employees may be enjoying life outside. But it may also be because the company's team of employees is relaxing. At this point in 2016, after more than five years of full speed, they must have been exhausted.
Karanic himself controls the rhythm of Uber. In a few days, he will celebrate his 40th birthday. To a large extent, he still lives a caffeine-driven lifestyle of a young entrepreneur. He has had a fixed girlfriend for many years, but he has always adhered to singleism. A number of friends revealed that when they were not working, Karanic was actually in love with his family, but his loyalty to Uber was obviously much greater than any other relationship.
After a few minutes of the appointment, Karanic came to his desk. I am waiting patiently there. He has a private corner at the far end of the floor, where a few pieces of clothing remain, and a three-dimensional model of the Uber new headquarters – the new headquarters in Mission Bay is expected to be operational in 2019. The NBA Power Golden State Warriors are building a new arena opposite the street. Kalanic is not really sitting. His open desk is located in the main office of the company's fourth floor. It is not fancy, let alone the "corner office."
After a year-long study of Karanic, his former company, and Uber, I know that the interview needs to be flexible: he likes to be free, or at least likes to be a temperamental look. . We didn't discuss the interview agenda beforehand, just saying that we will continue to talk about the topic that started in China a month ago: his career. He told me that before starting the interview, he had something to show it to me - if I was willing to accept an unconventional suggestion.
"Okay, you have two choices," he announced. "We can go to that room." He pointed to a nearby conference room, one of the many meeting rooms for Uber's private conversation. "I will walk around there all the time. Or we can go for a walk."
Uber CEO Travis Karanic, filmed on March 18, 2013.
Jeffery Salter — Redux Pictures
I know that the real choice is to either "let Travis become Travis" or try to get as much information as possible from the interviewees. I choose to walk.
Strictly speaking, the story of Uber is not exactly the same as the story of Kalanick. This taxi service startup was not originally his idea. But there is no doubt that he is the central figure of Uber. It is Keyin's key insight (ie, the creation of freelancers, rather than hiring drivers, buying cars), transforming other people's "very interesting" entrepreneurial ideas into an indisputable breakthrough. Since Uber became popular for the first time and began to expand beyond San Francisco, he has been CEO and has a strong push to implement the iron fist policy, almost everywhere. As a result, Karanic has been equated with Uber, like Bill Gates to Microsoft, Steve Jobs to Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook.
The time for Karanic to start Uber is almost impeccable. This company perfectly reflects the characteristics of the next wave of information technology industry. It is definitely a "mobile first" company; if there is no iPhone, Uber will not be born. Almost from the beginning, it expanded on a global scale – in an era when packaged software and bulky computers were still the norm, it was simply unthinkable. In addition, Uber is the leader of the so-called “zero-employment economyâ€, cleverly combining its own technology with other people’s assets (their cars) and labor, paying them independent contractors instead of more expensive employees. welfare.
Today, Uber has more than 12,000 full-time employees, and about half of them are based in the Bay Area. Since we all picked up their jackets (in San Francisco, even a sunny July night is a bit cold), I guess walking means leaving the building. Yes, we will. But Karanic immediately explained that he wanted to take me to visit Uber's office. Like other pro-CEOs, in Kalanick's view, Uber's office not only reflects the company's values ​​and vision, but also an extension of his own personality.
The same is true of Jobs. Six months before his death, Jobs sat on the sofa in his living room and proudly showed me a series of architectural drawings from Apple's new headquarters campus - unfortunately, he failed to witness the building in his lifetime. A few months later, he personally negotiated with an arbiter and eventually chose to plant apricot trees around the new headquarters.
"Let's say it, do you know when the construction of a city started?" Kalanic said. “There are clean lines everywhere. It’s like a built city. So, this is a 'clean line.' We have five brand pillars: grounding, populism, inspirational, highly evolved, and solemn. This is the personality of Uber. â€
We are standing at his desk, overlooking the nerve center of the Uber office. After the security check, a visitor will see rows of adjacent desks. When Karanic repeated the “pillars†of these brands (ie grounding, populism, inspirational, highly evolved, and solemn), I nodded frequently to show approval. But I don't fully understand it. For me, these words are a bit embarrassing, no matter how enthusiasm he explains its meaning.
What he calls "grounding" means practicality. Uber represents the ultimate practicality: it uses technology to move people from one place to another. But when this concept comes from the mouth of a son of a municipal engineer, it has a new meaning. Kalanic explained, “Grounding is like a tone. It is a functional straight line. All the meeting rooms are named after the city, in alphabetical order, which is really practical.â€
I have heard that Kalanick is willing to put endless time into the details of the surface. However, I have not seen it with my own eyes. He is willing to study the seemingly mysterious and ethereal aspects of this complex enterprise.
As an example of Uber's "mantleness" trait, Kalanic points to the ceiling of the meeting and explains that it has an acoustically pure effect. Karanic has the ultimate requirement for quiet: "I don't like sound, I can't stand a lot of noise." He proudly claims that a building material called K-13 can achieve this effect. "When there are 800 people on this floor, this noise reduction can calm it down. So I can talk softly." He lowered his voice to an almost embarrassing soft whisper. "You can still hear clearly."
There is a corridor between the desk and the interior wall. Karanic invited me to look down at the concrete floor, where a complex pattern of intersecting lines was etched. "This is the San Francisco grid," he said. "I call it the road." During the entire working day, he was here to pacing back and forth, often while he was on the phone. "In the daytime, you will see me here, I have to walk 45 miles a week."
We then stepped into the fourth floor. Kalanick led me to visit "New York City." It was in this conference room that Uber finalized a $1.2 billion fundraising transaction, and the company subsequently moved into the Market Street office. "This is the first billion dollar dollar financing deal that has made many people crazy." He proudly declared.
We took the elevator to the 11th floor. This is one of the few floors Uber has occupied in this building. Kalanic has created a simple environment that mimics the entrepreneurial environment with exposed drywall and a desk that is smaller than normal.
“At least 99% of entrepreneurs are not as smooth as Mark Zuckerberg, you have to face hard years. So, I call this a cave, because you are experiencing difficult times, you are in the dark, and you really In a dark place. This is a metaphor," he said.
On the fifth floor, there are several conference rooms named after science fiction. Karanic’s sci-fi classics are like a few Jane Jane, just like a US civil war enthusiast can quickly tell a series of important battles. One conference room is named after Isaac Asimov’s “base†series, the other is named “Mars Rescue†and the third is named “Ande’s Gameâ€. He claims that the sci-fi theme is "highly evolving" - the term means the future. Uber is a company obsessed with the future. There is also a central area that is reminiscent of the Italian Square. The corridor leading to this area was deliberately designed to be confusing. In Karanic's worldview, losing direction is a good thing. "In this way, if you are a resident, you know where these corridors lead." This is the populist version of his design. "If you are a guest, you will lose your way. So you can judge who is the resident and who is the guest."
Finally, we bypassed Karanic’s desk and entered his secret exit, left the building along a flight of stairs, and walked to the street where the entrance to Uber’s office was. He told me that the plan for this trip was to walk along the main street market street across the city center to the San Francisco Bay embankment. From there, we will travel to the many Fisherman's Wharfs and then go to the Golden Gate Bridge. Although the afterglow of the sunset is incomparable, the temperature is falling.
This is what Los Angeles Karanic can't stand. "For any Los Angeles person, this is the most distressing. That's why I sometimes go back to Los Angeles for a weekend, even if I just feel the sun on the beach."
Kalanic looked full of thoughts. Along the way, he made impromptu comments on various things. For example, I said that I have rarely heard from Square recently that the payment company led by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is now in the same building as Uber. Although Uber is a private company and Square is a publicly traded company, Square has become very low profile. Kalanick said thoughtfully: "We really have no good to enjoy that state."
We started talking about Kalanick's entrepreneurial history, including desperately raising money for his P2P file-sharing startup Red Swoosh in the early 2000s. By the time we arrived at the San Francisco Bay embankment, the evening had already arrived. I want to know if he will be recognized when we walk. Not very likely, he said, as long as we are talking and being outdoors.
After Fisherman’s Wharf, we stepped into an Inâ€Nâ€Out burger store, the iconic Southern California fast food chain that is Karanic’s favorite. We started talking about driverless cars, and Karanic hinted that Uber is about to have a big move, but he can't talk about it. He revealed that this six-mile journey has long been a routine for his summer nights, and the Inâ€Nâ€Out burger is certainly a must. Moreover, Karanic has a walking companion who has no identity. I later learned that this companion is Anthony Lewandowski. This gentleman worked as an autonomous driving engineer at Google and later founded a self-driving truck company called Otto. Just a few weeks after I walked with Karanic, Uber spent $680 million to acquire Otto. Karanic told me that he took advantage of the opportunity to take a walk with Lewandowski to absorb the technical and business plan vision of autonomous vehicles.
After discussing Karanic’s entrepreneurial era, I want to know how he sees the fact that Uber has become a bigger, more mature company. His answer showed that he was not willing to look at the company in this way. He no longer knows everyone in the company, but he is still willing to have hours of interviews with senior job applicants. Kalanic explained that he likes to simulate the scene of working with him or her before officially hiring an employee.
I asked him if he likes to run a big company. “My management style makes this company feel not big.†Karanic returned to his favorite metaphor: he saw each workday as a series of problems that needed to be solved. He clearly believes that he is not only the CEO, but also the chief trouble terminal.
The hugeness is obviously terrible. “What I want to say is that you need to constantly make your company feel small. You need to create mechanisms and cultural values ​​to make your business feel as small as possible. This is how you stay innovative and fast.†When companies are at different scales, the way you achieve them is different. For example, when you are super-hours, you only need to use tribal knowledge to keep developing fast. But when the business is super big, if you only rely on the tribe Knowledge, then it becomes super turbulent, in fact you will develop very slowly. So you must constantly find the balance between order and chaos."
Given that the company's workforce is no longer a group of single young people who only work in life, I want to know how he manages Uber and steadily out of the purely entrepreneurial stage. "I call it the red line," he said. “When you drive a car, you can move fast. But you have a red line. Everyone has their own red line. You want to enter that red line and see how the engine is. You may find that you can extract The engine potential may be beyond your imagination. But you can't go beyond that red line for a long time. Everyone has their own red line."
He pointed out that there are already many "Uber Baby"; parents are often more efficient than those who have no children and have less time constraints. But Karanic’s expectations for employee work/life balance are also limited. “Well, if someone works more efficiently, they will be promoted faster. That's it. There is nothing to say.â€
After more than three hours of walking, the night has become cold and dark, and this conversation has become very personal. We talked about how Uber evolved from a media darling to a media villain. In the process of this great image change, Karanic is almost willing to play the role of a accomplices, often playing the villains personally, thus arousing raging anger. He said that these behaviors are his "arrogant moments, and I will make some provocative opinions."
I asked him if he cares about people's ideas. "Yes," he admitted, somewhat regretting himself. "It's not a good thing for Uber, myself, or my conversation."
Part of his problem is that Karanic can't seem to hide his defensive mentality or his troubles. He attributed his angry moments to "fiercely seeking truth." Those who are willing to say their true thoughts regardless of the feelings of others will always receive a rigorous evaluation. In this regard, he is not a case. This is a feature shared by Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, who was also a native of Karanic. Kalanick realized this, he mentioned that "the founder and CEO must be a bastard to succeed in this Internet culture meme." He resisted this view, but he is obviously not obsessed with it.
"I think this problem really exists." He then moved the topic from the general memes to himself. "'Hes a jerk?' Since you talked to me for so long, you will of course be asked this question. 'Is he a jerk?'"
After all, Kalanick is an engineer. He wants to believe that there is a scientific answer to this question. I said that the answers to such questions always depend on personal opinions and have nothing to do with the facts. He does not think so. "I tried to crack it. Is it true that I have some people provoke some feelings about things I have not done? Am I a jerk? I want to know." He continued: "I don't think I It’s a jerk. I’m pretty sure I’m not.â€
But I want to know if he cares about other people's ideas. "What I want to say is that if you are a truth seeker, you just want the truth. If you believe that something is not the truth, then you want to continue to pursue the truth. This is my thinking paradigm."
Karanic is unlikely to hear the truth version he longs for. A few weeks after this walk, New York magazine published an exclusive interview with Bradley Tusk. Tusk is a political consultant who has provided consulting services for Uber in a number of regulatory struggles. When it comes to his own willingness to accept "some snipers" for the right reasons, Tusk compares himself to Karanic. "He knows that if you want to do something big, you will annoy many people." Then, the author of this article asked Tusk, Karanic is not a bastard, and described his reaction. "He hesitated. 'Our conversation was not recorded?" I told him not. "No, he is not a bastard."
Earlier in 2017, when a record of Kalannik reprimanded the Uber driver's video on the Internet, in many people's eyes, this "jerk" problem has the ultimate answer. Kalanick publicly stated that this incident shows that he needs to "grow" as soon as possible. But when he released this statement, he has entered the fifth decade of his life. Just using young people as an excuse can no longer explain his behavior.
At this time, Karanic felt cold and tired. He proposed to continue to the Golden Gate Bridge (which probably means that we still need to walk for half an hour), or to call the car back to the Uber office. I also feel cold and tired, but I ask him to choose. "I think we still call a car," he said.
He took out his mobile phone and called a Uber car. When we talked in the car, the Uber driver only realized for a few minutes that the "Travis" he received - all Uber drivers can see the name of the paying passenger - - It is the CEO of Uber.
Driver: Are you Travis?
Karanic: Yes. How are you, dude?
Driver: I have never seen you.
Kalanick: Yes, yes.
Driver: How are you, dude?
Karanic: I am fine, I am fine.
Driver: I can't believe it.
Karanic: How do you know that it is me?
Driver: I looked at the rearview mirror. You look familiar. Damn! I am with the CEO.
Kalanick: Nice to meet you, man.
Driver: Thank you, dude.
Karanic: Have you been driving an Uber car?
Driver: One year, about one year and two months.
Karanic: What did you do before?
Driver: I am part-time because I live in San Francisco, so I need more money.
Kalanick: Certainly.
Driver: Then I was fired, so I am working full time now.
The driver explained that he previously worked for AT&T for a full 16 years of technical support and was recently fired. Kalanick asked him if he could now master his working hours and whether he was "very excited." The driver said that he likes flexibility, but it would be better if he could make more money. Kalanick responded that Uber has provided many ways for drivers to “make more moneyâ€. At this time, the driver suddenly began to spit. He said, "Well, your technical support is really bad." Karanic said, "Yes, I am solving this problem," and asked the driver to give him a few months to solve the technical support problem.
The driver also complained that he did not receive an email and text message from Uber to ensure he had enough working time - this is a reward program offered by the company for drivers who want to make a living with Uber. He then told the CEO how some drivers abused Uber's rules. For example, many drivers screen for car requests to avoid undesired destinations, such as the outer suburbs.
When we got off the bus, it was almost 11 o'clock in the middle of the night. Kalanick promised that he would follow up on the driver’s concerns. (At 11:07, he forwarded an internal response to me. The sender was a senior community operations manager in Chicago. He promised to investigate the problem. I asked him later if I didn't have the same ride. Whether the car will respond the same way. "Do you know how many emails and text messages I send from the car to respond to driver feedback every day?" he asked. "The Uber product manager's response is usually," Oh, man, let's deal with it right away.'")
In August last year, a statement issued by Karanic shocked many Uber observers. He admits that Uber has suffered a fiasco in China, the market that he once claimed to be the company's most important future: he has sold Uber's China business to local competitors. This may be the most painful failure of his career. But even here, the complete story is more subtle. Uber loses $1 billion annually in China. By selling the Chinese business to Didi, his company became the biggest shareholder of Didi, and brought Didi to Uber's board of directors, and Kalanick also achieved one of his greatest victories.
Suddenly, he turned a failed $2 billion investment into a $6 billion stake in a Chinese monopoly. Kalanic also solved the company's invisible cash reserve consumption in the Chinese market, thereby reinforcing Uber's financial situation and paving the way for the taxi service provider's IPO in the United States.
At the same time, Uber showed that it did not lose its appetite for a big dream. In late October 2016, its chief product executive, Jeff Horton, published a 99-page white paper devoted to Uber's research on black technology such as flying cars. He called this project "Uber Elevate." The report begins: “Imagine going to work from downtown San Francisco to downtown San Jose, which takes only 15 minutes. This trip usually takes about two hours.†It continues to explain Uber’s car network for vertical take-off and landing. And a great vision for building the infrastructure it needs.
If it weren’t talking about “market viability barriers†in detail, it’s accompanied by a list of 17 authors and reviewers (including scientists from NASA, Georgia Tech, and MIT). Going up seems to be an elaborate mischief. One of the reviewers was named Mark Moore. He has worked for NASA for 30 years and joined Uber in early 2007 as Director of Aeronautical Engineering. Regardless of the shortcomings of Uber, it is safe to say that it does see the sky as the limit.
Although Karanic claims that he believes in fact-based practicality, his favorite thing to do is to repeatedly think about new ideas - the more weird the better. In the summer of 2016, I took a private jet from Kalanik and several Uber executives from Beijing to Hangzhou. The coastal city near Shanghai is the headquarters of the Alibaba Group, which has become an important hub for the Chinese Internet world.
Before taking off, Karanick asked aloud to his chief trader and fundraiser, Emile Michael, whether Uber could go public without investment bankers. Michael, a lawyer, suggested reverse mergers. This is a somewhat suspicious capital operation technique, in which a private company enters the stock market by acquiring a poorly listed company. Kalanic suggested not to use bankers, but to donate 3% of the capital raised (which would originally be granted to bankers) to charity. When I suggested giving the money to the driver, Karanic was happy. He said that he wanted to provide equity to the driver, but Uber found that the relevant securities regulations were quite complicated.
After the private cell phone took off, Karanic fell into meditation. He told me that he has long dreamed of becoming an investigative reporter and has read a selection of reports on the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. He said that this "dream job" can stimulate his sense of justice. He even had a survey project idea: he and I went to Mumbai for six months, lived in slums, and wrote this experience. "I intend to keep my hair long and wear different clothes like the aborigines," he said.
I gradually realized that this is, to a certain extent, the way Karannik entertained himself, but it also reflects his sincerity. He is likely to be touched by the Cambodian people of the Khmer Rouge, or the unfortunate experience of the residents of Mumbai's slums, but he has not done anything good for the homeless in San Francisco. His ideas are exciting, but they are also puzzling. He likes to unleash the imagination.
In my last conversation with Kalanick, I took the initiative to mention Alexander Hamilton, partly to verify my memory: the Broadway musical "Hamilton", which was created and performed by Lin Mannor Miranda, was a great success. Before, Karanic was very interested in the first US Treasury Secretary. Why did Karanic admire Hamilton when he first read the biography written by Ron Cherno? I asked.
"He has a lot of amazing qualities," he said. "In his time, Hamilton was an entrepreneur. But he didn't create a company, but a country. He was in the middle of the stage. If he wasn't there, the United States would evolve into a very different country. He He is both a philosopher and an executor. He has many great qualities. His insight into the way of the future has inspired me. In many ways, the United States has practiced the future of his vision. I think it is the vision of worshipping him. Thanks, we have become such an outstanding country."
Hamilton didn't know when to keep quiet, and there were countless enemies. I want to know, does Kalanick realize the countless insults that Hamilton has encountered? "Well, you know, this guy has faced a lot of adversity. Uber is also the same. We like to say, 'Know what is right, fight for it, don't be a fool.' He only does what he thinks is right. When When you do this, when you do something really different, you will have some opponents. You just need to get used to it."
For many people, Travis Karanic is a fool, but of course he doesn't think so. The Uber CEO is likely to never get used to the attack of opponents. Adversity, after all, has become part of the journey.
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