When viewers first meet Travis he’s asking a prospective new hire a very important question: “Are you an a–hole?” The takeaway is that nice guys finish last at Uber. Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 'Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber' Elizabeth Morris/SHOWTIME Did Travis Kalanick really start off every Uber job interview by asking, ‘Are you an a–hole’? Travis did that, too.”īelow the author helps fact-check the series that looks at the rise and fall of Kalanick as he built one of Silicon Valley’s most successful-and destructive-companies. I think people like stories in which aspirational figures fly too close to the sun. ![]() Instead, it offers an unvarnished look at the man Isaac once called “ Mark Zuckerberg meets a can of Axe Body Spray.” “Travis is a complicated, nuanced, flawed person who fought like hell to bring this industry to light,” Isaac says. Yet Super Pumped never paints Kalanick as a mustache-twirling villain. (He remained on Uber’s board of directors until 2019, the same year the company went public.) In 2017, Kalanick resigned as Uber’s CEO amid a myriad of scandals that included allegations of workplace discrimination and sexual harassment under his leadership. The series, created by Billions ’ Brian Koppelman and David Levien, shows how Kalanick’s blind faith in himself and the company he co-founded in 2009 drove his success, but also led to his demise. The person at the head of the company has to be a true believer in what they’re doing.”īeyond just believing in Uber’s potential, Kalanick was committed to its mission to a fault. Everyone is pretty much rooting against you. (He’s also an executive producer on Super Pumped, as well as the show’s resident researcher and fact-checker.) “If you think about it, most startups fail. “In Silicon Valley, ‘cult’ is not a dirty word,” says The New York Times tech reporter who has been covering Uber since 2014. ![]() But he admits it’s an apt comparison, if not a compliment. ![]() Mike Isaac, the author of the titular 2019 book that inspired the eight-episode series, doesn’t recall any of his sources equating the embattled one-time Uber boss with the man who played a central role in the 1993 Waco massacre. 27, the ride-share company’s former CEO Travis Kalanick (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is compared to cult leader David Koresh. Throughout the Showtime anthology series Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, premiering Feb.
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