⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Upstarts by Stone

Full Title	The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World
Authors	Brad Stone
Year Published	2017
Date Read	October 18, 2018
Rating	4/5 stars

Well-written book about the rise of Airbnb and Uber, with mentions of Lyft and a short detour to China and Didi towards the end. I found it easy to follow as an audio book. What was most surprising to me was how Stone is able to lay out how all of these companies basically used the same strategies when it came to dealing with local laws/existing companies: ignore, fight, lobby, essentially do anything to allow their service to operate and thrive. This is what you’d expect from a corporation, but it was enlightening to see that the services were near-indistinguishable in terms of tactics. And yet, only Uber was caught in significant / long-lasting bad press (remember #deleteuber?), primarily because of the interactions Kalanick had with regulators and the press. Good lessons here around how people perceive a whole company based solely on the temperament of its founders. In this case, actions didn’t speak louder than words.

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