You can't control who you fall in love with.
Travis Kalanick
At Uber, we say, 'Always be hustling.' Even if you are an introvert and you haven't got hustle in you, you better get a co-founder who does. And if you haven't got enough hustle to find a co-founder who's got hustle, it's going to be tough. You've got to have a little hustle in you.
We want transportation as reliable as running water.
If there was a mobility service that's cheaper than owning a car, more reliable, and you get to sit in the back seat instead of being stressed out in the front seat, why would you own a car?
Money doesn't buy happiness, but it does pay for therapy.
Millennials aren't buying cars anymore. They don't want to drive. They don't want to own these cars. They don't want that inconvenience.
The regulatory systems in place disincentive innovation. It's intense to fight the red tape.
Uber is efficiency with elegance on top. That's why I buy an iPhone instead of an average cell phone, why I go to a nice restaurant and pay a little bit more. It's for the experience.
Being Uber means being efficient.
I wake up in the morning with a list of problems, and I go solve them.
Ultimately, progress and innovation win.
Imagine if we could create the most just workplace in the world. We would naturally be a magnet for all the great minds out there.
If Uber is lower-priced, then more people will want it. And if more people want it and can afford it, then you have more cars on the road. And if you have more cars on the road, then your pickup times are lower, your reliability is better. The lower-cost product ends up being more luxurious than the high-end one.
We have this culture valued at Uber, which we call the champions' mind-set. And champions' mind-set isn't always about winning. It's about putting everything you have on the field, every ounce of passion and energy you have. And if you get knocked down, overcoming adversity.
Safety is number one at Uber... so we make sure the system is in place so riders get the safest ride possible.
I'm an engineer by trade, and what engineers do is they go and build, and they don't think a lot about storytelling.
What we like to say is that the vision for Uber is the cross between lifestyle and logistics.
Every problem is super-interesting and has its own nuances, and you solve it today, but you try to solve it with an architecture. You build a machine to solve the problems that are like it later. And then you move on to the next.
Think of a world where there is no ride-sharing; people are driving themselves to work. You now have 30 people being served by 30 cars. Those 30 cars are only served 4% of the day; 96% of the day, they're stored somewhere. Around 20% to 30% of our land is taken up just storing these hunks of metal that we drive around in for 4% of the day.
The way I try to simplify my job is that I have two lists - I have a list of all the crazy, interesting problems that I get to solve every day or that need to be solved, and I have a crazy list of things I'd like to invent. And I kind of just prioritize them and work my way down, and try to simplify what I do when managing a big company.
We need to figure out how to merge political progress with actual progress.
We want to get to the point that using Uber is cheaper than owning a car.
There's probably some misunderstanding of who I am and how I roll.
There is a core independence and dignity you get when you control your own time.
Based on my experience, I would say that rather than taking lessons in how to become an entrepreneur, you should jump into the pool and start swimming.
I got really good at negotiating from a place of weakness.
Immigration and openness to refugees is an important part of our country's success and, quite honestly, to Uber's.
In China, the government is involved in business in many different ways. They're involved in media and business. When you go to China, you have to rethink how you're doing everything. You have to become Chinese.
After Scour, I started a company called Red Swoosh. The idea was to take those litigants who sued us for a huge amount of money and turn them into customers with the same technology. I wanted to get them to pay me. It was a revenge business.
I was the straight-A student but sort of a little bit of debating my parents all the time, trying to find when they weren't logically correct.
Competition is fun.
If you get stuck too much with the way you want the world to be, you will find that the world passes you by.
I think that's where the world is going. People will not own cars; they'll have a service that takes them where they want to go, when they want to go there. And that's what Uber is.
I've never been derogatory towards taxi drivers.
You have to be willing to stand up for what you believe in, and the rule of law is one of those things.
Acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps.
I like to say time is a luxury.
It was a privilege to meet Rev. Jackson, and I learned a tremendous amount from his insight.
I call it dark energy. If you are unreliable, customers just disappear.
When you start to automate, you start to do the self-driving thing, you make it much more efficient. When these cars go into self-driving, you start to become a robotics company.
In my first start-up, I didn't get any salary for four years, so I had to move back with my parents.
We have to bring out the truth about how dark and dangerous and evil the taxi side is.
There will be a huge, huge positive impact for society when driverless cars become a thing.
I used to be a computer engineer, and I can make really good code, and we can make systems that work really well, and we can make the application a great experience, but when you have to translate bits to atoms, you need folks who are used to working with city governments, with state governments, and so I like to say we're in a political campaign.
Hamilton is my favorite political entrepreneur.
As an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal.
My politics are: I'm a trustbuster. Very focused. And yeah, I'm pro-efficiency. I want the most economic activity at the lowest price possible. It's good for everybody; it's not red or blue.
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.
I've had failures myself before Uber.
If you can make it economical for people to get out of their cars or sell their cars, and turn transportation into a service, it's a pretty big deal.
