- The new series "Super Pumped" tells the story of Travis Kalanick and Uber's early days.
- The show is based on a book by a New York Times reporter, but it can be hard to tell what's real.
- The show embellishes, but most of episode 1 includes things that actually happened in real life.
At the Uber depicted in the new Showtime series "Super Pumped," brashness is celebrated, rules are flouted, and winning is the only priority.
"Super Pumped" is based on New York Times' reporter Mike Isaac's book of the same name. The show follows the early days of Uber and the antics of Kalanick, ending in his ouster at the hands of Gurley and Uber's board.
But this is the Hollywood version of what was once Silicon Valley's most celebrated and successful startup. After all, hard-charging CEO Travis Kalanick is portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, perhaps best-known for playing a sensitive ex-boyfriend in "500 Days of Summer." The legendary venture capitalist Billy Gurley, a former college basketball player who's 6'9", is played by the more average-sized Kyle Chandler (sorry, Coach Taylor).
Uber's rise and subsequent meltdown shocked Silicon Valley, and, after watching the first episode of the show, it can be hard to know what's real and what's embellished — or flat-out made up. Here are the six wildest details from the first episode and whether they happened in real life.
Garrett Camp came up with the idea for Uber but Kalanick pretended it was his
In the show's portrayal of the first meeting between Kalanick and Gurley, Kalanick appears to take credit for the idea for Uber. He tells Gurley that he had the idea while standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but that "Garrett contributed a lot too."
The show pivots to reveal that the idea for Uber actually came from Camp, the founder of internet discovery platform StumbleUpon who presented his idea to a skeptical Kalanick.
According to Isaac's book, Uber was Camp's idea and it did take some convincing for Kalanick to come onboard — Kalanick initially didn't want to run it. However, there's no evidence that Kalanick ever misrepresented Uber's founding story to Gurley.
Kalanick paid cabs to steer clear of his first meeting with Gurley in order to show off Uber's technology
Following Kalanick and Gurley's first meeting, a slightly inebriated Gurley announces he's going to take a cab home. But there are none to be found, so a helpful Kalanick calls Gurley an Uber, a black car that seems to arrive in seconds.
As they come close to closing the deal, Kalanick admits he paid off all the cab drivers in advance so they'd stay away from the bar where he and Gurley met — Gurley admits he wasn't too drunk to drive after all, that it was all a test.
While it's a fun anecdote of a CEO and a VC trying to outfox each other, there's no evidence that it ever happened in real life.
Kalanick would ask potential employees if they were assholes during job interviews
"Super Pumped" opens with Kalanick looking straight at the camera. "So, you want to work for Uber," he says. "I have one question for you: Are you an asshole?"
When a prospective hire later answers yes, Kalanick assures him it's the right answer. "Because if you're not, you'll never make it at Uber," he says.
While it's fun to consider whether being a jerk was a prerequisite for landing a job at the ride-sharing startup, there's no evidence that Kalanick ever actually asked this in job interviews.
Instead, the show seems to be basing the question on Uber's company culture in the early years, which included such values as "always be hustlin'" and encouraged "toe-stepping." This culture resulted in a "Hobbesian jungle" where "you can never get ahead unless someone else dies," one employee told The Guardian in 2017. When board member Arianna Huffington stepped in to help Uber through its 2017 crisis, she described Uber's staff as being full of "brilliant jerks."
UberCab dropped "cab" from its name to avoid heavy fines from the San Francisco taxi authority
Back in 2010, Uber was still known as UberCab and had been served with a cease-and-desist from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. If UberCab didn't stop operating in the city immediately, it said, the company could be fined $5,000 per trip and company executives could face jail time.
In the show, Emil Michael, an incoming exec, points out that the MTA regulates cabs — if Uber simply changed its name, it could skirt the fines.
This portrayal is mostly true, according to Isaac's book, although Michael wasn't involved in the conversation — it was Kalanick who realized the company could easily give the middle finger to the city.
"We'll ignore it," he said of the fines. "We'll drop 'Cab' from our name."
Kalanick filled a file box with trash to make it look like they had more pro-Uber petitions from riders
In "Super Pumped," Kalanick has an idea for forcing San Francisco's hand: get riders to sign petitions saying how much they loved and relied on Uber. Uber collected hundreds of petitions, stashing them in file boxes to bring to city hall. In the show, Kalanick fills a file box with trash to make it look like Uber had more signed petitions than it did.
"What if they check 'em?" someone asks. "Then we become baristas," Kalanick responds.
This story is based on something that did happen in real life: When Uber attempted to expand in St. Louis, the city blocked it from operating. In response, Uber employees hand-delivered nine file boxes labeled "1,000 PETITIONS." A reporter later discovered that none of the boxes contained petitions — they were filled with six-packs of water bottles, according to Isaac's book.
Uber's "safe rides fee" was a scam to help its public perception and make more money
Early in "Super Pumped," Kalanick has a problem: the company has passenger safety issues and it's creating a public relations nightmare.
Uber's onetime CEO, Ryan Graves, and another employee present a solution: a "safe rides fee."
Uber will add a dollar to every ride in the name of creating a safer experience for passengers — Uber will make a driver training video and pocket the rest. Passengers won't mind, Kalanick surmises, because "once we get them in our car, we can charge whatever we want to the next time."
According to Isaac's reporting, this happened in real life, adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for Uber over several years.