Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist
Technology
By the summer of 2012, ride-sharing had arrived: Uber launched its everyman product, UberX, and Lyft debuted hot on its heels. Today, Lyft's market cap hovers around $5 billion while Uber's is north of $140 billion. How did Uber explode to global dominance? What was different about its culture? And how did it take on taxi cartels around the world and win?
This week, we go behind the scenes with Emil Michael, one of Silicon Valley's great operators and dealmakers. As the former Chief Business Officer, Emil helped Uber raise a record $15 billion in two years and led its expansion into the most difficult markets, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. (Yes, Italy.) Emil recounts his biggest wins and toughest challenges, including how the Italian mafia threatened to kill Uber employees and why to this day ride-sharing is almost nonexistent in Italy.
Emil immigrated with his family to the U.S. from Egypt as a young child, and his success and character epitomize the American Dream. He graduated from Harvard, received his J.D. from Stanford Law, and began his entrepreneurial journey at TellMe, an early speech recognition company. He quickly became known for his dealmaking skills, including transforming a $300 million acquisition offer into a $800 million deal with Steve Ballmer and Microsoft. After TellMe, he served as a White House fellow at the Pentagon and spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, before later joining Uber. We dive into his unique approach to high-stakes negotiations and lessons learned from his distinguished career.
Ep 90: Ethan Penner on Choosing Greatness & Pioneering New Markets on Wall Street
Ep 89: Coleman Hughes on "The End of Race Politics" & the Worst Ideas Done in the Name of Diversity
Ep 88: A Conversation with MLK's Attorney & Speechwriter: Dr. Clarence Jones
Ep 87: Dr. Cliff Winston — Deregulate Lawyers, Deregulate Airlines, and Let Markets Correct Themselves
Ep 86: How to Design a STEM Curriculum for the 21st Century with Dr. David Ruth
Ep 85: The Path to Regime Change in Iran with Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi
Ep 84: Sri Ganesan on Freshworks' Big Win, Building Rocketlane & India's Tech Boom
Ep 83: A New Cancer Breakthrough with Ivan Dimov of Orca Bio
Ep 82: Whitney Baker's Masterclass on Macro Investing & the State of the Economy
Ep 81: How Palantir Star Tyler Scriven Is Helping Small Businesses Compete Against Amazon
Ep 80: Leonard Leo's Winning Strategy to Rebuild Institutions, Accelerate Innovation, and Save Our Country
Ep 79: Bjorn Lomborg and the 12 Best Policies to Help the World
Ep 77: Mike Solana on Exposing Government Corruption, Saving San Francisco, and Building a New Media Empire
Ep 76: Accelerate or Die! Guillaume Verdon and the e/acc Movement
Ep 75: Leadership Lessons with Intuit Founder & Silicon Valley Legend Scott Cook
Ep 74: A Turning Point in Higher Education with Pano Kanelos & Niall Ferguson
Ep 73: How Candid Health Is Fixing the $280B Healthcare Billing Fiasco, With Lessons from Palantir
Ep 72: Illegal Chinese Bio Labs & Secret Police in the U.S.; Investigating the CCP with Congressman Mike Gallagher
Ep 71: Reinventing Community College with Tade Oyerinde, Chancellor of Campus
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Insight Story: Tech Trends Unpacked
Zero-Shot
Fast Forward by Tomorrow Unlocked: Tech past, tech future
The Unbelivable Truth - Series 1 - 26 including specials and pilot
Lex Fridman Podcast