STARTUPS: Has there ever been a startup that has polarised opinion both in and outside of the travel industry more than Uber? Airbnb might come a close second. To some it is the ultimate outcome of a post-modern, entrepreneurial, disruptive business. To many others it is a pain in the ass (not just because it is disruptive of the status quo). And there are countless interpretations of its story and impact lodged between the two extremes. Read more on Battellemedia.
Travel and the tech industries love a rashomon, and in the past year or two, our collective subject of debate has been Uber.
Perhaps the fastest growing company in history (its numbers aren’t public, but we’ll get to some estimates shortly), Uber has become a vector for some of the most wide-ranging arguments ever regarding the tech industry’s impact on society at large.
Uber is about a very real and entirely new approach to our economy, a stand in for the wealth divide festering in the US and beyond, an existential rorschach testing your values around the role of government, the social contract, and the kind of society we want to become.
Read more on Battellemedia