There was this moment in tech history, almost seven years ago in May 2014, when Google used the Code Conference as a venue for unveiling its driverless car. The tech hype around autonomous cars didn’t exactly start on that day, but it certainly picked up a lot of (electric?) steam. Suddenly everyone was talking about a future without human driving.
Seven years later, that future is still a long way off, as we are discovering again that it takes longer than everyone thinks for a technology to become good enough, safe enough, robust enough and so on. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to remind all of you is what another speaker at that year’s Code conference said in reaction to Google’s impressive demonstration. The name of that speaker? Why, Travis Kalanick, of course:
"The reason Uber could be expensive is because you're not just paying for the car - you're paying for the other dude in the car," he said.
"When there's no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle. So the magic there is, you basically bring the cost below the cost of ownership for everybody, and then car ownership goes away."
🤦
Right?
Now keep in mind this was 2014. A lot has happened since then. Today we think about AI and one of the immediate association is will it take away jobs. Back then? not so much. But still, it looked kind of stupid to go to war with drivers given Travis still had to rely on them at least for some years to come. I don’t want to get too deep into the history involved, and all of the things that would ultimately lead to Kalanick getting forced out of Uber in 2017. For one thing, Uber was already in a big dispute with drivers over their pay. It did not start when Travis callously talked about replacing them with software. But it sure didn’t help either.
The part that I find fascinating about this event is the honesty. I mean, if it were me, I would think twice before talking about firing almost everyone who works for me and has made me a billionaire. But that’s me. I’m like that. Travis Kalanick, who I’ve never met, I feel pretty confidently is not at all like me in that way. He’s more about business, and winning, and ruthlessness. There was no camouflage when he went on stage at Code ‘14. What we saw is who he was. As I write this, Uber has a market cap over $100 billion. It takes a certain kind to build a company that goes that far, usually. That’s all fine.
The great lesson we can learn from Kalanick’s career so far is that you can’t fake who you are, even though sometimes it’s tempting to try. This is something we should all internalize in our own daily work. If you are naturally someone who values results over everything else, then by all means be that kind of leader at work. But if you’re not, why fake it? just because it’s the ‘right’ leadership style? Do you think it will get you promoted sooner? a bigger bonus?
It might, if it were authentic. But I’ve learned it cannot be faked. Much better to develop your own authentic leadership style. There are example of success stories lead by people who valued people over results, and in the long term achieved results precisely because they did. Herb Kelleher, for one, of Southwest Airlines fame, believed in putting employees first, customers second. He still managed to build a great company. There are more than one way to do that. Here’s what Herb said:
‘This is a real conundrum: Who comes first, your employees, your shareholders, or your customers?' My mother taught me that your employees come first. If you treat them well, then they treat the customers well, and that means your customers come back and your shareholders are happy."
Somehow I don’t think Herb would go around talking about the other dude on the plane if Google announced an autonomous pilot. It just wasn’t who he was.
(To be fair, I’m not comparing apples to apples here - it’s harder to be nice when faced with an existential threat. the cost of drivers impacted Kalanick’s business model much more, and as a result he had an incentive to say what he said. It’s not all about your authentic leadership style. Economics matter too.)
All of this is not to say one style is good or bad. But it’s just not something you could fake. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who tried for a long time to make people like him and buy into his benevolent vision. He finally gave up, saying in a 2020 earnings call that -
"My goal for the next decade isn't to be liked but to be understood,"
which is a far more achievable goal, and has largely been achieved. It won’t help with the FTC or any future regulatory issues, but then nothing could help with those problems, much like it didn’t help Kalanick when he had to reckon with his unforgivable acts that ultimately got him ousted, such as using private trip logs to spy on adversaries, real or imagined.
Ultimately, the Thomas the Tank Engine song is right. you can only be you.
You can only be you
There's nothing else you can possibly do
It's plain to me that you're trying too hard
So instead, just be who you are