Airbnb and Uber stories

THE UPSTARTS by Brad Stone is an entertaining read filled with stories about the short and yet amazing histories of Airbnb and Uber. In his newest work, Stone chronicles events influencing the sharing economy and the founders’ attitudes.  He quotes Brian Chesky who says, “Every great start-up starts as a side project that isn’t anybody’s main priority. Airbed & Breakfast was a way to pay our rent.” As Stone describes them, the more volatile personality belongs to Uber’s Travis Kalanick, in the news this past week due to his decision to leave Trump’s advisory business board.

Stone devotes part of THE UPSTARTS to firms (e.g., HomeAway, VRBO, TaxiMagic) in the competitive space that did not succeed to the same extent, although they, too, had the potential to be a disruptive force. And he quotes others describing the creativity, adaptiveness, and mental toughness of entrepreneurs: “the ability to overcome the hurdles and negativity that typically accompanies something new.” A senior executive editor for technology at Bloomberg News, Stone also wrote an award-winning The Everything Store about Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Kirkus says Stone’s THE UPSTARTS is “highly useful reading for budding entrepreneurs” and we will certainly recommend this book to our Business classes and other interested readers.

If you prefer the focus to be exclusively on one company, THE AIRBNB STORY will be published in mid-February. Written by Leigh Gallagher from Fortune magazine, this work seems more analytical and less chronological.  She includes some fascinating facts, though, like the statistic that 1.8 million people were staying in an Airbnb hosted property on a single night in August 2016.  That certainly illustrates Airbnb’s growth and speaks to the power of connection across the internet, although Gallagher explores debates over increasing regulation, too. 

She writes about three phases of Airbnb’s development from couch-surfing, to quirky locales like igloos and castles and then on to the “Gwyneth Paltrow” phase with something for everyone and only a quarter of the business in the United States. Amongst the chapter titles are “Building a Company,” “Airbnb Nation,” and “What’s Next” – that’s where Gallagher describes the recently announced Trips option designed to provide special excursions and help guests to live more like a local. THE AIRBNB STORY tells readers “How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions … and Created Plenty of Controversy.”