無論你是愛他的無畏野心，還是恨他的鐵石心腸，特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克都是一位長期霸占頭條新聞的公司惡棍。自從優步率先通過一個簡單的智能手機應用，將尋求打車的都市人與司機相互連接以來，他坐鎮舊金山總部運營的這家私人公司已經成為一種全球性現象。2016年，現在進駐76個國家的優步提供了價值200億美元的出行服務，斬獲65億美元營收。就在這項業務蓬勃發展之際，這家初創公司的投資者繼續在卡蘭尼克的創作上押下重注。到目前為止，該公司已籌集170億美元債務和風險投資，并令人咋舌地獲得高達690億美元的估值。與此同時，卡蘭尼克本人則變得臭名昭著。在許多人看來，他是一位自以為是，蔑視任何成功法則，不擇手段追求勝利的企業家；作為優步的大男子主義者統帥，他催生了一種充斥著性別歧視的企業文化。

在即將出版的新書《狂野之旅：探究優步稱霸世界的秘密》(Wild Ride: Inside Uber’s Quest for World Domination)中，《財富》執行主編亞當?拉辛斯基重述了這家公司令人震驚的崛起過程，以及它一路走來遭遇的種種非議。他講述優步故事的征程，也經歷了一個顛簸動蕩的開始：在這本書還沒有動筆之前，卡蘭尼克最初威脅要擊沉拉辛斯基的寫作計劃，他授權另一位作家撰寫傳記。隨著時間的推移，卡蘭尼克終于大發慈悲，同意合作，拉辛斯基對他和其他優步高管進行了數小時的訪談。在你即將先睹為快的摘錄中，拉辛斯基與他一起漫步舊金山街頭，試圖搞清楚這位CEO面臨的一個糾纏不休的問題：公眾對他的看法是否符合現實？他真的是個混蛋嗎？

盡管時鐘已指向晚上7:30，但舊金山的夏日驕陽仍然普照大地。我準時抵達優步公司總部，準備對CEO特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克進行一場內容廣泛的采訪。鑒于優步向來以工作時間長著稱，看到辦公室只有零零散散的幾個人時，我多少有點驚訝。現在是七月中旬，年輕的員工們或許正在外面享受人生。但也有可能是因為，這家公司的員工團隊正在松弛身心——到了2016年的這個時點，歷經超過五年的全速飛馳之后，他們想必早已疲憊不堪。

卡蘭尼克本人掌控著優步的節奏。再過幾天，他將迎來自己的40歲生日。在很大程度上，他仍然過著一位年輕創業者以咖啡因驅動的生活方式。多年來，他一直有固定的女友，但他始終恪守單身主義。多位朋友透露說，不工作的時候，卡蘭尼克其實挺戀家的，但他對優步的忠誠度顯然要遠大于其他任何關系。

預約時間過了幾分鐘后，卡蘭尼克來到他的辦公桌旁。我正在那里耐心等候。他在這層樓的遠端有一個私人角落，在那里留存著幾件衣物，以及一個優步新總部的立體模型——這棟位于使命灣的新總部預計將于2019年投入使用。NBA勁旅金州勇士隊正在這條街道的對面建造一座新球館。卡蘭尼克其實并不怎么坐，他的開放式辦公桌位于該公司四樓主辦公室，一點都不花哨，更談不上“角落辦公室”。

對卡蘭尼克、他以前的公司和優步進行了長達一年的研究之后，我深知此次采訪需要保持靈活性：他喜歡無拘無束，或者至少喜歡擺出一副率性而為的樣子。我們事先并未討論采訪議程，只是說我們將繼續談論一個月前在中國展開的話題：他的職業生涯。他告訴我，開始訪談前，他有一些東西想展示給我看——如果我愿意接受一個非常規建議的話。

“好的，你有兩個選擇，”他宣布。“我們可以去那個房間。”他指向附近的一間會議室，這是優步進行私人談話的眾多會議室之一。“我會在那里一直來回走動。或者我們可以出去散步。”

Love him for his audacious ambition or hate him for his tone-deaf ruthlessness, Travis Kalanick is a headline-grabbing corporate villain for the ages. Uber, the privately held company he runs from his base in San Francisco, has become a global phenomenon in the mere six years since it first began connecting ride-seeking urbanites with drivers via a simple smartphone app. Now operating in 76 countries, Uber booked $20 billion worth of rides worldwide in 2016 and brought in $6.5 billion in revenue. As its business has boomed, the startup’s investors have continued to bet big on Kalanick’s creation. To date the company has raised $17 billion in debt and venture capital, and has been accorded a gargantuan market value of $69 billion. At the same time, Kalanick himself has become infamous—seen by many as a brash, win-at-all-costs entrepreneur who’ll flout any rule to succeed, as well as a bro-in-chief enabler presiding over a sexist corporate culture.

A new book by Fortune executive editor Adam Lashinsky, Wild Ride: Inside Uber’s Quest for World Domination, recounts the company’s stunning rise—and its headlong plunge into controversy. Lashinsky’s quest to tell the Uber story got off to a bumpy start: Kalanick at first threatened to torpedo his project before it started by hiring a competing author to write an authorized account. Over time, Kalanick relented and agreed to cooperate, and Lashinsky conducted hours of interviews with Kalanick and other Uber executives. In the following excerpt, Lashinsky walks the streets of San Francisco with Kalanick as the CEO confronts a nagging concern: Does the public’s perception of him match reality? Is he really an asshole?

I.

It is 7:30 p.m. on a sunny summer evening when I arrive at Uber’s San Francisco headquarters for an extended interview with CEO Travis Kalanick. I’m a bit surprised to see so few people in the office, given Uber’s reputation for long hours. It’s mid-July, so perhaps the young staff is out enjoying itself. But it is also possible the company’s workforce is mellowing—fatigued, by this point in 2016, from more than five years of galloping at breakneck speed.

Kalanick himself sets the pace. He’s just days away from his 40th birthday and still very much leading the young entrepreneur’s caffeine–fueled lifestyle. Over the years he has often had a steady girlfriend, but has remained resolutely unmarried. Multiple friends describe Kalanick as something of a homebody when not working, yet far more committed to Uber than to any other relationship.

A few minutes past the appointed hour, Kalanick arrives at his desk, where I’m waiting. He has a private nook at the far end of one floor, where he keeps some clothes as well as a diorama of Uber’s new headquarters under construction in the Mission Bay section of town. (Scheduled to open in 2019, Uber’s new HQ will be across the street from where the Golden State Warriors basketball team is building a new arena.) But to the extent that Kalanick sits, which isn’t much, it is at an open-plan desk at the edge of the company’s fourth-floor main offices. There’s nothing fancy or “corner office” about it.

After a year of researching Kalanick, his past companies, and Uber, I know enough to be flexible: He likes to play it loose, to at least affect an air of spontaneity. We haven’t discussed our agenda ahead of time other than that we’ll continue the conversation about his career that we began a month before in China. He tells me he has a few things he wants to show me before we start talking—that is, if I’m willing to accept an unconventional suggestion.

“Okay, you’ve got two choices,” he announces. “We can go in that room,” he says, pointing to a nearby conference room, one of many at Uber used for private meetings, “and I’m going to fucking pace back and forth the entire time. Or we can go for a walk.”

我知道，真正的選擇是，要么“讓特拉維斯成為特拉維斯”，要么竭力從受訪對象口中撬出盡可能多的信息。我選擇散步。

從嚴格意義上說，優步的故事并不完全等同于卡蘭尼克的故事。這家打車服務初創公司，最初并不是他的主意。但毫無疑問的是，他是優步的中心人物。正是卡蘭尼克提供的關鍵洞察力（即啟用自由職業者，而不是聘用司機，購買汽車），將其他人“很有意思”的創業想法轉化為一種無可爭辯的突破性理念。自從優步首次流行開來，并開始向舊金山以外擴張以來，他一直擔任CEO，強勢推行鐵腕政策，幾乎無處不在。其結果是，卡蘭尼克已經被等同于優步，就像比爾?蓋茨之于微軟，史蒂夫?喬布斯之于蘋果，馬克?扎克伯格之于Facebook。

卡蘭尼克啟動優步的時機幾乎無可挑剔。這家公司完美地體現出信息技術行業下一波浪潮的特點。它絕對是一家“移動優先”的企業；要是沒有iPhone，優步就不可能誕生。幾乎從一開始，它就在全球范圍內擴張——在套裝軟件和笨重的電腦仍然是常態的那個時代，這簡直是不可想象的。此外，優步還是所謂的“零工經濟”的領導者，巧妙地將自家技術與其他人的資產（他們的汽車）和勞動結合在一起，向他們支付獨立承包商費用，而不是更加昂貴的員工福利。

現如今，優步的全職員工超過1.2萬人，其中有大約一半常駐灣區。由于我們都拿起各自的夾克（在舊金山，哪怕是晴朗的7月份夜晚也有點干冷），我猜想散步意味著離開大樓。是的，我們會的。但卡蘭尼克隨即解釋說，他想帶我參觀一下優步的辦公室。就像其他親力親為的CEO一樣，在卡蘭尼克看來，優步的辦公室不僅反映了該公司的價值觀和愿景，同時還是他自身個性的延伸。

喬布斯亦是如此。在他去世前六個月，喬布斯坐在家中客廳的沙發上，向我驕傲地展示蘋果新總部園區的一系列建筑圖紙——可惜的是，他未能在有生之年目睹這棟大廈。幾個月后，他親自與一位樹藝師商議，最終選擇在新總部四周栽種杏樹。

“這樣說吧，你知道一座城市的建造歷程是從什么時候開始的？” 卡蘭尼克說。“到處都是干凈的線條。這就像一座建造出來的城市。所以，這是‘干凈的線條”。我們擁有五個品牌支柱：接地、平民主義、鼓舞人心、高度演變性，以及莊嚴感。這就是優步的個性。”

我們正站在他的辦公桌旁，俯瞰優步辦公室的神經中樞。通過安檢后，一位訪客會看到一排排毗鄰的辦公桌。當卡蘭尼克重復這些品牌“支柱”（即接地、平民主義、鼓舞人心、高度演變性，以及莊嚴感）的時候，我頻頻點頭，以示認可。但我并沒有完全理解。對我來說，這些詞匯有點晦澀，無論他多么熱忱地解釋其含義。

他所說的“接地”意指實用性。優步代表著終極意義上的實用性：它利用技術將人們從一個地方轉移到另一個地方。但當這種概念出自一位市政工程師的兒子之口時，它就擁有了新的意義。卡蘭尼克解釋說，“接地就像音調。它是功能性直線。所有的會議室都以城市命名，按字母順序排列，真的很實用。”

我此前聽聞卡蘭尼克愿意把無盡的時間投入到表面的細節上。然而，我還沒有親眼看到，他愿意潛心研究這家紛繁復雜的企業中似乎很神秘和飄渺的方面。

作為優步“莊嚴感”特質的一個例證，卡蘭尼克指向會議上的天花板，并解釋說它具有聲學上的純凈效果。卡蘭尼克對安靜有著極致的要求：“我不喜歡聲音，受不了很多噪音。”他自豪地宣稱，一種名為K-13的建筑材料能夠達到這種效果。“當這個樓層有800個人的時候，這種噪音消減措施可以讓它平靜下來。所以我可以輕柔地說話。”他把自己的聲音降到一種幾乎令人尷尬的輕柔低語。“你仍然可以聽清楚。”

辦公桌和內墻之間有一條走廊。卡蘭尼克邀請我低頭看看混凝土地板，那里蝕刻著一個由一系列相交線條構成的復雜圖案。“這是舊金山的電網，”他說。“我稱之為道路。”在整個工作日期間，他就是在這里來回踱步，經常一邊走，一邊打電話。“在白天，你會看到我在這里，我每周要走45英里。”

我們隨后步入四樓游覽。卡蘭尼克引領我參觀“紐約市”。正是在這間會議室，優步敲定了一筆高達12億美元的籌資交易，該公司隨后搬入市場街辦公室。“這是第一筆讓許多人為之瘋狂的十億級美元籌資交易。”他自豪地宣稱。

我們乘電梯來到11樓。這是優步在這棟大樓占據的少數幾個樓層之一。卡蘭尼克特意創設了一種簡樸的環境，用暴露的干墻和小于正常尺寸的辦公桌等方式來模仿創業環境。

“至少99%的企業家不像馬克?扎克伯格那樣一帆風順，你總得面臨艱苦歲月。所以，我把這里稱為洞穴，因為你正在經歷困難時刻，你正處于黑暗中，而你真的在一個黑暗的地方。這是個隱喻。”他說。

五樓有幾間以科幻小說命名的會議室。卡蘭尼克對科幻經典著作如數家珍，就像一位美國內戰愛好者能夠飛快說出一連串重要戰役一樣。一間會議室以艾薩克?阿西莫夫的“基地”系列命名，另一間被命名為“火星救援”，第三間以“安得的游戲”命名。他聲稱科幻主題具有“高度演變性”——這個詞意指未來。優步是一家癡迷于未來的公司。還有一個用來讓人聯想起意大利廣場的中心區域。通往這片區域的走廊故意設計得令人困惑。在卡蘭尼克的世界觀中，迷失方向是好事。“這樣一來，如果你是一位居民，你就知道這些走廊通向何處。”這是他設計的平民主義版本。“如果你是一位客人，你就會迷失方向。所以你可以判斷誰是居民，誰是客人。”

終于，我們繞過卡蘭尼克的辦公桌進入他的秘密出口，順著一段樓梯離開這棟大樓，走到優步辦公室入口所在的街道。他告訴我，此行的計劃是沿著橫穿市中心的主干道市場街，走到舊金山灣堤岸。從那里，我們將前往游客眾多的漁人碼頭，然后去金門大橋。盡管日落的余暉璀璨無比，但氣溫正在下降。

這是洛杉磯人卡蘭尼克不能忍受的。“對于任何洛杉磯人來說，這都是最令人苦惱的。這就是為什么我有時候回到洛杉磯度周末，哪怕只是在海灘上感受一下陽光。”

卡蘭尼克看上去滿腹心事。一路上，他對各種事情發表即興評論。比如，我說我最近很少聽聞Square公司的消息——Twitter創始人杰克?多西領導的這家支付公司現在與優步同處一棟大樓。盡管優步是一家私營企業，而Square是一家上市公司，但Square變得非常低調。卡蘭尼克若有所思地說道：“我們真的無福享受那種狀態。”

我們開始談論卡蘭尼克的創業史，包括在2000年代初期絕望地為他的P2P文件共享初創公司Red Swoosh籌集資金。等到我們抵達舊金山灣堤岸的時候，黃昏已經降臨。我想知道，在我們散步的時候，他是否會被認出來。不太可能，他說，只要我們在交談，并且身處戶外。

經過漁人碼頭，我們步入一家In?N?Out漢堡店，這家標志性的南加州快餐連鎖店是卡蘭尼克的最愛。我們開始談論無人駕駛汽車，卡蘭尼克暗示優步即將有大動作，但他還不能詳談。他透露說，這段六英里的路程早已成為他在夏天夜晚的例行事項，In?N?Out漢堡店當然是必經的一站。而且，卡蘭尼克還有一位他沒有說明身份的散步同伴。我后來得知，這位同伴是安東尼?萊萬多夫斯基。此君曾在谷歌擔任自動駕駛汽車工程師，后來創建了一家名為Otto的自動駕駛卡車公司。就在我與卡蘭尼克一起走完這段路程僅僅幾周之后，優步就斥資6.8億美元收購了Otto。卡蘭尼克告訴我，他利用與萊萬多夫斯基一起散步的機會，吸收自動駕駛汽車的技術和商業計劃愿景。

在討論了卡蘭尼克的創業時代之后，我想知道他如何看待優步已經成為一家更大、更成熟的公司這一事實。他的回答顯示，他并不愿意以這種方式看待這家公司。他不再認識公司里的每一個人，但他仍然愿意與高級職位申請者進行長達數小時的面談。卡蘭尼克解釋說，他喜歡在正式聘用某位員工之前，模擬與他或她一起工作的場景。

我問他是否喜歡運營一家大公司。“我的管理方式使得這家公司感覺并不大。”卡蘭尼克再次回歸他最喜歡的一個比喻：他把每個工作日視為一系列需要解決的問題。他顯然認為自己不僅是首席執行官，而且是首席麻煩終結者。

龐大顯然是可怕的。“我想說的是，你需要持續不斷地讓你的公司感覺很小。你需要創造機制和文化價值觀，讓你的企業感覺盡可能得小。這是你保持創新和快速發展的方式。但當企業處于不同規模的時候，你實現這種目標的方式是不同的。比如，當你超級小時，你只需要借助部落知識就能保持快速發展。但當企業超級大時，如果你只依靠部落知識，那就變得超級動蕩，實際上你就會發展得很慢。所以你必須不斷地找到秩序和混亂之間的平衡點。”

鑒于這家公司的員工隊伍不再是一群生活中只有工作的單身年輕人，我想知道他如何管理優步穩健地走出純粹的創業階段？“我稱之為紅線，”他說。“當你駕駛一輛轎車的時候，你可以快速前行。但你有一條紅線。每個人都有他們自己的紅線。你想進入那個紅線，看看引擎的潛力如何。你或許發現你能夠榨取的引擎潛能或許超出你的想象。但你不能長時間超越那條紅線。每個人都有自己的紅線。”

他指出，已經有很多“優步寶寶”；相較于那些沒有孩子，時間約束更少的員工，為人父母者往往更有效率。但卡蘭尼克對員工工作/生活平衡的期望也有局限。“瞧瞧，如果有人的工作效率更高，他們的升職速度就更快。就是這樣。這沒什么可說的。”

在三個多小時的散步之后，夜晚已經變得寒冷，漆黑，而這場談話也變得非常個人化。我們談到優步如何從媒體寵兒進化為媒體惡棍。在這種形象大轉變的過程中，卡蘭尼克幾乎愿意扮演同謀者的角色，經常親自扮演惡棍，由此激起熊熊怒火。他說，這些行為是他的“傲慢瞬間，我會發表一些帶有挑釁性的觀點。”

我問他是否關心人們的想法。 “是的，”他承認自己多少有些遺憾。“無論是對于優步、我自己，還是我的交談對象，這都不是好事。”

他的部分問題是，卡蘭尼克似乎無法掩飾自己防御心態或者他的煩惱。他把自己的惱怒時刻歸因于“激烈地尋求真相”。不顧他人感受，愿意說出內心真實想法的人，總會獲得嚴苛的評價。就這一點而言，他并非個例。這是史蒂夫?喬布斯、杰夫?貝索斯，以及與卡蘭尼克同時代的埃隆?馬斯克共有的特征。卡蘭尼克意識到這一點，他提到“創始人兼CEO必須是個混蛋才能成功這一互聯網文化模因。”他抗拒這種觀點，但他顯然僅僅是不癡迷于此而已。

“我想這個問題的確是存在的。”他隨即將話題從一般的模因轉移到他自己身上。“‘他是個混蛋嗎？’鑒于你跟我談了這么長時間，你當然會被問到這個問題。‘他是個混蛋嗎？’”

卡蘭尼克畢竟是工程師出身，他想相信，這個問題有一個科學的答案。我說，這類問題的答案從來都取決于個人看法，與事實無關。他不這樣認為。“我嘗試著破解它是否屬實，比如我是否讓某些人激發起了一些與我沒有做的事情有關的感受？我是個混蛋嗎？我很想知道。” 他繼續說道：“我不認為我是混蛋。我很確定我不是。”

但我想知道他是否在意別人的想法。“我想說的是，如果你是一位真相尋求者，你只是想要真相。如果你相信某件事不是真相，那么你就想繼續追求真相。這就是我的思考范式。”

卡蘭尼克不太可能聽到他渴望的真相版本。在這趟散步之旅幾周后，《紐約》雜志刊發了一篇專訪布拉德利?圖斯克的文章。圖斯克是一位政治顧問，曾經在多場監管斗爭中為優步提供咨詢服務。談到他自己愿意出于正確理由而接受“一些抨擊”的時候，圖斯克把自己比作卡蘭尼克。“他知道，要做大事，你就會惹惱許多人。”隨后，這篇文章的作者問圖斯克，卡蘭尼克是不是混蛋，并描述了他的反應。“他猶豫了一下。‘我們的談話沒有被錄音吧？”我告訴他沒有。“不，他不是混蛋。”

2017年早些時候，當一段記錄卡蘭尼克訓斥優步司機的視頻在網上瘋傳的時候，在許多人眼中，這個“混蛋”問題已經有了終極答案。卡蘭尼克公開表示，這起事件顯示他需要盡快“成長”。但發布這段聲明時，他已經進入了人生的第五個十年。僅僅以年輕為借口，不再能解釋他的行為。

走到這時候，卡蘭尼克感受到了寒冷和疲憊。他提議繼續走到金門大橋（這很可能意味著，我們還需要走半個小時），或者叫輛車返回優步辦公室。我也感到寒冷和疲憊，但我請他選擇。“我想我們還是叫輛車吧。”他說。

他拿出手機，叫了一輛優步專車。當我們在車內交談時，這位優步司機只聽了幾分鐘就意識到，他接到的這位“特拉維斯”——所有的優步司機都能看到付費乘客的名字——是優步CEO。

司機：你是特拉維斯嗎？

卡蘭尼克：是的。你怎么樣，老兄？

司機：我從來沒有見過你。

卡蘭尼克：是的，是的。

司機：你好嗎，老兄？

卡蘭尼克：我很好，我很好。

司機：我不敢相信。

卡蘭尼克：你怎么知道是我？

司機：我朝著后視鏡看了一下。你看起來很眼熟。哎呀！我和CEO在一起。

卡蘭尼克：很高興見到你，伙計。

司機：謝謝，老兄。

卡蘭尼克：你一直在開優步專車？

司機：一年，大約一年零二個月。

卡蘭尼克：你以前是干嘛的？

司機：我是做兼職的，因為我住在舊金山，所以我需要更多的錢。

卡蘭尼克：肯定的。

司機：然后我被解雇了，所以我現在全職工作。

這位司機解釋說，他以前供職于AT＆T，做了足足16年的技術支持工作，最近剛剛被解雇。卡蘭尼克問他，現在能夠掌握自己的工作時間，他是否“很激動”。司機說，他喜歡靈活性，但要是能掙更多的錢就更好了。卡蘭尼克回應說，優步為司機提供了很多“多賺一筆”的途徑。就在這時候，這位司機突然開始吐槽。他說，“嗯，你們的技術支持真的很糟糕。”卡蘭尼克說，“是的，我正在解決這個問題，”并請求司機給他幾個月時間來解決技術支持問題。

司機還抱怨說，他沒有收到優步保證他有足夠工作時間的電郵和短信——這是該公司為那些希望借助優步謀生的司機提供的一項獎勵計劃。然后，他告知CEO一些司機如何濫用優步的規則。比如，許多司機篩選叫車請求，以避免去不中意的目的地，比如遠郊。

我們下車的時候，差不多已是深夜11點。卡蘭尼克承諾說，他將跟進司機關切的問題。（在11點07分，他向我轉發了一份內部回應，發信人是一位芝加哥的“高級社區運營經理”，他承諾說要調查相關問題。我后來問他，要是我沒有同乘那部轎車，他是否會作出同樣的反應。“你知道我每天從轎車里發出多少份用來回應司機反饋的電子郵件和短信？”他問道。“優步產品經理的反應通常都是，‘哦，老兄，我們馬上處理。’”）

去年8月份，卡蘭尼克發布的一則聲明讓許多優步觀察家震驚不已。他承認，在中國這樣一個他曾經宣稱是該公司最重要的未來市場上，優步遭遇慘敗：他已經將優步中國業務出售給了本土競爭對手滴滴出行。這或許是他職業生涯中最慘痛的失敗。但即使在這里，完整的故事也更加微妙。優步每年在中國虧損10億美元。通過將中國業務出售給滴滴出行，他的公司成為滴滴最大的股東，并將滴滴帶到優步的董事會，卡蘭尼克也一舉實現了他最偉大的勝利之一。

突然間，他將一筆失敗的20億美元投資連本帶利地轉化為一家中國壟斷企業價值60億美元的股權。卡蘭尼克也解決了該公司在中國市場看不到盡頭的現金儲備消耗，由此加固了優步的財務狀況，為這家打車服務商在美國的IPO鋪平了道路。

與此同時，優步顯示它并沒有失去對遠大夢想的胃口。2016年10月下旬，其首席產品高管杰夫?霍爾頓發布了一本99頁的白皮書，專門介紹優步對飛行車等黑科技的研究。他把這個項目稱為“Uber Elevate”。該報告開篇寫道：“想象一下從舊金山碼頭到圣荷西市中心上班，只需要15分鐘。這趟行程通常需要差不多兩個小時。”它繼續解釋優步對垂直起飛和著陸的汽車網絡，以及構建它所需的基礎設施的美好愿景。

要不是它詳細談論“市場可行性障礙”，還附有一個由17人組成的撰文和評論團隊名單（其中包括來自美國宇航局、喬治亞理工大學和麻省理工學院的科學家），這本白皮書看上去似乎是一個精心制作的惡作劇。其中一位評論者名叫馬克?摩爾。他曾經在美國宇航局供職30年之久，于2007年初加盟優步，出任航空工程總監。無論優步有什么缺點，可以肯定地說，它確實將天空視為極限。

盡管卡蘭尼克宣稱他信奉基于事實的實用性，但他最喜歡做的事情莫過于反復推敲新創意——越古怪越好。2016年夏天，我與卡蘭尼克和幾位優步高管一起搭乘私人飛機從北京飛往杭州。這座位于上海附近的沿海城市是阿里巴巴集團的總部所在地，它也由此成為中國互聯網世界的重要樞紐。

在起飛之前，卡蘭尼克大聲地詢問他的首席交易人兼籌款人埃米爾?邁克爾，優步能否在沒有投資銀行家參與的情況下公開上市。律師出身的邁克爾建議采取反向并購。這是一種多少有點可疑的資本運作技術，具體方式是：一家私人公司通過收購一家劣質上市公司來登陸股市。卡蘭尼克建議不要使用銀行家，而是將所籌資本的3%（這筆費用原本會授予銀行家）捐贈給慈善事業。當我建議把這筆錢贈送給司機時，卡蘭尼克面露喜色。他說他想給司機提供股權，但優步發現相關的證劵法規相當復雜。

這架私人手機起飛后，卡蘭尼克陷入沉思。他告訴我，他長期以來一直夢想成為一名調查記者，而且讀過一本關于柬埔寨紅色高棉的報道選集。他說，這份“夢想的工作”能夠激發起他的正義感。他甚至有一個調查項目創意：他和我去孟買呆上六個月，住在貧民窟，并撰寫這段經歷。“我打算像原住民那樣，把頭發留長，穿不同的衣服。”他說。

我逐漸意識到，這在一定程度上是卡蘭尼克自娛自樂的方式，但也反映了他真摯的一面。他很可能被紅色高棉蹂躪的柬埔寨人民，或者孟買貧民窟居民的不幸遭遇所觸動，但他還沒有為舊金山市的無家可歸者做任何善事。他的想法令人興奮，但也令人費解。他喜歡展開奔放的想象。

與卡蘭尼克的最后一次談話中，我主動提到亞歷山大?漢密爾頓，部分是為了驗證我的記憶：早在林-曼努爾?米蘭達創作并參演的百老匯音樂劇《漢密爾頓》大獲成功之前，卡蘭尼克就對這位美國首任財政部長很感興趣。為什么當卡蘭尼克第一次讀到羅恩?徹諾撰寫的傳記時，他就如此欽佩漢密爾頓？我問道。

“他身上有許多令人贊嘆的品質，”他說。“在他那個時代，漢密爾頓是一位企業家。但是，他創建的并不是一家公司，而是一個國家。他身處舞臺中央。要是他不在那里，美國將演變為一個非常不同的國家。他既是哲學家，也是執行者。他有很多偉大的品質。他洞悉未來的方式讓我很受啟發。就很多方面而言，美國實踐了他構想的未來。我認為，正是拜他的愿景所賜，我們成為了一個如此杰出的國家。”

漢密爾頓不知道何時保持安靜，而且樹敵無數。我想知道，卡蘭尼克是否認識到了漢密爾頓遭遇的無數辱罵？“嗯，你知道的，這個家伙面臨過很多逆境。優步也一樣。我們喜歡說，‘知道什么是正確的，為之而戰，不要做傻瓜。’他只做他認為正確的事情。當你這樣做的時候，當你做真正不一樣的事情時，你就會有一些反對者。你只需要習慣就好。”

在許多人看來，特拉維斯?卡蘭尼克就是一位傻瓜，但他當然不這樣認為。這位優步CEO很有可能永遠都不會習慣反對者的抨擊。逆境，畢竟已經成為旅程的一部分。（財富中文網）

譯者：Kevin

Understanding my true choice to be between “letting Travis be Travis” on the one hand and trying to pry information out of a penned?in subject on the other, I opt for the walk.

Uber’s story isn’t strictly synonymous with Kalanick’s—the ride-hailing startup wasn’t initially his idea—but he is indisputably its central character. Kalanick supplied the critical insight that transformed someone else’s startup idea from merely interesting to undeniably groundbreaking, by hitting on the idea of enabling freelancers rather than hiring drivers and buying cars. And he has been Uber’s iron-fisted, omnipresent chief executive from the time it first gained traction and began expanding beyond San Francisco. As a result, Uber has become as identified with Kalanick as Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook are with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, respectively.

Kalanick’s timing with Uber was impeccable. The company perfectly exemplifies the attributes of the information-technology industry’s next wave. It is emphatically a mobile-first business; if there had been no iPhone, there would have been no Uber. And it expanded globally almost from its beginning, far earlier than would have been possible in an era when packaged software and clunky computers were the norm. Uber is also a leader of the so?called gig economy, cleverly marrying its technology with other people’s assets (their cars) as well as their labor, paying them independent-contractor fees but not costlier employee benefits.

Today Uber employs more than 12,000 people full-time, about half in the Bay Area. Because we’ve grabbed our jackets—even clear July nights in San Francisco can be brisk—I assume a walk means we’ll leave the building. And we will. But first Kalanick explains that he wants to give me a tour of Uber’s offices. Like other hands?on CEOs before him, Kalanick views his company’s offices not only as a reflection of the company’s values and aspirations, but also an extension of his own personality.

Jobs was the same way. Six months before his death he sat down next to me on a couch in his Palo Alto living room and proudly showed me a bound book of architectural drawings for the new Apple corporate campus he wouldn’t live to see. Months later he personally worked with an arborist to pick the apricot trees for the project.

“You know when, like, a city is made from scratch?” says Kalanick. “You’ve got clean lines everywhere. This is like a manufactured city. So this is ‘clean lines.’ We have five brand pillars: grounded, populist, inspiring, highly evolved, and elevated. That’s the personality of Uber.”

We’re standing near his desk, looking out over the nerve center of Uber’s offices, the row after row of adjoining desks a visitor sees after first passing through security. As Kalanick repeats these brand “pillars”—grounded, populist, inspiring, highly evolved, and elevated—I nod my head in acknowledgment. But I never completely understand what they are really about. It’s all a bit squishy to me, no matter how earnestly he explains them.

By “grounded” he generally means practical. Uber is the ultimate in practicality: It uses technology to move people from one place to another. Yet the concept takes on new meaning in the words spoken by the son of a public-works engineer. “Grounded is like tonality,” says Kalanick. “It’s functional straight lines, the whole thing. All of the conference rooms are named for cities. They’re in alphabetical order. It’s just very practical.”

I had read of Kalanick’s willingness to devote untold hours to superficial minutiae. Yet I hadn’t personally witnessed his willingness to dive into seemingly arcane and ethereal aspects of such a demanding business.

As an example of Uber’s “elevated” nature, Kalanick points to the acoustically pure ceilings in a conference room. A quiet freak— “I don’t like sound. I don’t do well with lots of noise”—he proudly identifies the building material, K?13, that pulls off the effect. “When you have 800 people on this floor, the acoustic treatment makes it calm. So I can talk softly,” he says, lowering his voice to an almost awkwardly gentle murmur, “and you can hear me.”

Nearby is a corridor between the desks and an interior wall. Kalanick invites me to look down at the concrete floor, where an intricate pattern is etched with a series of intersecting lines. “Right here is the San Francisco grid,” he says. “I call it the path.” It is here that he paces back and forth throughout the workday, often on his cell phone. “In the daytime you’ll see me here,” he says. “I’ll do 45 miles a week.”

The tour proceeds around the fourth floor. Kalanick shows me “New York City,” the conference room where Uber negotiated the deal in which it raised $1.2 billion, just before the company moved into the Market Street offices. “The first billion-dollar deal that blew people’s minds,” he says proudly.

We take an elevator to the 11th floor—one of a handful Uber has in the building—where Kalanick has created an austere setting, a place to mimic the entrepreneurial environment, with exposed drywall and smaller-than-usual desks.

“When you’re an entrepreneur—at least the 99% of entrepreneurs that are not Mark Zuckerberg—you have hard times,” he says. “So this right here is what I call the cave, because when you’re going through hard times you’re in the dark, you’re literally in some dark place. It’s a metaphor.”

Down on the fifth floor are areas with conference rooms named after science-fiction books. Kalanick knows the sci?fi canon the way a Civil War buff can rattle off important battles. One section is named for Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, another for The Martian, a third for Ender’s Game. He brands the sci?fi theme “highly evolved,” by which he means the future. Uber is a company obsessed with the future. Elsewhere there’s a central area meant to evoke an Italian piazza. The hallways leading to it are confusing, by design. In Kalanick’s worldview, disorientation is good. “So if you are a resident you know where everything is,” he says. This is his version of populism. “If you are a guest, you’re lost. So you can tell who’s a resident and who’s a guest.”

II.

We finally leave the building by slipping past Kalanick’s desk to his secret exit and a staircase that leads directly out onto a street around the corner from the entrance to Uber’s office. The plan, he tells me, is to walk down Market Street, the main thoroughfare that cuts through the center of downtown San Francisco, to the Embarcadero along the waterfront. From there we’ll head to the touristy Fisherman’s Wharf area and then toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite the brilliant sunset, the temperature is falling.

Kalanick, forever an Angeleno, can’t bear it. “This is the most upsetting thing for somebody from Los Angeles,” he says. “That’s why I sometimes do weekends in L.A. Just to be at the beach.”

Kalanick is in a reflective mood, and as we walk he riffs on all manner of things. I remark, for example, on how little I’ve heard of late about Square, the payments company headed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, whose offices, for now, are in the same building as Uber. Although Uber is private and Square (sq, +1.17%) is publicly traded, Square has become decidedly low profile. Muses Kalanick: “We don’t really have that luxury.”

We begin talking about Kalanick’s entrepreneurial history, including his desperate hunt for funding in the early 2000s at his peer-to-peer file-sharing startup, Red Swoosh. By the time we hit the Embarcadero, the curvilinear street that runs along the waterfront between the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, dusk has set in. I wonder aloud if he’ll be recognized during our walk. Not likely, he says, so long as we’re in conversation and outdoors.

Out past Fisherman’s Wharf, we step into an In?N?Out Burger, the iconic SoCal fast-food chain and a Kalanick favorite. By now we’re discussing driverless cars and Kalanick suggests big moves are ahead that he can’t yet discuss. He lets on that this six-mile walk, always including the stop at In?N?Out Burger, has become a summer-evening routine and that he typically walks it with one person he won’t identify. I later learn his walking partner is Anthony Levandowski, the ex–Google autonomous vehicles engineer who went on to found Otto, a self-driving truck company. Uber will purchase Otto for $680 million just a few weeks after our walk, and Kalanick tells me he used his time with Levandowski to absorb the technology and business plan vision for autonomous vehicles. (Uber and Alphabet are now embroiled in a lawsuit. See our article on “What Could Take Down Uber?”)

Having discussed Kalanick’s entrepreneurial days, I want to know how he views the bigger, more established company Uber has become. His answers betray a reluctance to think of the company that way. He doesn’t know everyone at the company anymore, but he still conducts hours-long interviews with top prospects. Kalanick explains that he likes to simulate what it would be like to work with someone before hiring them.

I ask if he likes running a big company. “The way I do it, it doesn’t feel big,” he says, falling back on a favorite trope: that he approaches his day as a series of problems to be solved. He obviously thinks of himself as troubleshooter-in-chief as much as a CEO.

Bigness clearly is scary. “I would say you constantly want to make your company feel small,” he says. “You need to create mechanisms and cultural values so that you feel as small as possible. That’s how you stay innovative and fast. But how you do that at different sizes is different. Like when you’re super small, you go fast by just tribal knowledge. But if you did tribal knowledge when you’re super big it would be chaotic and you’d actually go really slow. So you have to constantly find that line between order and chaos.”

How, I wonder, does he plan to manage the transition out of the pure startup stage, now that the company is no longer composed of a bunch of young, single people with nothing in their lives but work? “I call it the red line,” he says. “In a car, you can go fast. But you have a red line. And everybody has their own personal red lines. You want to push into that red line and see what that engine’s made of. You might find you’ve got more under the hood than you thought. But you can’t sit over the red line for too long. And everybody’s got their own personal red line.”

He points out that already there are many “Uber babies” and that parents tend to be more efficient than childless people with fewer constraints on their time. There are limits, though, to Kalanick’s aspirations for work/life balance for his employees. “Look, if somebody’s producing more, they’re going to rise faster. That just is. There’s no way around that.”

III.

After more than three hours of walking, the night has turned cold and dark—and the conversation turns deeply personal. We discuss the narrative arc of how Uber has progressed from media darling to media villain. Kalanick was an almost willing accomplice in this metamorphosis, often managing to stoke the fire by playing the villain himself. He refers to these actions as his “little moments of arrogance where I say something provocative.”

I ask if he cares what people think. “Yeah,” he says, acknowledging some regrets. “It’s not good for Uber. It’s not good for me. It’s not good for the people that I’m talking to. It’s bad for everybody.”

Part of his problem is that Kalanick seemingly isn’t able to hide his defensiveness or his annoyance. He ascribes his moments of pique to “fierce truth seeking.” Someone willing to say exactly what he thinks, empathy be damned, will be judged harshly. He’s not alone. It’s a trait that has been repeatedly ascribed to Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, as well as to Kalanick’s contemporary, Elon Musk. Kalanick is aware of this, referring to the “meme that founder-CEOs have to be assholes to be successful.” He rejects that notion, but he’s obviously just short of obsessed by it.

“I think there’s this question out there,” he says, shifting away from general memes to himself. “‘Is he an asshole?’ Since you’ve spent time with me, one of the big questions you’re going to get is, ‘Is he an asshole?’”

Engineer that he is, Kalanick wants to believe there is a scientific answer to the question. I suggest the answer is and always will be in the realm of opinion, not fact. He rejects this. “Understanding whether it’s real or not, like do I trigger something in certain people that’s related to something that I didn’t do? Or am I an asshole? I’d love to know.” He continues: “I don’t think I’m an asshole. I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

But I want to know if he cares one way or the other what people think. “What you’re hearing me say is that if you are a truth seeker, you just want the truth. And if you believe that something is not the truth, then you want to keep seeking for truth. That’s just how I’m wired.”

Kalanick is unlikely to ever hear the version of the truth he craves. Weeks after our walk, New York magazine publishes an interview with Bradley Tusk, the political consultant who has worked for Uber on multiple regulatory fights. In discussing his own willingness to take “a few hits” for the right reasons, Tusk compares himself to Kalanick. “He understands to achieve really big things, you’re going to piss a lot of people off,” Tusk says. Then the writer asks Tusk if Kalanick is an asshole and describes his reaction: “He hesitates. ‘Are we off the record?’ I tell him we are not. ‘No, he is not an asshole.’”

The “asshole” question was answered for good in the eyes of many early in 2017 when a video of Kalanick berating a driver went viral. Kalanick suggested publicly the incident showed his need to “grow up.” But he made this statement having recently entered his fifth decade. Youthfulness alone can no longer explain his behavior.

Kalanick, who at this point in our walk is cold and tired, offers to continue to the Golden Gate Bridge, likely another half-hour down the trail, or to call a car and head back to the Uber offices. I’m tired and cold too, but I ask him to choose. “I think we’re getting a car,” he says.

He pulls out his smartphone and summons an Uber. It takes the driver just a few minutes of listening to our discussion to realize that the “Travis” he has picked up—all Uber drivers have the first name of their paying passenger—is the company’s CEO.

DRIVER: Are you Travis?

KALANICK: Yeah. How you doing, man?

DRIVER: I never met you.

KALANICK: Yeah, yeah.

DRIVER: How you doing, man?

KALANICK: I’m good. I’m good.

DRIVER: I can’t believe it.

KALANICK: How’d you connect the dots?

DRIVER: I was looking in the rearview mirror a little bit. And you looked so familiar. Damn, I’m with the CEO.

KALANICK: It’s good to meet you, man.

DRIVER: Thanks, man.

KALANICK: How long you been doing the Uber thing?

DRIVER: A year, about a year and two months.

KALANICK: What were you doing before?

DRIVER: I was doing it part-time because I live in San Francisco, so I need more money.

KALANICK: For sure.

DRIVER: And then I got laid off, so I’m doing it full-time now.

The driver explains that he’d recently been laid off after 16 years at AT&T (t, +0.87%), where he worked in tech support. Kalanick asks if he is “pumped” about being able to control his time now as an Uber driver, and the driver says he likes the flexibility, though the money could be better. When Kalanick says that Uber has lots of ways for drivers “to make an extra buck,” the tide turns. “Well, your tech support really sucks,” the driver says. “That’s true, I’m working on it,” says Kalanick, asking for a few months to fix what’s broken.

The driver also complains that he’s not getting emails and text messages informing him of guaranteed hours, an incentive program that is a staple for drivers trying to make a living on Uber. He then gives the CEO a lesson on how drivers abuse Uber’s rules. For example, many drivers screen rides to avoid undesirable destinations, like far-out suburbs.

By the time we get out of the car, at the same side entrance where we exited the Uber building hours earlier, it’s nearly 11 p.m. Kalanick promises to follow up with the driver’s concerns. (At 11:07 p.m. he forwards me an internal response from a “senior community operations manager” in Chicago promising to look into them. I ask later if he would have been as responsive if I hadn’t been in the car. “You know how many emails and texts I send from cars, from drivers giving me feedback?” he asks. “Uber product managers are like, ‘Oh man, here we go.’”)

IV.

Last August, Kalanick stunned many Uber watchers by admitting defeat in what he had touted as the company’s most important future market: He sold Uber China to Chinese rival Didi. It was perhaps the most painful failure of his career. But even here the full story is more nuanced. Uber was losing a billion dollars a year in China. And by selling to Didi—which made his company Didi’s largest shareholder and brought Didi onto Uber’s board—Kalanick in one fell swoop also achieved one of his greatest triumphs.

All of a sudden he had parlayed a failing $2 billion investment into a stake worth $6 billion in a rising Chinese monopoly. And by eliminating a no?end?in?sight drain on the company’s cash reserves, he shored up Uber’s finances, paving the way for an eventual initial public offering of Uber’s shares in the United States.

Meanwhile, Uber showed it hadn’t lost the appetite to dream big. In late October 2016 its top product executive, Jeff Holden, published a 99-page white paper devoted to Uber’s research into flying cars, of all things. He dubbed the project “Uber Elevate.” The report begins: “Imagine traveling from San Francisco’s Marina to work in downtown San Jose—a drive that would normally occupy the better part of two hours—in only 15 minutes.” It goes on to explain Uber’s vision for a network of cars that take off and land vertically and the infrastructure it would take to build it.

The paper might have seemed like an elaborate prank but for its detailed discussion of “market feasibility barriers” and its 17-person contributor-and-reviewer roster, including scientists from NASA, Georgia Tech, and MIT. One of those reviewers, a 30-year NASA veteran named Mark Moore, joined Uber full time in early 2017 as director of aviation engineering. Whatever Uber’s shortcomings, it’s safe to say it literally considers the sky to be the limit.

For all his professed just-the-facts practicality, Kalanick loves nothing more than to bat around ideas, the zanier the better. In the summer of 2016, I traveled by private jet with Kalanick and several top Uber executives from Beijing, the Chinese capital, to Hangzhou, the coastal city near Shanghai that is home to Alibaba and thus an important hub of the Chinese Internet business.

Before takeoff, Kalanick wonders aloud to Emil Michael, his top dealmaker and fundraiser, if Uber could go public without investment bankers. Michael, a lawyer by training, suggests instead a reverse merger, a somewhat dubious technique whereby a private company buys an inferior public company for its listing. Kalanick suggests using no bankers but giving 3% of the capital raised—the fee bankers would have received—to charity. When I suggest giving that money instead to drivers, Kalanick lights up. He says he wants to give equity to drivers, something upstart Juno has begun doing, but Uber has found the securities-law implications to be complicated.

Once airborne, Kalanick turns positively pensive. He tells me he has long dreamed of being an investigative journalist, having once read an anthology of reporting about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The “dream job,” he says, appeals to his sense of justice. He even has an idea for an investigative project: He and I need to go to Mumbai for six months, he says, and live in the slums and write about the experience. “I’m going to grow out my hair and wear different clothes and go native,” he says.

I learn over time that this is partly how Kalanick amuses himself and partly a reflection of his earnest side. He may well be moved by the plight of the Cambodian people under the murderous Khmer Rouge or by the slum dwellers of Mumbai, yet he hasn’t done anything about the homeless in his own city of San Francisco. His ideas are thrilling but also baffling. And he relishes challenges to his flights of fancy.

In one of my last conversations with Kalanick, I bring up the topic of Alexander Hamilton, in part to verify my recollection that Kalanick had been interested in the first U.S. Treasury Secretary long before Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epically successful musical exploded on Broadway. Why, I ask, did Kalanick admire Hamilton so much when he first read Ron Chernow’s biography?

“There’s much to admire about him,” he says. “He was an entrepreneur in his own time. But instead of creating a company he was creating a country. He was right at the center. The U.S. would be a very different place if he wasn’t there. He was a philosopher, but he was also an execution guy. He had a lot of great qualities. I think just so much about how he saw the future. And in many ways America lived that out, and I think we became a prominent country because of his vision.”

Hamilton didn’t know when to keep quiet, and his list of enemies was long. Did Kalanick identify, I wonder, with the extraordinary amount of public abuse Hamilton withstood? “Well, look,” he says, “this guy had a lot of adversity. We have this thing at Uber. We like to say, ‘Know what’s right, fight for it, don’t be a jerk.’ He just did what he thought was right. And when you do that, when you’re doing something really, really different, you’re going to have some naysayers. You just have to get used to that.”

Travis Kalanick, a jerk to many but not to himself, very likely will never get used to the naysayers. Adversity, after all, has become part of the journey.