The post-mortems on Travis Kalanick’s tenure at Uber are likely to continue for some time. This brief piece is my favorite so far. Here’s the pull quote, which I would emend to point out that the takeaways from the Uber saga are relevant to all start-ups, including those that are transforming the retail and consumer landscape:
“And if we want Silicon Valley to create better start-ups — which we should, for everyone’s sake — the Valley would be wise to now examine Uber’s entrails and find another way.
Over the last half-decade, Uber became the tech industry’s model start-up. It was not just the most valuable private company in the world, but an inspiration and template for dozens of other start-ups that would follow in its wake. It was among a small group of start-ups that pioneered a novel way of fund and running a tech company, favoring private capital over the public markets.”
Separately, here’s an article on a topic that I think about often but don’t write about very much—the dramatic changes that are occurring in the restaurant industry. The subtitle, “The quality and variety of food in the U.S. has never been better. The business seems to be struggling. What’s really going on?” frames the article, which has some very interesting data.