Everyone knows the name, right? It’s a verb now. "I’ll Uber there." But if you ask a random person on the street who actually started the thing, you’ll probably get a blank stare or maybe a half-remembered name like Travis Kalanick.
The truth? It wasn't just one guy. And it wasn't some grand plan to "disrupt transportation" from day one. Honestly, it started because two wealthy dudes couldn't find a taxi in the snow.
The Night in Paris: Where Uber Was Born
Picture this: It’s December 2008. Two entrepreneurs, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, are in Paris for a tech conference called LeWeb. It’s freezing. It’s snowing. They’re standing on the curb, desperately trying to hail a cab, and they’re getting nowhere.
That’s the "Aha!" moment.
Garrett Camp is the guy who really gets the credit for the initial spark. He had just sold his company, StumbleUpon, to eBay for $75 million. He was already thinking about how annoying it was to get a black car in San Francisco. He’d spent $800 on a private driver for New Year's Eve and thought, "There has to be a cheaper way to do this if we just share the cost."
When they were stuck in Paris, the idea evolved: What if you could just tap a button on your phone and a ride showed up?
Meet the Founders: A Tale of Two Personalities
While Garrett Camp was the visionary behind the concept, Travis Kalanick became the face (and eventually the lightning rod) of the company.
- Garrett Camp: The quiet architect. He built the first prototype. He bought the domain UberCab.com. He’s the one who obsessed over the user experience and the "magic" of the app.
- Travis Kalanick: The "mega advisor" who became the CEO. Travis was a serial entrepreneur with a chip on his shoulder. He’d previously started Scour (which went bankrupt after massive lawsuits) and Red Swoosh. He brought the "win at all costs" energy that powered Uber's global expansion—and later caused its biggest scandals.
Basically, Garrett provided the soul, and Travis provided the muscle.
The Third "Founder" You’ve Never Heard Of
Most people forget about Ryan Graves. He wasn't there in the snow in Paris, but he became Uber’s first employee and first CEO. How’d he get the job? He responded to a tweet from Kalanick.
Kalanick tweeted that he was looking for a "product mgr / biz-dev killer" for a location-based service. Graves replied, "here's a tip. email me." He ended up with a massive stake in the company and ran the show for the first ten months before Kalanick took over the CEO chair in late 2010.
The Evolution from UberCab to Global Giant
When Uber first launched in San Francisco in 2010, it wasn't for everyone. It was a luxury service. You could only book high-end black cars, and it cost about 1.5 times more than a regular taxi.
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The name was UberCab, but they had to drop the "Cab" part pretty quickly. Why? Because the San Francisco transit authorities weren't happy. They sent a cease-and-desist letter because the company didn't have a taxi license.
Kalanick’s response? He just ignored it. He changed the name to Uber and kept right on going. This "ask for forgiveness, not permission" strategy became the company’s DNA.
The Fall of Travis Kalanick
By 2017, the "bro culture" and the aggressive tactics caught up with the company. There were reports of widespread sexual harassment (famously exposed by engineer Susan Fowler), the "God View" tool used to track journalists, and even a secret software called "Greyball" used to evade law enforcement.
Investors eventually had enough. In June 2017, after months of turmoil and the tragic death of his mother in a boating accident, Kalanick was pressured to resign.
Dara Khosrowshahi, the former CEO of Expedia, was brought in to clean up the mess. He’s the one who took the company public in 2019 and tried to turn "Uber 1.0" into a more "grown-up" business.
Why the Uber Story Still Matters
Uber changed everything. It created the "gig economy." It changed how we think about car ownership. But it also raised massive questions about labor rights, safety, and how much power a tech platform should have over the people who do the actual work.
What You Can Learn from the Uber Founders:
- Solve your own problem. If you’re frustrated by something (like waiting for a taxi in the snow), millions of other people probably are too.
- The "Who" matters as much as the "What." Garrett’s idea needed Travis’s aggression to scale, but that same aggression almost destroyed the company.
- Persistence is key. Kalanick’s previous failures with Scour and Red Swoosh didn't stop him; they gave him the "revenge" mindset he used to build a multibillion-dollar empire.
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the gritty details of the Uber story, check out the book Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac. It’s a wild ride that makes most corporate thrillers look boring.
Your next step: Take a look at your own daily frustrations. Is there a "taxi in the snow" moment in your life? Write it down. That’s exactly how the next billion-dollar idea starts.