2.5 stars. A little one sided but I guess you get this from one of these types of novels. Was more interested in the chapters on Uber.

Good piece of journalism that includes reporting some lesser known facts about the Upstarts which are less companies more a phenomenon in their own might.However, a great book for me is one that lends itself to imagination and thought and inspires more thinking and doing. Upstarts is a good narrative of things as they were/ are and the reading experience was more a "ah ok, now I know, ok, interesting". High on gossip value.

Well written. Thoroughly documented. Informative. Recommended.

I read this at warp speed. Like, I read it in the tube, I read it in a taxi (bad idea,) I read it while code was compiling. I had to know what happens next.Did it address any of the big issues about the sharing economy?Let’s put it this way: the author is very clearly aware of all the questions that come up. The narrative is always set in the context of the impact the sharing economy is having on all of us: those who work in it, those who share in it (and often would not have access to some rath...

I love this type of book typically but the way Stone wove this story was amazing. One of, if not the, best "how did these companies emerge seemingly over night to become household names and change the world" books out there. If you want to know what it takes to build a company of great importance - from the type of human it takes to lead and the effort it takes to succeed- read it. Loved it.

At times the author seems a little too in awe of the companies he covers, rather than an outsider looking clinically at them (especially when covering the legal issues).

This book was ok - I liked the Amazon one by Brad Stone ( The Everything Store) better, but that could be because I'm more familiar with Amazon (Seattleite, customer, ...employee) and also more curious. Brad Stone did a good job of detailing the tension between Uber and (particularly) Airbnb's sense of mission/doing good and the grittiness, often outright ugliness, required to expand aggressively and gain a foothold in untapped markets. Uber and Travis Kalanick specifically have been getting a l...

Eh. I expected to like this, since I liked his Amazon book a lot, and I enjoyed his book talk at the LA Book Festival. But this one didn't really catch my interest, maybe because the companies are more works-in-progress, and the writing was pretty meandering. His topics never seemed to come into focus.Anyway, the book came due after I was maybe a third of the way in, including a fair bit of skimming. I'll probably call that good. 2.5 stars for what I read. It's not as if I'm short of stuff to re...

The upstarts contains a solid telling of the history of AirBNB and Uber. I was pretty intimately involved with the Uber part of the story and I can say that the history there is very much accurate. I was also so focused on Uber at that time that I actually had no idea what was going on at AirBNB. The stories being told together in an intertwined way was actually perfect. These are really exciting times in the worlds of technology and commerce and this book captures that. I don't know what the fu...

So far I have not come across a book about a startup that can beat Nick Bilton's Hatching Twitter, but this was pretty good, definitely better than Stone's book about Amazon. In Upstarts, Stone weaved the parallel stories of airbnb and Uber from their inception to almost current day. Fast paced, very readable, informative, and addictive. Definitely recommend.

Journeys Marked By Nonstop Controversy.In THE UPSTARTS, author Brad Stone explores how Uber and Airbnb (and a few other "also-rans") drastically increased their business (and market value). This book caught my attention because both of the two big firms in this book are located pretty closed to me. I was vaguely familiar with the history of each company, but didn't really know much detail. Well, I know a LOT more now.What's really amazing is how quickly Uber and Airbnb blasted-off: "How did they...

Books about highly successful firms and their often legendary founders and leaders are often of mixed quality and not very interesting. Many are hagiographies that tell the amazing stories of their subjects with clarity and near omniscience, so that the reader recognizes that the success of the firm and its leaders was a necessary development owing little to luck. But readers are likely drawn to such books because they already know the firms are successful due to the blaze of media coverage and

Found it boring and not compelling at all. Jumped back and forth between Uber and AirBnb. Didn't care about anything that was happening and didn't like any of the players involved.I had recently finished 2 books by Nick Bilton (Hatching Twitter and American Kingpin) which were both excellent - read those instead of this one.

Shared economy innovators, craziness ensues.

An account by Brad Stone on the sharing economy giants Uber and Airbnb. It does paint a more balanced picture of the actions of Uber in contrast to the over sensationalized negative media coverage on them. Brad usually gives both accounts of the story and let's the reader decide. Brad also gives a blow by blow account of the important moments that defined each companies history in a fair way. One big voice that was missing was the people who have been displaced or affected by this shift in the e...

After the introductory chapter, this book starts off talking about criticism of Airbnb as "Some of them [housing activists] are looking to to score political points by vilifying a high-profile target." Oh, no, the horror, those dastardly *checks paper* activists fighting for *checks paper again* affordable housing. Not feeling like slogging through ten hours of fawning adoration for these chumps.

It’s All About The Brand“Every company creates its own origin myth. It’s a useful tool for expressing the company’s values to employees and the world and for simplifying and massaging history to give due credit to people who made the most important contributions back when it all started.”This is possibly the most convincing and honest statement in this book. The revisionism and distortion that routinely go into re-inventing the story of almost any major company, is always told with one eye on Ho...

This is a a smart and evenhanded look at how two companies, Airbnb and Uber, changed our world in the eight short years from 2008 to 2016. Both companies emerged out of the sclerotic world of San Francisco's urban politics, and both spent most of their early lives battling diffident regulators and entrenched opponents. They are now worth tens of billions of dollars and are household names around the globe.Garrett Camp came up with the idea of Uber after he sold an early social media site to eBay...

The Future of Business - Uber 'n' Airbnb's Digital DisruptionThe future of business has always been a topic people have talked about. Right now it's as hot a topic as it has ever been before with the types of technology you can get your hands on and how fast they develop.Many industries are changing, such as the transportation and hospitality industry among hundreds of others. In fact, there are many products and services for existing industries that haven't even been invented yet. Some people s...

Was nice to know the story behind some popular companies, like uber, and changed some wrong thoughts I had about some companies like Lift. Never knew how these companies started.unfortunately, a lot been changed since Trump Won, which this book won't cover, but still enjoyed how they started. some parts was boring especially political conflicts and long discussions and their names, but overall a nice book.The copy on Tunein was incomplete unfortunately, I guess chapter 9 was missing.