The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World by Brad Stone

About The Book

ONE OF AMAZON'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 A look deep inside the new Silicon Valley, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Everything Store

Ten years ago, the idea of getting into a stranger's car, or a walking into a stranger's home, would have seemed bizarre and dangerous, but today it's as common as ordering a book online. Uber and Airbnb have ushered in a new era: redefining neighborhoods, challenging the way governments regulate business, and changing the way we travel.

In the spirit of iconic Silicon Valley renegades like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, another generation of entrepreneurs is using technology to upend convention and disrupt entire industries. These are the upstarts, idiosyncratic founders with limitless drive and an abundance of self-confidence. Led by such visionaries as Travis Kalanick of Uber and Brian Chesky of Airbnb, they are rewriting the rules of business and often sidestepping serious ethical and legal obstacles in the process.

The Upstarts is the definitive story of two new titans of business and a dawning age of tenacity, conflict and wealth. In Brad Stone's riveting account of the most radical companies of the new Silicon Valley, we discover how it all happened and what it took to change the world.

Review

Readers will find plenty of food for thought in Brad Stone’s The Upstarts, the most detailed investigation yet into the early years of these Silicon Valley prodigies. It’s an entertaining and well-crafted account... a careful character portrait of both Uber and Airbnb. Read it and you will be able to judge them for yourself. ― FT

A fun, briskly told narrative… Mr. Stone’s reporting is excellent. The Upstarts is not the end of the story but an excellent history of the beginning. ― The Wall Street Journal

Excellent... an unusually gripping business book. ― The Times

Stone brings a big dose of truth serum to the marvels and machinations of the sharing economy and its founders.... 'The Upstarts' is rich with inside details. ― Forbes

About the Author

Brad Stone

I am the senior executive editor for global technology coverage at Bloomberg and the author of "Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire," published in May 2021 by Simon and Schuster.

The book is a sequel to my earlier work, "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon," which won the Book of the Year Award in 2013 from The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs. I'm also the author of The Upstarts: Uber, Airbnb, and the Battle for the New Silicon Valley.

Over the last few years, I have authored a few dozen cover or feature stories for Bloomberg Businessweek on companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Costco and the Chinese tech companies Didi, Baidu and Xiaomi. I joined the magazine from the New York Times, where I covered Silicon Valley from the newspaper's San Francisco bureau. Before that, I was a reporter for the once proud magazine known as Newsweek. I am also the author of a previous work of non-fiction, Gearheads, which the San Francisco Chronicle selected as one of the best books of 2003.

I graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and am originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I've lived in San Francisco for over 20 years but I'm still a Clevelander at heart- or should I say, at heartbreak, since the sports teams always manage to lose big (except the Cavs!) I have twin daughters and am teaching them to root for Cleveland teams as well because I believe adversity builds character. I hope you enjoy my books. Feel free to write me at brad.stone at gmail to let me know what you think.

More Information

More Information
Author	Brad Stone
Publisher	Corgi
Publication date	2018 A.D
Language	English
Binding	Paperback
ISBN	9780552172585
In the box	Main Unit

Reviews