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Shervin Pishevar

lines on the record: 81
first: 2025-01-13
most recent: 2025-01-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“No, it was what was required. You know, this is atoms and bits. Like, you need cars and people and labor and millions of them, right? Around the world. And you need to be able to subsidize it to get the market share going. I mean, I remember I went to most of the city launches around the world and we came up with like a whole playbook, including getting celebrities to come in in my round. brought most of Hollywood into Uber Siri likes to joke that I've made more people in the music industry money on Uber than they have in the music industry. But I brought Scooter Braun, Troy Carter, Ari Emanuel, and WME, Sophia Bush, Olivia Munn, all invested in that series B at 33 cents. So they helped us because when we went around the world and we wanted to launch, it helped to have a celebrity be Rider Zero, Rider.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we started off at 10. So Emile was able to negotiate from like 10, 11 billion valuation to 17 because there was so much competition for the deal. And so like Kleiner Perkins came in, Mud Rohani led that deal. I think they put $100 million in at that round. And then the softbank raise and the much bigger raises. And so ultimately we had billions of dollars to be able to expand around the world. And that led to the market share that Uber has today.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're looking at global expansion, and you want to expand to 800 markets and dominate the world. And at the time, the world was up for grabs and no one was better at what we were doing than Uber. So the idea was, okay, we've raised this round with Google. That was a series C, but we wanted to do a much bigger round and a much higher evaluation. And so Emil kicked off that fundraising. And this is where the partnership really took hold. And they would line up the investors outside so they all saw each other in the hallway. Genius. And then they would have a tight deadline. Like we're raising this much. We're going to expect term sheets by Friday. So it was a very efficient process. That series D, like a year after the series C, which Google and TPG did, that was at $3 billion. This was at $7.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An advisor and investor directly when I left Menlo. Basically, the way Waverly loans work, it's like a tax-free loan to a founder. And you exchange it for shares later and you retire the preferred shares that you're replacing with common shares. So it's basically a swap. So I popularize that. And then the TPG solution was I introduced them to Waverly Loans and we did the largest Waverly Loan in history, which is 83 million and bought caracamp shares for TBG for that amount.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. And so one thing I did, just a little history on venture capital, VCs did not like SPVs back then. So I was really the first one to push SPVs hard. So I ended up doing, we ended up doing $200 million of SPVs for Uber on top of these other investments. And then we also brought RLPs into Co-invest. TPG was one of our LPs at Chirpa. So we brought them in into Uber and they put like 83 million. And then Google didn't want to share. They wanted the whole $250 million allocation. And Travis didn't want more dilution. And so my solution to that was what's called waiverly loans, which no one had used in 30 years. But I used Waverly loans to structure my secondary purchase of shares from an early founder when Travis let me become a”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, it costs a lot of money to compete with DD and the other companies. And essentially these companies in China are favorite. It was remarkable that we got permission to launch, first of all, as a U.S. company because like Google, Facebook, they never were able to launch in China. And so we were really one of the first to be able to launch a consumer internet product that was an American invention inside of China. So that was remarkable. I thought it was worth given the size of the market as part of our global expansion to be present and to also mitigate the risk by having a joint venture partner that is as strong as Baidu. Our fund we put 50 million into the beginning of UberTrend and then later put another 50 million into DD when they merged.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Coulter to Travis, and we were working on the Series C. So Google was leading the round. And I said to Travis, look, we should get Bonnerman on.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Emile took the president of clout position. I called Travis and I was like, hey, he took this other position. Look, in the past, I had experienced like losing someone and then getting them later. And if they're special enough, you'd want to get them later anyways. So I said, look, I think I know what to say to him to kind of plant the seed for later. He was like, what are you going to say? And I was like, this was an IQ test and you failed it. And now that I know Emil, I would never say that to him because he's one of the smartest people on the planet. But I said it and it worked. And he told me like, you know, for six months, Uber was like going like this and Clout was, you know, doing okay, but not an Uber. And he was like, damn it, failed the IQ test. And so later that year, I organized a trip. I had introduced David Bonnerman and”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so Travis came to me and was like, hey, I need to recruit, you know, a number two. And this guy, Emile Michael, everyone speaks really highly of him. Can you help me recruit him? So Travis and I basically divided and conquered, and we both worked on getting a meal. And we were really close to getting them. And one of the calls, he said, listen, I have these other offers and they have titles like president of cloud or president of jawbone. You know, he wanted a president title or chief operating officer. And so I called Travis and I was like, hey, Emil is interested. He wants a title. He's been offered this title. And Travis didn't like titles. So he said, tell him he can be president of myself on the business card. So I called Emil and I was like, you know, Travis says you can be president of yourself on the business card.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was involved in the beginnings of Uber China. There's a good story about me getting TPG and Bonnerman in there, and I tell that story. It ultimately comes to.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When Lyft took off, and they ultimately ended up with about 30% market share. They never expanded globally. It's funny, Andreessen having lost Uber deal, ended up doing the Lyft deal. And we had, you know, Travis and Emile, they were close to acquiring it, acquiring Lyft, but they wanted too much ownership. So that luckily didn't work out. But Lyft was, I remember taking the first hundred lifts to Gavr Intel for Travis and talking to drivers and, you know, you sit in the front, you do the fist bump and all of that stuff. So they were on to something and they beat us to the punch by six months. And that cost 30% of the US market at the time.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lift. We could have been way fiercer on lift earlier. It was the one time I saw Travis hesitate. So what happened was Lyft was, you know, Zimride. And I had passed on Zimride. And then they saw Uber launch with black cars. And so they launched effectively what became Uber Racks later. We were already working on launching UberX, but they beat us to it and they launched with Lyft with the Pink Mustaches and people's cars. And they were illegal. They didn't have approval from the San Francisco Taxi Commission. So Travis basically for six months was like telling the taxi commission, the city government, like, you know, hey, these guys are illegal. Like, you know, why are you allowing it, et cetera, instead of launching it, you know, as well, which was like the first and last time he ever made that mistake. And in that six months is.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't agree with that. I think Uber's culture was excellent. They were achieving greatness. They were making history. It was the fastest growing company in history. And you can't get there without being fierce. You can't get there without working extremely hard. You can't get there without having really intelligent people coming together to be part of one team.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've been lucky to have invested in SpaceX and become friends with Elon. And later I did Hyperloop. And I got to witness what an exceptional and brilliant mind can do. And these are people that are like, it's not even 10x. You talk about 10x engineers. These are like 1000 ex humans. And so I've learned over time that it's worth waiting for the thousand ex founders and investing in the future Travis's or the future Elons or invested in Airbnb and got to see Brian early on.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yuri, Travis, and I were there. And then Yuri, who was a mathematician and physicist, had this hobby of giving Travis really hard math problems. So he like gives him this math problem just verbally as we're sitting there at the Oscar Party. And Travis famously like paces around all the time. Like we were at, there was a track at the office at Uber with his like path that he would walk back and forth. He would think by walking. And so he's like walking back and forth figuring out this problem. And a lot of my friends in the Magna School, they would see, there were types that could see numbers. I could see him looking up and calculating. And he came back in like two or three minutes and he was like, he said the equation. Yuri was like almost. And he was like, ran off and walked around and then came back two minutes later and had the right answer, all in his head. But it's that kind of broken.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Travis, I immediately was like, he's extremely brilliant. And one story I like to say is I'm close to Yuri Milner. He's been a great mentor. I met him when he first did the Facebook deal. And that's how I actually met Daniel and Shaq through Yuri. We went on a meeting and trip together. And Yuri, I brought Yuri into Uber. So I brought a bunch of people into Uber. I could tell you that. I will at the same 33 cents tuner. $290 million valuation. Yeah. Yuri and Travis became close. We were at this Oscars party that I think CAA was doing”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was suddenly shit scattered at 1.4. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, you know, watching an entrepreneur of Travis' quality and being able to work with him very closely.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Uber It was 33 cents a share, effectively, based on today's prices. So it would be 33 cents a share. So I had my direct exposure and I had my carry deal by deal. So that worked out, I thank”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So I basically worked out an advisory agreement because of what I had done, they agreed to give me increased carry deal by deal. So instead of the getting carry in the fund, I asked for carry in every deal that I did because I had a lot of faith in the deals that I did. And that turned out to be great. So I got more carry than I would have gotten in the fund by agreeing to do deal by deal carry. So that was a huge thing. And then Travis also, because I was very involved with Uber, I was on the board, you know, and he was making me a strategic advisor after I left Menlo to start Sherpa. And so before I started Sherpa, he allowed me to buy secondary shares from another early person. So I sold all my Facebook shares that had gone public at like 50.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's so worse. You know, is he shopping it? So I text him again. It was like 300 million. And for the first, and I think the last time and only time that I've ever seen Travis not negotiate, he was like, no, 290 is fine. And I was like ran straight to his hotel room. And I have a picture I'll send it to you of us at the door signing the term sheet for 20 million at the time. Later, I got another six and a half million through secondary for Menlo. So that investment at today's prices is worth almost $7 billion. It was one of those once in a lifetime investment.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is just, you know, make the effort, show up, meet with the founder in person, break bread. So I flew to Dublin and we walked the streets, the cobblestone streets of Dublin, had a pint. And it was there that he told me his true vision for Uber, which he kept close to his chest at the time, which was to replace car ownership. And it was at that moment I realized, oh, the TAM is trillions. It's not all my competitors were doing their models based on taxi companies and black car companies and not realizing, no, no, you're turning every car into an iPhone. You're creating a network machine on wheels. And that leads to a platform. It leads to a two-sided marketplace. And so I ran to my hotel and I wrote a term sheet at 290 million. I text him the term sheet and he didn't answer. And I was like waiting for an hour. I'm like, oh no.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out to be Andreessen Horowitz. And my reaction was as a founder first, not as an investor, and I was like, you know what? Congratulations. I totally understand. But if anything happens in diligence, just know I'm 100,000% behind you. And so you have a strong backup. So negotiate with strength. And I'm really glad I said that because a few weeks later, I was in Africa giving a keynote for Obama's entrepreneurship summit. I was in Algeria. And I got an unknown call, which I never answer. But something told me I need to answer this call. I answered the call was Travis. And he was like, hey, homie, you remember what you said two weeks ago? Is that still true? And I said, absolute fuckingly, it's true. He was like, can you meet me in Dublin, Ireland tomorrow? And I was like, absolutely. And so I got on the plane, and that led to my other mantra, which is always get on the plane. And that's made all the difference.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Shervin. And finally, Travis said, you know, he's publicly said this, that he met with me because he had no choice. He had so many people telling him you need to meet him. So Matt called me in August of 2011, six months after Benchmark did their series A with Uber. And he said, hey, we just had our board meeting. We're going to raise the Series B. Can you meet with Travis tomorrow? So I went to Uber's like first official office and met with him at this table that he later gifted to me as our deal table and signed it. And we hit it off. We met for like two and a half, three hours. Realized there was a lot of connection. And I was in the chase for the deal. And then I got a call from Travis and he was like, hey, homie, he called me homie at the time. I really wanted to do this deal with you, but I have to go with this other firm. And I didn't know which firm it was.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Went and used Uber for the first time, and this is when it was like hundreds of cars in San Francisco. And him and Garrett Camp had started the company. And then as a former son of a taxi driver in DC, I knew a little bit about the taxi market. So full circle, that actually helped me win the deal. And I chased Travis. And even before Menlo for a year, I was trying to meet him. And he was difficult to get to. And so I asked Matt Kohler, who was a longtime friend. And so Matt promised to say something to him, but I waited for that. But meanwhile, I decided, you know what? And this goes to one of my mantras, which is the answer is always no until you ask. And so I basically bombarded Travis with references. So I had like Drew Houston, who's a dear friend, Cheryl Sandberg, Julius Schanichowski, all telling him you need to meet.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I ended up going with Menlow. That really was the beginning of my venture career. I had been an angel investor before that and been, you know, invested in Facebook and other companies. But when I started Menlo, I hit the ground running. And in my first 90 days, I close Uber, Werby Parker, Tumblr, and Machine Zone. It was a really fast start. On the whiteboard, I had a list of companies at the time. This is 2011, June 2011 when I started at Menlo. And Uber was at the top of the list. Airbnb was on the list. Square was on the list. And this was a particularly amazing time in Silicon Valley because these companies were just starting out. No one had heard of them. And so I was in lowercase as a seed investor and Naval Ravicant had introduced me to Travis over email.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I met him because Cheryl Sandberg actually was a mentor of mine. I was building Facebook apps and iPhone games for one of my first companies, SGN. Cheryl read and essayed it I wrote about entrepreneurship and reached out to me on her own and was like, hey, could you do lunch? And she had just joined Facebook. And she wanted advice about the App Store and what percentage they should charge. And I shared that, you know, Apple charge is 30%. You could probably charge 30%, which is what they ended up doing. And so we would meet once a quarter, and she was a great mentor. And then I was selling SGN and she told me, Shervin, you should go in the venture. You'll be disruptive. And I was like, I just didn't think I had a seat at the table, but she sent an email to like five top VCs the next day without telling me. I haven't seen the email, but I heard it's really great because I started getting recruited and I had an offer from Kleiner Perkins and an offer from”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. It was a great journey. I started my first company called WebOS Senior College. And that's when my mom bought me the laptop and I was working a night job to, as a security guard, to make enough money to start my company. So I had the little LG laptop with a dial-up connection that I was while I was on the security job all night working on the startup as well. And at WebOS, I started recruiting really young talent. And at the time, the greatest developers on the internet were really young. They were like 15-year-olds like Anthony Casalena, who's the founder of Squarespace. There was this kind of realization.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In it, you punch the holes, and that was how they coded in the 80s. And so I got to kind of see that. And then I saw the apple. And I begged for an apple. My mom and dad worked overtime for three months to afford it. Back then, it was like $3,000, which was a lot in 1985, 86. And they bought me my first Apple IIC. And I did my first code on it. And that changed my life. And then later, she secretly put on her credit card a laptop when I was at Berkeley and I didn't have enough money to get a laptop. And she put it on her credit card. And I always said that she was my angel, my first angel investor, my first believer. But she really taught me how to dream in color. And I'm finding this process of grieving profound in that I see her now in ways that I couldn't see her when she Was alive”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Thank you. My mom passed away last Wednesday. We're going to have her funeral in a few days. And she was the most incredible human I've ever met. She was a teacher for 14 years in Iran when we escaped the revolution and came to America. She started all over again. We came with $35 and then we had to escape. We started with nothing. And my dad drove a taxi while getting his PhD. My mom was a maid and worked two jobs as a cafeteria worker and a maid. I used to go clean rooms with her. So it was a kind of classic American dream story. And she took computer programming classes at a college in Maryland while I was a kid. And so she would take me to her classes. And this was like when they had the paper with the whole”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What went wrong was we had the wrong venture capitalists on the board. Unfortunately, in my opinion, I was Bill Gurley at Benchmark. We found out in our investigation that he hired some private investigators, had weekly meetings about how do we get rid of Travis. That week, when Travis tragically lost his mother in a boating accident, benchmark Gurley decided to go after Travis. I haven't told many of these stories, but basically”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe if Travis and Emil had stayed at Uber, Uber would be a trillion dollar company by now. This is the greatest value destruction that's happened since firing Steve Jobs at Apple. His true vision for Uber, which was to replace car ownership. And it was at that moment I realized, oh, the TAM is trillions.”
2025-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source