Damien Fleurette films the chronicle of a successful success story, from the creation of Uber in September 2010 until the fall of his CEO and co -founder Travis Kalanick, “resigned” in 2017 by his administrators.
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“Uber refused to participate in this documentary.” The sentence that is embedded in the preamble is misleading. Only the current Uber leaders refused, those appointed after his administrators succeeded, in June 2017, to dismiss the president Co-founder Travis Kalanick on his own business.
To understand how the start-up created in September 2010 arrived there, director Damien Fleurette interviewed senior officials, such as Brian McClendon, inventor of Google Earth in 2005 and Uber engineer from 2015 to 2017; Alexandre Molla, ex-director of Uber expansion in France (2013-2019); Emil Michael, vice-president of Uber for four years (2013-2017) and star of the huge fundraising-those that are counted in the tens of millions.
Runners, journalists, economists complete the panel of stakeholders. Their deciphers overlap on the background of archive images, with factual reports on the main players in the adventure: drivers and delivery people, in Brazil (second largest Uber world market with 600,000 drivers), in France, in the United States.
“Boulots economy”
Each step conceals its share of revelations. Since the creation of Uber, based on a legend (two young guys who do not find a taxi in Paris) and more surely on a reality: rare, dirty, dear taxis … and two millionaire start-ups, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, who each pay $ 100,000 to launch their app.
Their motivation? The “garage myth”, decoded by Brian McClendon, and “go quickly and break the rules”, mantra of the Silicon Valley. Their model is that of the “Gig Economy”, the “economy of jobs”, which makes independent microentrepreneurs work rather than employees. The boss is a smartphone and management is ensured by an algorithm. Consequence: humans are little taken into account. More surprising, Uber is not – and is still not – profitable.
While Garrett Camp prefers the shadow of the board of directors (until 2020), the troubles for the CEO unstable Travis Kalanick began in 2013, when Joseph Giron pirate the Uber app and reveals that she collects too much personal data. Gradually, in Paris, in Marseille, Brazil, Italy, taxis demonstrate, sometimes violently, to oppose the arrival of Uber, unfair competitor.
Other scandals follow, detailed in the film, until the video taken by a driver in February 2017, when he has just taken charge of Travis Kalanick, drunk, contemptuous, surrounded by two very young women. It will be the trigger. Dara Khosrowshahi is appointed CEO of Uber in August 2017.
On December 9, 2021, the European Commission published a proposal for a directive to establish a presumption of wage workers for self-employed workers linked to digital platforms. A revolution… provided that Brussels inscribes it in his agenda.