The Upstarts

January 16, 2017
Stone (The Everything Store) turns his attention to the sharing economy in this dual portrait of two of the fastest growing startups in the “post-Google, post-Facebook era of innovation” in Silicon Valley. At both Uber, the ride-sharing app, and Airbnb, the homestay rental platform, Stone finds commonality among the CEOs, who lead their respective companies with an idealistic vision and aggressive business practices. Uber’s Travis Kalanick comes off as the more pugnacious of the two, while Brian Chesky of Airbnb operates with a softer touch. Beginning in 2009 with President Obama’s inauguration, the book follows the companies and their founders from the early days to their current status as leaders in the global market place, upending their respective industries and local economies around the world. Both Uber and Airbnb are currently valued in billions, but as Stone shows, the road to success over the past 8 years has not been an easy one. Both companies persevered through financial woes caused by investor rejections, struggles with local governments, scuffles with rivals, and publicity disasters. The writing is solid and the sheer magnitude of the book’s subjects demands attention for this book.

April 3, 2017
The fast-paced look at the rapidly changing world of the tech industry gets bogged down by the complexity of the story: there are so many young guns, also-rans, VC firms, and temper tantrums that it’s hard for the listener to keep everyone straight. At times the narrative has so many players and so much complexity that the audio format feels overly demanding. Temple’s solid, almost soothing, reading voice provides a steady guide through Stone’s text, although at times his reasonable tone is at odds with the story, like when he softens the edges of Uber founder Travis Kalanick, notorious for his hotheaded iconoclasm and public outbursts. Overall, though, Temple turns in a proficient performance. A Little, Brown hardcover.

January 1, 2017
Celebratory biography of the upstart companies that regulators love to hate.It was just eight years ago that Barack Obama was sworn into the presidency for his first term, a time of newborn hope in the heart of a grim depression. Enter an air mattress, a couple of smart youngsters, and the realization that unused guest rooms could be leveraged into extra bucks, and you have a new player in the service economy: Airbnb. You also have, writes Bloomberg News senior executive editor Stone (The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, 2013, etc.), a mess of controversy: housing costs go up, desirable neighborhoods get more crowded, hotels that pay their taxes go unfilled as guerrilla operators offer cheaper alternatives. In all this, there's the new middleman, those smart youngsters. The same story plays out with the rise of Uber, which turns every driver into a potential cabbie. Stone charts the transformation of Silicon Valley since 2008, and he writes winningly of how people with good--commercially if not ethically--ideas can take them from inspiration to reality. In this aspect alone, the book makes highly useful reading for budding entrepreneurs, who should also take Stone's point that the winners in this Darwinian struggle were the players who studied the market exhaustively to figure out just the right angle of entry. Granted, in this anecdotally driven account, there is also plenty to pepper the ire of anyone who's not on board with the thought that a speculator, alive with realization of "lost utility," can build a robust economy on the backs of others alone. And, as the author notes, these new Silicon Valley firms seem to represent "the overweening hubris of the techno-elite" as much as they represent a disruption of the service sector. Despite patches of gee-whiz formulaic prose ("the Airbnb marketplace had the most incredible structural momentum that many of the company's investors and executives had ever seen"), Stone's account is illuminating reading for the business-minded.

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October 1, 2016

After the Wall Street crash of 2008, Silicon Valley needed a major retuning--and a fresh batch of revolutionaries to do the job. Stone chronicles the new breed, e.g., Travis Kalanick of Uber, to see how they are changing the face of business. Following Stone's award-winning and New York Times best-selling The Everything Store; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017

The sharing economy is pretty revolutionary, and Stone (senior executive of global technology, Bloomberg News; The Everything Store) tries to take its measure by examining the history of two companies: ride-sharing Uber and home-sharing Airbnb. The emphasis is very much upon the personalities and decisions of the founders and leaders. Stone's admiration for their accomplishments is evident, but he never falls into outright hero worship. He does not ignore or minimize their poor decisions, or the costs others have borne for the companies' success. This book does a good job of comparing the companies' origins and behavior, finding both similarities and differences. In this regard, what is perhaps most striking is the self-glorification in which both indulge, and the often resulting lack of perspective. Stone's descriptions of competitors and also government officials who seek to regulate the companies are similar to those of the main protagonists, though naturally less extensive. VERDICT Drawing upon publicly available materials as well as interviews conducted by the author, this very readable, informative history will likely appeal to those interested in the sharing economy and contemporary business history. [See Prepub Alert, 9/12/16.]--Shmuel Ben-Gad, Gelman Lib., George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.