Voot-based series Super Pumped: The battle for Uber narrates the true story of the rise and fall of Uber Founder Travis Kalanick. Episode 4 narrates the beginning of the downfall of Travis Kalanick as Uber CEO.
Recap
The episode starts in the setting of the dark alleys of Rio de Janerio. An uber driver is picking up his customer, who turns out to be a criminal and holds him at knifepoint. They end up murdering the driver.
Meanwhile, Kalanick is giving an interview to someone. The audience witnesses his ever-so cocky and egoistic personality as he shares his vision of world domination.
The scene changes to a boardroom meeting where Bill shares his concern over the fact that 12 Uber drivers have been murdered in Brazil. Kalanick says that it is not Uber’s problem to tackle as many normal drivers get murdered too. Bill is upset by his reaction because he thinks they’ll have to pay later if they don’t take appropriate actions now.
Later, in another meeting, Bill confesses that he commissioned a driver’s survey. Kalanick is upset that he wasn’t informed about this. The results of the survey are bad. The drivers are unhappy with Uber and are struggling to make their ends meet.
Bill suggests tipping to gain the driver’s trust back, but Kalanick immediately rejects the idea. Bill tries to convince him with valid reasons, but Kalanick won’t budge and starts getting louder and more aggressive. Bill looks quite disappointed with him and appoints formal voting for it in the next meeting.
Kalanick learns that it has been 9 days since they had sent a new update for Uber, but it still hasn’t been updated in the App Store. He gets mad. The employee who informs him this shares that it might be because they might have figured out about their privacy invasion. Kalanick gets angry at the employee.
The scene changes to a new woman employee joining Uber. She is greeted by another male employee, who seems to be hitting on her. She looks uncomfortable and tries to maintain professional boundaries, but he keeps striking unprofessional conversation.
She is working when the same employee keeps harassing her with messages. He informs her that he is in an open relationship which makes her uncomfortable.
She reports this to HR, but HR doesn’t file her report and says that she should feel terrible for the guy. They suggest that she shouldn’t ruin his life over something so small.
Kalanick, along with Gabi, goes to a business party. They share the table with Sergey, who keeps flirting with Gabi. This makes Kalanick angry. On the other table, Arianna Huffington sees all of this. She is a writer and journalist.
When Kalanick is alone at the bar, she approaches him. They get in a conversation and Kalanick looks pleased with it. He leaves the party with Gabi and shouts at her for flirting with Sergey and embarrassing him.
The following day Kalanick is having breakfast alone when Austin approaches him and informs that Gil, one of his male employees, touched her inappropriately at the dinner last night. Kalanick says he’ll destroy him.
Kalanick learns that Google might start a riding service similar to Uber and loses his cool on Drummond. He confides all of this to Arianna. She suggests that he should dilute Google’s influence on their company. Kalanick tries to convince the guy who designed Google’s self-driving car to work for Uber.
Kalanick suggests getting Bonderman from TPG, Google’s biggest competitor on Uber’s board. He has a meeting with him and pitches for 90 million. Kalanick manages to get him on the board.
Olivia Longociu, the person who interviewed Kalanick at the beginning of the episode, publishes their entire list of data access. Everyone knows that Uber has been accessing users’ messages, contacts, GPS, cameras, even after the app is closed. With this, Apple Store rejects Uber’s new update.
The harassment cases are increasing in the office, with no actions being taken to stop them. Meanwhile, Bill and other board members meet Bonderman. Travis finds out about this secret meeting and gets mad.
He goes to Bill and offers to repurchase his shares at market value. Bill refuses and tells him that he won’t be running away. Travis goes to Arianna’s house for advice.
Kalanick decides to keep his old practice of privacy invasion but hides it better this time. The new update gets approved by App Store.
It’s the board meeting day. As the new investor, Bonderman gets to appoint a new board member under TPG. He selects Arianna. Billy ends up withdrawing a vote for tipping.
The episode ends with App Store figuring out Uber’s scheme of hiding their privacy invasion. Eddy calls Tim Cook and informs him about it.
Review
- The episode shows the ever increasing gap between Travis and his mentor & investor, Bill. The tension between them is reaching a peak
- The audience gets a glimpse of Travis’s cold, cocky, and misogynist personality as he ignores all the harassment cases building up in his office.
- It’ll be interesting to witness the downfall of Travis in the next episode and how his egoistic self reacts to it.
Rating: 3.5/5
Also Read: Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber season 1 episode 3 recap & review: Travis declares war!