Saturday, April 2, 2022

What I’m Watching: Super Pumped

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber: Season 1, Episode 5 “The Charm Offensive” (B+)

I’m a big fan of Hank Azaria’s and really enjoyed his recent appearance on an episode of “Life and Beth” as a funeral director very much affected by his poor choice to engage in intermittent fasting during the workday. I like that he brought something different to Tim Cook, willing to hear Travis out but also to truly go through all the points before telling him he was done in China and would be finished everywhere else if he ever stepped out of line again. The idea that Uber is no longer the disruptor but the establishment now is an interesting perspective, but Travis has never been one to engage with reality as it is. His first response to the news that a driver killed a child was incredibly selfish, and him being upset about something going wrong when he was still the offending party showed that he still believes nothing and no one can stop him. Emil echoed that sentiment by talking to a Buzzfeed reporter as if he wasn’t legitimate and couldn’t possibly write an article that would be damaging, and the most effective show of the toxic culture at Uber was Susan explaining it as the number of women at the company kept ticking downward. Ultimately, the biggest threat to Travis isn’t coming from the public but from an even more powerful peer, Google, one with the power to ruin them, especially if they’re coming after Travis personally for aggressively poaching an asset they refused to share.

No comments: