Ep 78: Emil Michael — the Master Dealmaker Behind Uber's Global Dominance

By the summer of 2012, ride-sharing had arrived: Uber launched its everyman product, UberX, and Lyft debuted hot on its heels. Today, Lyft's market cap hovers around $5 billion while Uber's is north of $140 billion. How did Uber explode to global dominance? What was different about its culture? And how did it take on taxi cartels around the world and win?  This week, we go behind the scenes with Emil Michael, one of Silicon Valley's great operators and dealmakers. As the former Chief Business Officer, Emil helped Uber raise a record $15 billion in two years and led its expansion into the most difficult markets, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. (Yes, Italy.)  Emil recounts his biggest wins and toughest challenges, including how the Italian mafia threatened to kill Uber employees and why to this day ride-sharing is almost non-existent in Italy.  Emil immigrated with his family to the U.S. from Egypt as a young child, and his success and character epitomize the American Dream. He graduated from Harvard, received his J.D. from Stanford Law, and began his entrepreneurial journey at TellMe, an early speech recognition company.  He quickly became known for his dealmaking skills, including transforming a $300 million acquisition offer into a $800 million deal with Steve Ballmer and Microsoft. After TellMe, he served as a White House fellow at the Pentagon and spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, before later joining Uber. We dive into his unique approach to high-stakes negotiations and lessons learned from his distinguished career. 00:00 Episode intro 01:26 Immigrant story & early career 08:58 Legendary Steve Ballmer story 11:20 Lessons from Afghanistan 17:13 Why Emil joined Uber 20:15 Dealing with Chinese & Italian mafia 26:49 Controversial culture at Uber 31:26 The art of dealmaking 36:36 Uber vs Lyft 38:36 Optimism for the future