How Uber and Airbnb Became Poster Children for the Disruption Economy - The New York Times

Excerpt from a multi-book review by Walter Isaacson

"Three new fast-paced narrative books written by seasoned business journalists (all of whom I have known since my days in the magazine world) detail the personal, financial and social aspects of the rise of these companies. “Wild Ride,” by Adam Lashinsky, executive editor of Fortune, is a crisp and lively look at both the good and bad aspects of the rise of Uber and its C.E.O., Kalanick. His Fortune colleague Leigh Gallagher has similarly produced a colorful account of Airbnb and its C.E.O., Brian Chesky, “The Airbnb Story.” And Brad Stone of Bloomberg News has intertwined the two tales in “The Upstarts,” a richly researched and highly readable narrative that provides additional layers of insight by weaving in contrasting stories of competing companies that failed. 

In addition to these narratives, which are generally celebratory, it is also useful to read a darker counterpoint, Jonathan Taplin’s “Move Fast and Break Things,” which argues that the radical libertarian ideology and monopolistic greed of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs helped to decimate the livelihood of musicians and is now undermining the communal idealism of the early internet. “The original mission of the internet,” he writes, “was hijacked by a small group of right-wing radicals to whom the ideas of democracy and decentralization were anathema.”"

How Uber and Airbnb Became Poster Children for the Disruption Economy - The New York Times