It’s a mistake, then, to think of Uber’s carcinized business strategy as driven by its scandal-prone leader, Travis Kalanick, and his bad personality. When author Brad Stone asked Kalanick why the company raised over $10 billion in the previous two years alone, the billionaire’s answer comes off as more resigned than pumped: “If you didn’t do it, it would be a strategic disadvantage, especially when you’re operating globally,” he told Stone. “It’s not my preference for how to build a company, but it’s required when that money is available.”14 That last part is worth repeating: It’s required when that money is available. If Uber didn’t take $3.5 billion from Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the royals would have put it on Lyft, and then maybe no one would want to invest in Uber, and then it would all be over. These companies didn’t choose to become crabs—that’s not how evolution works. The founders couldn’t stop themselves any more than the railroad barons could.