I think you're really just reinforcing the point. He's been willing to do whatever it takes. In the US that meant testing how far he could push and how many regulations he could bend and break before people called him on it. In Australia, apparently, that means first pushing the product experience as far as possible to convince people Uber is much more desirable than taxis.

And regardless of that, it doesn't matter: by the time Uber started operating in Australia (or any non-US country, for that matter), they already had a history of pushing hard against existing norms. Uber would have never even gotten to the point where expanding outside the US would have been possible if it hadn't been for Kalanick.

Sure, he's a jerk, but to claim that he had nothing to do with Uber's expansion after launch is just absurd.

As an Australian - I thought Uber's main appeal here was price. The taxi product experience, from everything I've heard, is far worse in the US than here.

Uber's appeal in most markets is exactly that, product and pricing. Speaking from a place where taxi service was terrible, inefficient, expensive, often corrupt and dangerous, Uber came in like a savior, when the government went after Uber people came to Uber's defense because now we can't go back to the way it was. To be fair I think that is the same as most places Uber has been to.

But this was done globally though.

'Software company, Not a taxi company' argument was used extensively to circumvent license and medallion regulations. On top of it they used VC money to drive down the prices by 4x-5x.

Several tens of thousands of drivers in every state in every country they went to got shafted because of these moves.

So yes he was very brutal and ruthless upfront. You can't replace that kind of human quality easily.

Drivers didn't get shafted. Medallion owners did.

Drivers did get shafted. Imagine if tomorrow somebody comes with some model which flushes 10x the current number of programmers into the market.

Your wages will dilute to a point it will be hard for you to make a decent living.

Medallion owners charged huge amounts of rent from drivers. The barrier to entry wasn't on the driver side.