Honestly, this feels like a white-wash. Jobs was exceedingly demanding, but that's hardly unique. Jobs was also dishonest, secretive, and simply cruel to the people around him. This comes up over and over, even in his non-business interactions.
I agree that it's an error to lionize Kalanick's behavior. But it's also wrong to say that Jobs' behavior was radically different, or that Kalanick's party-boy bravado is clearly separable from his disregard for the law. Realistically, I think we'd be better off admitting that an urge to ignore boundaries usually applies across many topics.
If Jobs was more capable Kalanick, I don't think that was a function of his nastiness somehow being more noble. He seems to have simply brought a lot more skill to his task.
I've commented all over this thread (as a sister comment points out) because it appears there is a narrative that his attitude towards his employees misbehaviour is at least closely linked to the personality traits that allowed him to be successful. That can be seen, I believe, by the many comparisons to Steve Jobs, for whom it's accepted more widely that it was often hard to work for him because of his perfectionism, but that this was a necessary trait for his success.
The danger here is that people (mis)understand the situation and start excusing inexcusable behaviour, or even imitate it, because they think it's linked to success. It is not. You have to separate the strip-club-going bravado from the other law-breaking, which could at least in theory explain Uber's success.