Emil Michael

Under Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

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Emil Michael is best known as the former Chief Business Officer of Uber, where he helped raise nearly $15 billion and negotiated international agreements with Baidu and Didi Chuxing. He also served as COO of Klout, held executive roles at Tellme Networks, and leads defense technology and R&D modernization for the Pentagon.

32statements → 16claims → 15claims resolved → 47%fully supported → 4.12/5average certainty → 2.72/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 47said about them ↓

7 supported 4 partly supported 4 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 16 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 predictions · 11 assertions · 5 opinions · 8 insights · 3 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 16 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 15 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Emil argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Emil Michael: Uber's acquisition of Otto destroyed its relationship with Google

“I'd say that the deal that Was under my watch. I didn't like it at the time, but I, you know, it got done was Uber acquiring auto, which was the autonomous car division that that gets started out of Google guys. It was, and I didn't like it for different reaso…”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 28:53 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Emil Michael: Uber grew faster than any company in history, including Google

“We grew faster than any company in the world, both geographically And revenue wise, including Google.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 1:05:26 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

33% certainty 3

88% certainty 4

42% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.3 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

redirected or did not address 2 of 45 assessed questions (4%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

241 words/min while actually speaking · 14 um and uh per 1k words · 14.5 false starts per 1k · 31.5% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 11,856 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 4/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 4/10

setup questions received 55%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 10:29“Can I be so bold and ask, was that the first real money that you made?” ▶ 38:50“Dave Clark started, and he, he said, you've just got to ask him, why were you taken out of Uber, and was it fair?” ▶ 45:15“Dara today, what do you honestly think of Dara's management?”

when Emil pushed back ▶ 11:48“I've got the opposite. I'm like, if I lose this, I'm gonna be okay.” ▶ 21:54“It was, it's exactly not that.”

What they said32 What others said47 Episodes1

Everything Emil Michael said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported

Microsoft offered Tellme Networks an acquisition term sheet for $800M

“By the end of the weekend, three days later, I had a term sheet for seven hundred sixty million dollars. Plus the cash and imbalances. So just about eight hundred million dollars.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 9:17 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Emil Michael: Outworking the counterparty is the most important negotiation rule

“Number one thing in negotiations is outwork whoever you're negotiating with.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 14:18 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Emil Michael: Uber China was valued at $7B in Didi acquisition

“And then tried to charm them into buying my company for a seven billion dollars.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 21:25 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Contradicted

Emil Michael: No US consumer tech company operated in China before Uber

“Think about what consumer tech companies operate in China. Zero. There was, there's enterprise tech like Hewlett Packard and IBM and all those guys, but no one else had done that.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 25:29 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Emil Michael: Uber is among few global ride-sharing firms with net debt

“It's one of the only ride sharing the companies in the world with net debt.”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 45:59 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Opinion

Emil Michael: Andreessen Horowitz continues to rise due to rapid innovation

“If you want to talk institutional brands in recent Horowitz is certainly on the way up despite whatever's happened in crypto. And I'll tell you why, because they're innovating. They're innovating on how they communicate their PR stuff. They're innovating on th…”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 58:42 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Emil Michael: Hyper-growth startups must transition from tribes to governed civilizations

“Cause what I described companies when they're startups as tribes, And as your tribe gets bigger, you start to intersect with other tribes and you better become a civilization or the tribes are going to be at war. So you build these companies. They're actually …”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 1:12:01 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Tellme Networks raised $150M across four rounds in 12 months

“We started telling me in 1999. So if you think about the timing of that, we were unbeknownst to us, 18 months from the world coming to an end from a technology investing standpoint. So we had done the things four rounds in one in 12 months. Raised a hundred an…”

Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 4:45 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: Emil Michael's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 42 times in 9 episodes on 20VC. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 24 Shervin Pishevar 8 Rory O'Driscoll 4 Rafael Ilishayev 4 Scott Gorlick 1 Fritz Lanman 1

Statements about Emil Michael, by other people (5)

Opinion

Pishevar: Firing Kalanick from Uber was tech's worst mistake since Jobs

“And so they got two, two of the greatest minds in Silicon Valley were taken out of the company. This is the greatest value destruction that's happened since firing Steve Jobs at Apple. And it was a massive mistake.”

Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 48:12 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Pishevar: Uber nearly acquired Lyft, but Lyft demanded too much ownership

“Andreessen, having lost the Uber deal, ended up doing the Lyft deal, and we had, you know, Travis and Emil, you know, they were close to acquiring it acquiring Lyft which, you know but they wanted too much ownership so that luckily didn't work out”

Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 20:35 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Pishevar: Kalanick and Michael initiated SoftBank's $12B Uber deal

“So the SoftBank conversations, ironically, Travis and Emil started those conversations, the ultimate twelve billion dollar investment from SoftBank Vision Fund.”

Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 47:48 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Pishevar: Emil Michael architected Uber's $15B fundraising efforts

“He architected the fifteen billion dollar raise he had a massive impact on the trajectory of Uber, and he became really Travis's right hand and sparring partner in building, building Uber.”

Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 25:46 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Pishevar: Uber's Series D valuation was negotiated up to $17B from $10B

“So that Series D, like a year after the Series C, which Google and TPG did, that was at three billion. This was at seventeen billion, and we started off at 10. So, Emil was able to negotiate from, like, 10, eleven billion valuation to 17, because there was so …”

Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 31:04 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings