TELEVISUAL DÉJÀ VU
THERE IS A SCENE IN SHOWTIME’S NEW DOCUdrama Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber where irascible Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick is trying to talk Mark Cuban into investing in his soon-to-be-notorious startup. It’s 2010, a year before the app’s public launch, and the Dallas Mavericks owner is skeptical.
“I am not gonna invest in a company where you have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to do tens of millions of dollars in revenue,” Cuban tells the younger entrepreneur, shutting down Kalanick’s hyperactive sales pitch with his own no-nonsense, alpha-male energy. Furious at the rejection, Kalanick warns his would-be benefactor that if he turns down the opportunity to invest in Uber now, he’ll never get another one. Cuban passes.
Some version of this exchange did take place during Uber’s infancy; by 2014, Cuban was looking back on the decision as’s metafictional style, Kalanick, like most of the characters, is portrayed by an actor—Joseph Gordon-Levitt, going all-out in every take—while Cuban appears as himself.
