Michael: You've built the perfect product. It's faster, cheaper, and smarter than anything on the market. You're going to change the world. Except, you're about to be shut down by a 7-to-4 city council vote you didn't even know was happening. That's the brutal reality we're unpacking today. Kevin: That is a terrifying thought. It’s like building a spaceship and then realizing you forgot to check the weather, and there's a hurricane named 'Bureaucracy' headed right for the launchpad. Michael: Exactly. And our guide through that hurricane is Bradley Tusk in his book, The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics. This isn't some academic theory, either. Tusk was the first political advisor for Uber and the campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg's controversial third-term election. Kevin: Wow, okay. So he's literally the guy in the smoke-filled rooms, or I guess now, the guy on the high-stakes Zoom calls. This sounds less like a business book and more like a guide to the dark arts of politics. Michael: It's a bit of both. And it argues that for today's most innovative companies, the two are inseparable. The book has been widely acclaimed for its candor, but it’s also stirred some debate. Tusk basically pulls back the curtain to show that the biggest threat to a disruptive startup isn't a competitor; it's a politician you've never met. Kevin: I’m hooked. Where does this political war begin? Why can't a company with a great idea just be left alone to succeed or fail on its own merits?

Michael: That's the core illusion Tusk shatters. He argues that when you disrupt an industry, you're not just disrupting a business model; you're disrupting a political ecosystem. Think about it: the taxi industry, for example, isn't just a bunch of cars. It's a web of medallion owners, unions, and decades of campaign donations to city council members. Kevin: Right. They've been paying into the system for years. They're part of the club. And then some tech startup waltzes in and doesn't even know the secret handshake. Michael: Precisely. And that's when the entrenched interests don't compete with you by building a better app. They compete by calling their friend on the city council and getting a law passed to shut you down. Tusk's most famous battle, the one that really defined this playbook, was Uber's fight against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015. Kevin: Oh, I remember hearing about this. What was the situation? Michael: De Blasio, heavily backed by the taxi industry, proposed a bill to cap Uber's growth in New York City at one percent. For a company like Uber, whose entire model is based on rapid expansion, a 1% cap isn't a regulation; it's a death sentence. Kevin: A one percent cap? That's like telling a shark it can only swim in a kiddie pool. So why would a supposedly progressive mayor like de Blasio do that? It seems to go against helping people in outer boroughs get around, which was a big part of Uber's appeal. Michael: And that was the exact vulnerability Tusk and his team identified. De Blasio's entire political brand was built on being a champion for the little guy against big corporations. But here he was, carrying water for the taxi medallion millionaires. It was a massive contradiction. Kevin: So they didn't attack him as a typical anti-business politician? Michael: No, that was the genius of it. They attacked him from the left. They launched a massive campaign featuring ads with minority and immigrant Uber drivers. The message wasn't "government is bad." The message was, "Bill de Blasio is taking away jobs from hardworking New Yorkers to protect his rich donors." They framed Uber as the real progressive choice. Kevin: That is brilliant. You're not fighting on his terms; you're stealing his own sword and using it against him. What were the actual tactics? Michael: They were relentless. They ran TV ads, radio ads, and mobilized a huge coalition. They got civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton to come out against the cap. But the most audacious move was what they did inside the Uber app itself. Kevin: Wait, they weaponized the app? Michael: They did. For a week, every time a user in New York opened the app, they saw a feature called "de Blasio's Uber." If you clicked it, it showed a 25-minute wait time and a message explaining that this would be the new reality if the cap passed. Then, with a single tap, it would let you email and tweet directly at the mayor and your city council member. Kevin: Come on. That is unbelievable. It's like putting a protest rally inside every single user's pocket. What was the result? Michael: It was an avalanche. The city council was flooded with over 250,000 emails and tweets in a week. They had never seen anything like it. The political pressure became so immense that de Blasio had to back down. The bill was shelved, and Uber won. It was a landmark victory that proved a mobilized customer base could be more powerful than a roomful of traditional lobbyists. Kevin: So the lesson is, your users aren't just customers; they're a dormant political army waiting to be activated. Michael: Exactly. And that's what Tusk calls "Travis's Law," named after Uber's founder Travis Kalanick. The idea is to beg for forgiveness, not ask for permission. You launch, you show people a better way, you build a loyal following, and when the political attack comes, you turn your riders into your advocates. Kevin: Okay, so attacking from the left and mobilizing your customers is one thing. But it feels like Tusk's playbook has some even sharper edges. It seems like his philosophy is about finding an opponent's weakness and hitting it relentlessly. What other moves are in this playbook?

Michael: You're right, it gets much more aggressive. One of Tusk's most controversial maxims, which is a chapter title in the book, is "Pick Your Enemies = Win Your Battles (Strangle the Baby in the Crib)." Kevin: Hold on. 'Strangle the baby in the crib'? That sounds... intense. What does that actually mean in a political campaign? Michael: It means you don't wait for a threat to become a real problem. You identify a potential opponent who could derail you, and you neutralize them before they even get in the race. The prime example he gives is from his time as campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg's 2009 reelection. Kevin: Who was the 'baby' in this scenario? Michael: Congressman Anthony Weiner. At the time, Weiner was a charismatic, popular, and well-funded politician who was seen as the biggest threat to Bloomberg. The campaign's polling showed that while Bloomberg was ahead, his support was soft. A strong challenger like Weiner could have made it a real race. Kevin: So what did they do? Michael: They launched a systematic, multi-pronged, and utterly ruthless campaign to destroy his viability as a candidate before he could even announce he was running. They didn't just run ads. They used opposition research to leak stories about his questionable campaign donations. They ran digital ads geo-targeted specifically to his zip code, so he couldn't escape them. They even had field operatives canvassing his parents' neighborhood. Kevin: They canvassed his parents' neighborhood? That is next-level psychological warfare. It’s sending the message, "We are everywhere. We know everything. Don't even think about it." Michael: It was a full-spectrum assault designed to make the prospect of running for mayor seem so painful and so hopeless that he would simply give up. And it worked. On Memorial Day, Weiner announced he wouldn't be running. The Bloomberg campaign had effectively eliminated its strongest opponent without a single vote being cast. Kevin: This is fascinating, but it also feels a little... dark. Is this just smart, aggressive politics, or is it a cynical manipulation of the system? It raises some of the ethical questions that critics of the book have pointed out. Michael: It's a very fine line, and Tusk lives right on it. His argument would be that politics is a full-contact sport. The taxi industry wasn't playing nice when they tried to kill Uber. The auto dealers, another group he fought on behalf of Tesla, weren't playing fair. His philosophy is that you can't bring a policy paper to a knife fight. Kevin: So when the other side is fighting dirty, you have to fight dirtier to win for the 'clean' cause of innovation? Michael: That's the rationale. Another perfect example is the D.C. Uber fight. The D.C. taxi commission was notoriously corrupt and the service was awful. A councilwoman, at the behest of the taxi industry, introduced a bill that would have effectively banned Uber by setting a minimum fare five times higher than a taxi. Kevin: A protectionist racket, basically. Michael: A total racket. So Uber did what it did in New York, but on steroids. They sent an email to their entire D.C. customer list with the subject line "Un-independence" and the Twitter hashtag #UberDCLove. They laid out the bill in plain language and included the email and Twitter handles for every council member. Kevin: And the floodgates opened again? Michael: The council members' offices completely melted down. They received 50,000 emails and 37,000 tweets in three days. The councilwoman who proposed the bill had to publicly beg people to stop contacting her. She shelved the bill, and Uber then wrote its own legislation to legalize ride-sharing, which passed unanimously later that year. Even the original sponsors of the anti-Uber bill voted for it. Kevin: Wow. They didn't just defeat the enemy; they made the enemy sign the surrender terms. That's a complete political victory. Michael: It's the ultimate example of Tusk's model. You disrupt the industry, and then you disrupt the government itself. You show them that the power of a mobilized public is greater than the power of a few entrenched donors.

Kevin: So when you put it all together, the book is really a wake-up call. It's saying that if you're a founder, you can't just be a CEO. You also have to be a political strategist, a general, and maybe a bit of a street fighter. Michael: That's the core thesis. In the 21st century, the code that matters most for a startup might not be written in Python, but in the halls of power. Ignoring politics isn't an option; it's a fatal business error. Tusk's work with his venture fund, Tusk Ventures, is built on this very idea—investing in startups in heavily regulated industries and providing the political muscle as part of the deal. Kevin: It's a fascinating and slightly terrifying model. It suggests that the free market of ideas is actually a political battlefield, and you need a fixer to even get on the field. Michael: And Tusk would argue that's always been the case, but the tech world was just naive about it for a long time. They believed in the myth of pure meritocracy. He came in and showed them that to protect your meritocratic idea, you have to be willing to win a very un-meritocratic fight. Kevin: It makes you wonder, for every Uber that won, how many brilliant ideas died quietly in a committee meeting because they didn't have a 'fixer'? Michael: That's the haunting question the book leaves you with. How much innovation have we lost to 'death by politics'? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you think these tactics are a brilliant and necessary part of modern business, or do they just make our politics even dirtier? Let us know. Find us on our socials and join the conversation. Kevin: It’s a debate worth having. This was a great one. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.