August 24, 2019
I know that it is not always easy to write a headline for an article, but this one for a book excerpt should not have been a rush job. The piece, from a new book by Mike Isaac, describes the arrogance and stupidity by Uber and its founder, Travis Kalanick. The gist of the piece (haven’t seen the full book) is that Kalanick was an arrogant jerk who didn’t know what he was doing, but hero-worshipping brainless investors decided that he was a visionary.
Given the argument in the piece, it is absurd to make the claim in the headline that Uber was somehow “lost.” The point is that Uber was never there. Kalanick never had a profitable business model, he just convinced idiots with money to put a lot of it behind his hare-brained project.
Maybe in the future, The New York Times should suggest that headline writers read the piece for which they are writing a headline.
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