How a New Generation of Entrepreneurs Is Changing The World: LinkedIn Speaker Series with Brad Stone

These days, most of my travel planning is done straight from my smartphone.

I ride to and from the airport on Uber or Lyft, I get a better sense of the city from the carefully chosen Airbnb I’m staying at, I pick restaurants and book reservations without ever speaking to a single person on OpenTable, and so much more. I revel in the simplicity and elevated experiences each app brings me, but am fully aware that this new normal didn’t come easily.

In fact, how this technology became a regular part of our everyday life is in large part due to those who refused to give in, who relied on an abundance of self-confidence, and persisted in the face of failure.

The stories of these people, their visions, and how they created a new generation of entrepreneurs who disrupted entire industries, is the focus of Brad Stone’s new book, The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World.

Stone, Senior Executive Editor of Global Technology at Bloomberg News and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Everything Store, recently sat down with Shannon Stubo, LinkedIn's Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of Corporate Communications, to discuss what it took for these entrepreneurs to change the world.

From cultural differences and why Stone hates the phrase “sharing economy,” to what company had Beyonce perform (and exposed questionable professional best practices), Stone and Stubo don’t shy away from an honest and candid discussion.

Tune in to learn why today’s disruptors must have equal parts idealism and ruthlessness, and who Stone believes is on track to be the largest company of our time.

Watch the full LinkedIn Speaker Series below, or listen to the podcast.