????為了與男友團(tuán)聚，雷切爾?霍特搬到了華盛頓——他的男友現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)成了他的丈夫。她回復(fù)了Uber的一份招聘啟事，開始在美國(guó)首都推廣Uber。

????我是在2011年11月8日來到華盛頓的。我們?cè)?1月18日做成了第一單。所以在10天時(shí)間里，我們差不多把所有事情都拋在腦后了。一開始只有我和另一個(gè)推廣團(tuán)隊(duì)在做，他們大概是在我的兩周后開始的。我覺得當(dāng)時(shí)有一種盲人騎瞎馬的感覺。

????華盛頓是我們碰到監(jiān)管挑戰(zhàn)的第一個(gè)市場(chǎng)。諷刺的是，我剛到華盛頓時(shí)就說過，我不想干任何跟政治哪怕有一丁點(diǎn)關(guān)系的事。我們?cè)?011年的12月15日正式發(fā)布產(chǎn)品。

????我記得那是2012年1月11日，也就是離我們正式發(fā)布還不到一個(gè)月，我當(dāng)時(shí)剛從舊金山返回華盛頓，但Uber在華盛頓已經(jīng)火得不行。從一家企業(yè)的觀點(diǎn)看，Uber已經(jīng)做得很好了。我在舊金山與特拉維斯和比爾?格爾利見了面，他們當(dāng)時(shí)都在辦公室。我們當(dāng)時(shí)真的工作得非常努力，整個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)每天都忙得團(tuán)團(tuán)轉(zhuǎn)。

????我剛回到華盛頓，Twitter上就冒出了出租車管理部門宣布Uber在華盛頓為非法的消息。我們想方設(shè)法地去解決這個(gè)問題。當(dāng)然，由于這是華盛頓，所有人都對(duì)監(jiān)管領(lǐng)域的故事感興趣，所以《華盛頓郵報(bào)》和很多博客都在評(píng)論此事。結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)，有一名出租車管理部門的官員在沒有引用任何法規(guī)的情況下，就斷言“它是非法的”。輕輕一句話，就讓大家瘋了似的急了兩天。然后我接到了一個(gè)電話：“那位出租車管理官員要求試乘一下，我們?cè)趺崔k？”我說：“讓他試乘，反正我們什么也沒做錯(cuò)。”他讓車子停在五月花酒店，然后召集媒體，扣留了司機(jī)的車子，并且開了一張2000美元的罰款票據(jù)。

????當(dāng)天我就挨個(gè)打電話給每個(gè)合作伙伴，對(duì)他們說：“現(xiàn)在發(fā)生了這件事，我們百分之百地支持你們。如果像這樣的事情再發(fā)生，不管是什么罰單傳票，我們都會(huì)原價(jià)賠償。我們支持你們?！蔽覀兘o每名司機(jī)都打了電話。當(dāng)晚，我們上路的司機(jī)比發(fā)生這件事以前還要多。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：樸成奎

????審校：任文科

????Rachel Holt moved to Washington, D.C., to be with her boyfriend, who is now her husband. She answered a job listing to start Uber’s operations in the nation’s capital.

????I got to D.C. on November 8th, 2011. We did our first ride on November 18th, 2011. So in 10 days, we sort of got everything fully spun off. In the beginning it was just me and another launcher team that started about two weeks after me. I think it was a little bit of the blind leading the blind.

????D.C. was the first market that we ever had any regulatory challenges. Ironically, when I went to D.C. I said I wanted to do nothing remotely political. Our official launch was December 15th, 2011.

????I remember it was January 11th, 2012—less than a month after we launched. I actually had just come back from San Francisco. D.C. was really on fire. It was doing so well from a business perspective. In San Francisco I had met with Travis and with Bill Gurley, who was in the office at the time. I was so excited to share all this early success we had had. We were really working—really, really working hard. The team was working their tails off.

????I got back to D.C. and this tweet comes up saying that the taxi commissioner declares Uber D.C. illegal. Suddenly we were scrambling to figure out what to do. And of course, because it was D.C., everyone is interested in this regulatory story. So the Washington Post was writing about it and blogs in D.C. were writing about it. And then there is a taxi commissioner, not citing any rules, saying, you know, “This is illegal.” And that really sparked two incredibly crazy days. I got a call saying, “The taxi commissioner has requested a ride. What do we do?” And I was like, “Let him take the ride. We’re not doing anything wrong.” And he had called the press before he took this ride, and ended the ride at the Mayflower Hotel, which of course is where all fun things go down in D.C. And he had the press there, and he impounded the driver’s car and gave him $2,000 worth of tickets.

????I spent the rest of the day calling every partner that we had, saying, “This is what happened. We’re 100% behind you. If anything like this happens again, we’re going to reimburse you for any tickets and any citations. We’re behind you.” We called every driver personally. We had more drivers on the road that evening than we had ever had before.