Russian Uber Drivers Are America's Leading Optimists

Modern-day philosophers often have Caucus accents.

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Back to stick figure drawings.

My Uber rides fall into one of two categories:

1. I check the license plate number, wait for the driver to ask, “Jack?” nod my head, hop in the back, throw in my AirPods, and listen to music in peace until we reach the destination.

2. I check the license plate number, wait for the driver to ask, “Jack?” nod my head, hop in the back, and spend the next 27 minutes talking to my driver about any of a wide range of topics, from the Atlanta Falcons, to their home country (if they’re foreign), to the levels of steroid and cocaine abuse in the 1980s UNC Chapel Hill football locker room (this conversation happened in 2018; my Uber driver played middle linebacker on that team).

Most of my rides over the last couple of weeks fell in the first category, but I did, however, have one ride fall in the second category.

I was across town meeting someone for coffee last Wednesday afternoon, and because I was a few miles from my gym and I still hadn’t tested the San Francisco public transit, I called an Uber.

Having taken something like 1,100 Ubers at this point in my life, I’ve decided that there are ~5 different Uber driver stereotypes:

1. Vaguely Middle Eastern/North African guy who is soft-spoken, but, if you mention the English Premier League, will take you down a rabbit hole of his well-researched outlook on Liverpool’s ability to win the EPL this season.

2. Quiet, stoic East Asian man with a 5-star rating, usually wearing a mask, who is totally fine with driving in complete silence for two hours. His car is spotless.

3. Latino guy, who typically speaks in broken English, who is happy to indulge my desire to practice my Spanish if I indulge his desire to practice his English. If you’re on vacation, in, say, Miami, he might offer to exchange Whatsapps and give you cheaper rides off the Uber app.

4. Clearly wealthy caucasian man/woman who loves to chat, is driving for fun because 1) they’re retired or 2) they have a breadwinner spouse and they’re bored now that their kids are in college. These drivers love to offer career advice to 20-somethings like me.

5. Eastern European guy, typically from Russia or one of the Balkans, with a buzz cut and strong accent. The interior of their car often smells like aftershave, they love pop music, and, they won’t say a word until you say a word, at which point they won’t stop saying words, and you’re locked in for a conversation until the ride ends.

My driver of the day, Azamat, arrived in his Toyota Camry a few minutes later, and he was a textbook member of the last group.

He had a buzz cut, his cauliflower ears implied he had a knack for combat sports, and his accent was quite, quite Russian. Or at least I thought it was Russian. I didn’t want to assume he was Russian, in case, you know, he was actually Ukrainian. So, after exchanging pleasantries, I asked, “Where are you from?” which, as my fifth stereotype would suggest, invited a 27-minute conversation.

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It turned out that my driver was, in fact, from Russia, and he had moved to San Francisco a few years ago. Azamat told me about his life growing up near the Georgian border (he may have been from Sochi, or maybe somewhere smaller, I’m not 100% sure), and “Where are you from?” quickly morphed into a history lesson on Russo-Georgian conflict (the borders between the two nations are still hotly disputed), a few quips about how I should, at some point, visit the country of “Georgia” being that I’m from the state of “Georgia,” and a monologue of how driving for Uber had worked wonders for Azamat’s acquisition of the English language (he was frustrated that his accent was still poor. I assured him that it was quite good, and certainly much better than my Russian).

With most of Azamat’s family still in Russia, I was curious about why he had moved across the world to California. His answer was excellent:

“Because America is f*cking awesome. I grew up on American culture, watching American movies. It’s where I first picked up English. And you can actually make money here. Southern Russia is so poor. The people are good, but there’s no opportunities. It’s a hard life. Even if you work hard, there’s no money. But in America, you can actually make money and have a better life. Even if you’re Russian.”

He said the last sentence with a chuckle.

He told me about how he was saving every spare dime he made driving for Uber to help save up for graduate school, and he was about to start a more lucrative job driving luxury shuttles to and from the airport for private parties, which would help him stop living paycheck to paycheck. He didn’t drink or smoke because he “wanted to keep his brain sharp,” and once he saved some more money, he wanted to “fix his teeth” (his mouth, like his ears, gave away his previous combat sports involvement), pay for school, and get a job in finance, probably wealth management.

His energy was infectious: he was raving about his plans, how he wanted to be able to support a family and get married and have kids and just have a good American life. This guy had nothing to his name but a Toyota Camry, and he couldn’t be happier. It was refreshing, and, frankly, rare.

Most Americans, especially those of us from the “middle class” and higher, live lives that 99% of the world would be envious of: we have well-paying jobs, access to higher education, economic mobility, freedom and agency, bustling cities and beautiful terrains, and a society that is, despite the political headlines you see on the news, pretty stable. But when the American middle-class is your “normal,” and you’ve never experienced a worse existence, it becomes your baseline expectation for your life. And Americans have a lot of anxiety about not outperforming those baseline expectations. We perceive a “normal” life to be lackluster. It represents failure. And we treat minor inconveniences as outlandish affronts to our livelihoods.

This phenomenon is amplified in coastal cities like New York, San Francisco, DC, and Los Angeles, where success and opulence are omnipresent, rent prices have soared, and status games are the de facto rules of the land. Young folks, who are, by any conceivable metric, crushing it, are walking anxiety disorders worried about not making enough money (despite making double the median household income in the US on their own), not having a nice enough apartment (ignoring the beauty of living within a 10-minute walk/drive of their friends), not progressing in their careers fast enough (despite the fact that they’re only a few years into their careers), and feeling like they just aren’t doing enough, despite being better off than virtually anyone, anywhere, at any other point in history.

I’ve spent the last ~three years now living in this coastal city bubble. On one hand, it’s awesome: the opportunities (professionally, personally, socially) are incredible, the potential outcomes of these opportunities are lucrative, and the people that you meet in these bubbles are world-class. But when you spend too much time in the bubble, you forget that a world exists outside the bubble, and you find yourself desperate to keep up with the top performers within your bubble, all the while ignoring the helping hands and idiosyncratic circumstances that may have played a role in those top performers’ positions. It’s exhausting.

And here I have this Uber driver from the Caucasus with swollen ears and a heavy Russian accent, living paycheck to paycheck in one of the most expensive cities in the country, and he couldn’t be happier just to have an outsider’s chance to exist in the same world that’s driving most of its winners insane.

It’s astounding, when you take a step back and think about how much of our first-world anxiety is artificial and self-imposed in nature, and yet it’s so real, so ever-present, for so many people.

For everyone reading this who knows they’re doing well but feels like they’re not doing enough, consider this a reminder to slow down, take a look around, and talk to folks outside your bubble every now and then. It’s like a breath of fresh air.

- Jack

I appreciate reader feedback, so if you enjoyed today’s piece, let me know with a like or comment at the bottom of this page! Also, if you’re a founder or creator working on something cool, we should chat. Shoot me a note at jack@slow.co or fill out this form, and I’ll be in touch soon.

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Jack’s Picks:

• For my creator and entrepreneur friends in NYC and SF, we (Slow Ventures) are celebrating the launch of our new Creator Fund with kickoff parties in both cities in the coming weeks. If you want to meet some of the Slow team for a night of drinks, bites, and fun conversations, RSVP for NYC or SF.

• Additionally, I’m co-hosting a Tech Breakfast Club breakfast in SF this Thursday AM (March 13). If you’re a VC or founder in SF, come grab coffee and hang. RSVP here.