Tragic news: Uber is no more. The economic debacle has hit home, leaving La Vie en Rose and the many, many other sites that lived at this innovative, thriving place without a host. Earlier this week, distressed investors backed out of a third round of funding and the board voted to shut down Uber.
I am sad. Sad for the extraordinary bunch behind Uber, who were among the most passionate, brilliant and genuinely nicest folks I’ve had the good fortune of knowing. Sad because they all had worked endless days to develop the most groundbreaking software and they did it with an artist’s heart and eye. Sad because they finally zeroed in on how they needed to position this technology and their mission so the uninitiated could understand it, finance it, run with it.
Timing is everything goes the adage, and unfortunately the times are bananas (certainly with those monkeys running D.C.).
Always preferring to see the Champagne glass half full, however, I choose to believe that the software Glenn Kaino and his team of clever kids created will find another life.
As for me? Come good times or bad, there’s always plenty going on to share. This is not the first incarnation of La Vie en Rose (a page that first appeared in the OC Weekly a dozen years ago!), and it will not be its last.
Thank you LVER Readers for your comments and critiques, support and interest. I’m always grateful when you take a few minutes from your busy lives to read something I’ve written for a magazine, a book or for this blog. And I hold dear the thoughtful gestures, like the image here by Evelyn Black, a young artist I met one night who surprised me with this a few days later. Thank you.
It’s any one’s guess how much longer Uber will be visible. If you’d like to be notified of my next address, please drop me an email at rosesblog@me.com.
Be well.
Keep your cents and sense.
And don’t let life’s thorns keep you from painting the town rose.
-Rose Apodaca