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August 27, 2025 25 mins

What do Olive Garden breadsticks, Napster, and Uber all have in common? 👉 Jesse Lucas.


In this Mini (Best Of) episode, Jesse shares his unlikely journey:

-Growing up working-class on Cape Cod

-Interning at Napster with Sean Fanning (and meeting Travis Kalanick years before Uber)

-Waiting tables at Olive Garden while his classmates worked at Goldman Sachs

-Breaking into Visa and learning finance from the ground up

-Joining Uber after its Series A and helping scale the company into a global powerhouse


This is the story of grit, timing, and turning setbacks into billion-dollar opportunities.


🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Jesse Lucas here and on more channels below.


If you enjoy this episode, make sure to like, subscribe, and share The Early Podcast for more stories from the builders behind iconic startups.


#Uber #startups #entrepreneurship #TheEarlyPodcast #earlypod


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🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW:

The Early Podcast is where host Max Crowley, Uber’s #25 employee, sits down with the earliest builders behind today’s most iconic companies. No fluff, just the raw stories of what it’s like in the trenches when your startup could still fail tomorrow.


✅ Subscribe for more untold startup stories every week

✅ Like, comment & share if you know someone interested!

✅ Listen on Spotify, Apple, or anywhere you get your podcasts



Let’s go. 💥


🎧 Listen to the full episode:

🔹 Spotify: https://earlypod.com/spotify

🔹 Apple Podcasts: https://earlypod.com/apple


🚀 New episodes drop every Tuesday. Let’s build this together.


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