Meet Uber's German Nemesis
A cabbie who defeated Berlin's old taxi guild now tries to put the brakes on Uber in Europe
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Born into a family of craftsmen in a hardscrabble Bavarian village, Richard Leipold started driving a cab as a college kid in Berlin. He liked it so much that he kept doing it after graduation, and he ultimately helped topple a local taxi guild with competition-stifling work rules. He estimates he’s carried more than 100,000 passengers over the years — earning enough to purchase an apartment in a quiet southern suburb. In 1981 he bought his first Mercedes cab. The next year he added a second, and he now owns eight cars and employs 14 drivers.
Uber threatens all that, Leipold says. And the ride-hailing service, in turn, sees Leipold and his ilk as modern-day monopolists ready to be unseated.