TITLE
Was Uber’s CEO really the second-best Wii Sports tennis player?
AUTHOR
Kyle Orland
PUBLICATION
Ars Technica
YEAR
2017
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Last weekend’s New York Times profile of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had plenty of important revelations about Kalanick and the company he runs, both of which have been facing some tough PR lately. But there was one incidental, almost throwaway line buried in the piece that made me stop in my tracks:“In other personal pursuits, he once held the world’s second-highest score for the Nintendo Wii Tennis video game.”
The line baffled me for a number of reasons, not least of which was that the concept of a “high score” in “Wii Tennis” didn’t make much sense. Claiming the “world’s second-highest score” in Wii Sports tennis is like claiming the second-highest score in Pong based on nothing but playing against the computer and your friends. Absent some sort of sanctioned tournament or logical third-party ranking system, the claim just doesn’t parse.
And yet, the boast is oddly specific. Kalanick hadn’t earned the best “Wii Tennis” score in the world according to The New York Times. He achieved the second best. If this was just a fabulist boast, why limit yourself to number two? And if it wasn’t just puffery, who was number one?
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Nintendo
GAMES MENTIONED
Wii Sports
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Travis Kalanick
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
Wii