As the company tells it, Uber's story began in Paris in 2008. Two friends, Travis Kalanick (born August 6, 1976) and Garrett Camp (born October 4, 1978), were attending LeWeb, an annual tech conference that The Economist describes as "where revolutionaries gather to plot the future."

The concept for Uber was born one winter night during the conference when the pair could not get a cab. That led to an epiphany: "What if you could request a ride from your phone?" Initially, the idea was for a timeshare limo service that could be ordered via an app. After the conference, the men went their separate ways. However, when Camp returned to San Francisco, he continued to be fixated on the idea and bought the domain name UberCab.com

In 2009, Camp was still CEO of StumbleUpon, but he began working on a prototype for UberCab as a side project. By summer of that year, Camp had persuaded Kalanick to join as UberCab's "chief incubator." The service was tested in New York in early 2010 using only three cars, and the official launch took place in San Francisco that May. The company soon shortened its name to Uber.

The ease and simplicity of the Uber app fueled its rising popularity. With the tap of a button, a user could order a ride, GPS would pinpoint their location, and the fare would be automatically charged to the card listed on their account.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, "Uber's name comes from the German word über, meaning "over, above."

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