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Uber Senior Vice President of Policy and Strategy David Plouffe speaks in Portland, Ore. on Thursday.

PORTLAND, ORE. — While he was campaigning for the presidential election seven years ago, Barack Obama had one of his most iconic rally events in Portland, Ore. along the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, where more than 75,000 showed up in support of the democratic candidate.

But David Plouffe, who managed Obama’s successful 2008 campaign, thinks more people could have been there if a certain smartphone app existed.

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Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Uber’s David Plouffe.

“If we had Uber, maybe there would have been 100,000,” Plouffe said.

Plouffe, who Obama called the “unsung hero” of the 2008 campaign, left the political world late last year to join Uber, one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world that’s changing the transportation ecosystem in cities across the globe.

The 47-year-old was in Portland on Thursday for a TechFestNW sharing economy event, just two weeks after city lawmakers approved regulations that allow companies like Uber to operate. Plouffe, officially the company’s senior vice president of policy and strategy, joined Portland Mayor Charlie Hales and Willamette Week Editor Mark Zusman on stage to address a bevy of topics ranging from why he joined Uber to the company’s long-term vision.

“We’re in more than 300 cities, and are very happy Portland is now one of them,” Plouffe said. “What we see over and over again is a real unmet need in the transportation infrastructure of most cities. … What Uber and services like it have been able to do is provide sort of an equality of transportation. No matter where you live in a city, you can press a button.”

You can see Plouffe’s comments below, which have been edited for clarity and brevity. We’ll post more from Mayor Hales later today on GeekWire.

uberportland333On why he left the Obama administration to join Uber: “There were a few reasons. First of all, I spent a lot of my life, certainly on the government side of things, in meetings about how we will get more jobs with more income. What we see with Uber is, it’s an easy way for people to either make a full-time living or augment their living.

Most drivers in the U.S. don’t drive full time — on average, they drive about 18 hours a week. One driver here in Portland has an Etsy business and drives to add more money to her income. Another is studying public administration and needs help paying for classes. There are teachers, retirees, people studying for real estate licenses. With the transportation industry, there was really a barrier of entry that’s now been opened up.

They can complete it on their own terms, too. There’s nothing like it in our economy. You work the hours you want to work, or you don’t work at all.”

On transitioning from politics to Uber: “There are some similarities. First of all, I get the pleasure of working with people who are a lot younger and smarter than me — I highly recommend that. They think they are changing the world, and in some ways they are.

Listen, speed matters. One motto we have at the company is we try to get to the future first. I look at the differences between the Obama campaign in 08′ and 12′. Both were wildly successful, fueled by grassroots energy and young people in particular.

But ’12 was harder. We weren’t as fast and nimble. We were becoming more of an organization. That is one of the challenges for any startup. Uber was tiny three years ago. It didn’t exist five years ago. When you become big and global, you mature and get your processes and systems in place. But at the same time, how do you keep that edge and make quick decisions? It’s a real challenge in any organization to really maintain that sense of experimenting. It’s super hard to do.”

On being a different kind of tech company: “We want to think through how we can really become an important part of the community here in Portland. We are a tech company, but very different than most tech companies. Most are up in the cloud, advertising. We are on the ground. We have local teams in the cities running the business. We have lots of drivers out there, lots of riders. It’s a great combination between bits and atoms. Our business is run by the sons and daughters of these cities who care about their community.”

On being Uber’s campaign manager: “I’m not a campaign manager. The truth is, the most important people in a presidential campaign are the state directors. In Uber, the most important people in the company are the general managers who run the cities. They are the superstars building the business.

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For me, I’m just focused on how to make progress with governments. How do we tell the story in a way that helps us both get new riders and drivers? But it’s also talking about the value proposition for cities.

In the Obama campaign, we fundamentally changed the nature of the voters who came out. At Uber, what we are seeing is a change in the market with all these people who never took for-hire vehicle transportation, and now it’s available to them. We try to open up as much of that to cities. Uber was that missing ingredient in the public transportation system.”

On working with government: “Every city is different. There’s a little misnomer out there — we want to work with government.

Almost every transportation regulation in the world was written pre-smartphone, some of them decades ago. They just didn’t envision this. What we try to do is convince people — whether it’s from municipalities, states, countries — to look at more modern regulations that actually enshrine in law things like vehicle inspections, insurance requirements, and background checks. We think that’s really important. That’s what you see all over U.S — in the last three weeks, 15 states or major cities have passed new laws. And why is that? It’s because people are seeing that it’s good for their cities and there’s a lot of economic benefit. But in the beginning, and I understand this, it’s a new technology and people aren’t sure how this fits into the existing transportation system. Here in U.S, that debate has largely become settled.”

On why so many cities outside of the U.S. have banned Uber: “Listen, a year ago in the U.S., there was not a single municipality or state who had passed ride-sharing regulations — not a single one. That was only a year ago, and now we’ve seen dozens. Part of this is that we have more mature cities here.

There have been some instances outside of the U.S. But some of our strongest cities in world are London, Paris, Sydney, Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, New Delhi, Bangalore. We are doing really well all around the world. The debate is now where the U.S. was a year ago — it’s less about should we allow services like Uber and our competitors, to how are we going to do this.

Photo via Uber.
Photo via Uber.

There’s always going to be some tension and we understand that. But what you see is great demand on the rider side, and great demand to drive on the platform. Every city, no matter where you are, wants more jobs, more income, less congestion, more safety. So I’m confident that a year from now, there will be a lot more places around the world that have found a way forward.

These are complicated issues. When I worked in the White House, President Obama ordered a top-to-bottom review of the regulations. It was fascinating because there were maybe thousands of them that had served no purpose anymore. The truth is, I believe that those of us who believe in regulations are the first who should stand up when regulations don’t work anymore or haven’t been modernized.

A lot of regulations get passed and they sit on the shelf for decades. Maybe at some point they made sense. I think progressives ought to be the first ones to say, ‘let’s make sure those regulations are serving a public good, but those that are impeding competition or business or growth need to be looked at.’ What struck me was when the president asked us why this doesn’t happen every year. It hadn’t happened in decades. It just doesn’t make sense.

The pace of change right now is historic. You couldn’t imagine something like Uber six years ago. We’re probably heading into a decade where virtual reality is everywhere in the world — what does that mean? Changes are happening so fast. I think it’s hard enough for government when the pace of change wasn’t that fast, but as fast as it is happening right now, there’s going to have to be a little more speed in how they deal with that.”

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