Candidate Bush takes an Uber ride to S.F. start-up

SAN FRANCISCO -- Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush took Uber to visit a startup company on a tech-studded fundraising swing through the San Francisco Bay area Thursday.

The former Florida governor visited Thumbtack, a company founded in 2009 to link customers with everything from painters to personal trainers to CPR teachers.

Bush told about 75 employees gathered at the company that the U.S. government looks too much like General Motors did in 1975,.

"The government of the future needs to look more like Thumbtack," he said.

Bush's tech blitz included his first post on LinkedIn, in which he praised companies like Thumbtack because they "cause mental dissonance for people who think they can plan the future of the economy from Washington D.C."

Bush "rode shotgun" in an Uber car to get to his appearance at Thumbtack, he tweeted. "5 stars to Munir," he said of his driver, Munir Algazaly.

In his LinkedIn post, Bush wrote that "big government liberals" are unable to embrace digital innovation.

Naming three hot-button issues in San Francisco and beyond, he touched on Uber, food trucks and Airbnb.

Liberals "see car-sharing services as a threat to the local government taxi cab cartels. They see food trucks and Airbnb as a threat to urban planning and the tax and fee racket that they've imposed on brick and mortar restaurants and hotels," he wrote.

The post came a day after a judge fined Uber $7.3 million for not giving state regulators information about its business practices, including when riders turn down ride requests and how accessible it is to disabled riders.