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2015, Cupertino, California.

It's a beautiful afternoon on the Apple campus, but Travis Kaloneck hardly notices.

He's wearing his favorite red sneakers and pink socks and walking at his customary fast clip.

But without his usual swagger, as he enters a conference room, he feels a sense of dread.

Standing to greet him is the man at the center of the tech universe, the man who could bring the past five years of hustle and ubers $70 billion in valuation, crashing down.

Apple's CEO, Tim Cook. Cook gives Kaloneck a stern look.

So I heard you've been breaking some of our rules. Kaloneck shifts uncomfortably in his seat. For once, he's quiet.

Cook controls Uber's lifeline, the Apple App Store. That's how customers get the Uber app. If they get kicked out of the App Store, they'll be booted off user's iPhones.

A true to form, Uber's approach to the App Store has been somewhat suspect.

For more than a year, Uber's engineers have secretly fingerprinted iPhones by tagging them a code.

The fingerprinting fix was supposed to help Uber clamp down on scammers, drivers who were ordering fake rides.

But the code stayed on user's phones even after they deleted the app, letting Uber continue to track them.

Uber managed to avoid discovery by creating a so-called geofence around Apple's headquarters, which kept Apple engineers from detecting the code.

Kaloneck's thoughts are swirling. So what if we broke Apple's rules, the end justifies the means, right?

Unlikely to be a winning argument with Cook, who is a privacy fanatic. Cook looks Kaloneck in the eyes and continues.

I know you've been tagging iPhones, going against our promise to consumers that they're always wiped clean once an app is deleted.

You know damn well that violates our privacy guidelines.

Kaloneck stays mum. He's been coached to say very little in this meeting, because he's not great in the hot seat.

He's always convinced he's right. And what might start out sounding like an apology, could end up coming out as a justification or worse.

Then attack. And without the app store, Uber is toast. Cook sees Kaloneck's not going to butt in and continues. Stop the fingerprinting or will kick you out of the app store.

Kaloneck is shaken. He almost never backs down with this time. There's just too much at stake.

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