Book excerpt: Upwork Global Inc., formerly Elance-oDesk, is an American freelancing platform headquartered in Santa Clara and San Francisco, California.[2] The company was formed in 2013 as Elance-oDesk, after the merger of Elance Inc. and oDesk Corp. The merged company subsequently rebranded to Upwork in 2015. In 2017, Upwork had over twelve million registered freelancers and five million registered clients. More than three million jobs worth over $1 billion USD together were posted in 2017. In March 2022, Upwork was named on Time's list of TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022.