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Tag: travis kalanick

  • Autonomous Driving is Coming No Matter What, Says SoftBank CEO

    Autonomous Driving is Coming No Matter What, Says SoftBank CEO

    “Autonomous driving is coming no matter what,” says Says SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. “That’s the destiny of where technology is going to drive us.” He adds: “When autonomous driving comes the cost of providing the service will dramatically get more efficient. It will also dramatically reduce the rate of accidents compared to human driving accidents. I think autonomous driving will be definitely coming very very soon.”

    Uber Still Experimenting with Autonomous Vehicles

    Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, also discusses his support for both current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and former Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick in an interview on CNBC:

    I Definitely Believe Uber is Going to Grow Exponentially

    I would like SoftBank to remain invested in Uber as long as possible. Of course, it all depends on the share price (after their IPO). Sometimes the share price goes up too high too quickly and then we have to harvest a little bit. It all depends on the market conditions. But do I believe the company is going to grow exponentially?  I definitely believe so.

    I’m very respectful (of our) dialogue with the new management (led by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi). He’s very very smart and very well balanced. He can be very offensive (strategically) in increasing the business and he can also be very cost-efficient (and good with) employee morale and so on.

    Travis Kalanick is a Pioneer

    I respect that but at the same time, I also have to mention that I respect (Uber co-founder and former CEO) Travis (Kalanick) tremendously. He’s one of the best entrepreneurs. He is a pioneer. When you pioneer a new frontier you have to have the energy, the passion, and out-of-the-box thinking. His aggressive is one of the best. Potentially, I would love to support him in his new ventures. It all depends on the price. But I have tremendous respect for him.

    Autonomous Driving is Coming No Matter What, Says SoftBank CEO


  • Lance Armstrong Invested Early in Uber and May Now be a Billionaire

    Lance Armstrong Invested Early in Uber and May Now be a Billionaire

    Lance Armstrong says that he was one of the original Uber investors staking them $100,000 at a valuation of just $3.7 million. There are reports that Uber’s projected IPO will value the company at $120 billion. Armstrong wouldn’t say what percent of Uber he still owns but it is conceivable that his stake could be worth $1 billion or more today. Armstrong has battled many lawsuits after his doping admission on Oprah and the Uber investment was key for his family. “It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family,” he says.

    Lance Armstrong discussed his massive Uber success story in an interview on CNBC:

    Lance Armstrong an Uber Billionaire?

    When I met Chris Sacca he was at either Google or Twitter and Sacca’s personality is larger than life, we were having fun and we kept in touch and then some years later, probably around 2008 or 2009, he left to start his own venture capital fund called Lowercase Capital. He called me said looking for investors, would you invest. I’m thinking to myself this guy has a huge personality but he’s also very smart, very well-connected. Why not?

    Invested $100,000 in Uber at a Valuation of $3.7 Million

    So I invested in Chris Sacca. I didn’t even know that he did Uber. I thought he was buying up a bunch of Twitter shares from employees or former employees and the biggest investment in the Lowercase Fund One was Uber. It had a valuation of $3.7 million. I gave them a hundred thousand bucks. It’s worth a lot. It’s saved our family. I follow Uber very closely.

    I’m Actually Worried About Travis (Kalanick)

    I do know Travis Kalanick a little bit. Chris Sacca brought him to one of the tours. In hindsight, I think Dara has done a great job and with what they’re poised to do it is pretty impressive. I can’t like that (Kalanick’s firing) right, I mean I was that guy. Travis is Uber and Lance is LIVESTRONG. Is there not some hybrid solution here? You’re out of control, time-out? But again, in hindsight, they haven’t missed a beat.

    I’m actually worried about Travis. I’ll email him sometimes because he’ll say things and I’m like dude, I’ve seen this movie and it’s got a real shitty ending. Of course, his ending has a lot of zeros on it. But you can’t question their decision now. I get it man. I get that this is your baby and you want to fight for it and you want to protect it and you will do anything, say anything, do anything, go anywhere, confront anybody, but in this day and age, 2018, you can’t.

  • Uber Hits 2 Billion Rides Milestone

    Uber Hits 2 Billion Rides Milestone

    Uber reached the 2 billion ride milestone on June 18, just 6 months after hitting 1 billion according to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. “It took five years to reach our billionth trip, six months to reach the next billion … and we’ll hopefully reach our third even more quickly,” Kalanick said in a Facebook post. “Thanks to all the drivers out there for making every trip possible.” This equates to a pace of roughly 5.5 million completed trips per day.

    Kalanick said that “in that single second a month ago, 147 Uber rides started—tying for our two billionth trip.” He emphasized the worldwide reach of Uber today. “These trips happened in 16 countries on five continents, from Costa Rica to Russia and from China to Australia. The longest of the bunch lasted more than an hour as the rider and driver worked their way across Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. The shortest, a POOL trip in Changsha, China, lasted just three minutes.”

    Uber is now in 450 cities around the world. So what’s the reward for the lucky 147 drivers and riders? “We’re giving $450 to each,” said Kalanick.

    With Uber’s continued growth, the company is likely to increase its current pace of 2 billion rides a year. Its emphasis on China should only accelerate growth, where it is in desperate competition with China’s ridesharing leader Didi Chuxing. China is now Uber’s biggest market in the world when measured by number of rides and amazingly accounts for a third of its business worldwide. “We are number two in China, which means that we still have a ways to go,” Kalanick told FT earlier this year. “But we are putting everything on the field.”

    Last year Didi Chuxing arranged 1.4 billion rides in China, more than Uber has done worldwide in its history up until its recent 2 billion ride announcement.

  • Uber Now Profitable In Hundreds Of Cities Globally, But Spending It All On China

    Uber Now Profitable In Hundreds Of Cities Globally, But Spending It All On China

    The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, told The Financial Times that Uber is profitable except for its investments in China and other new markets. Uber is in a fierce battle for market share as the number two ride sharing service in China behind Chinese company Didi Chuxing. China is now Uber’s biggest market in the world when measured by number of rides and amazingly accounts for a third of its business worldwide.

    “We have hundreds of cities that are profitable globally,” Kalanick said. “That allows us to invest in new places, and to sustainably invest in a very expensive place like China.” Uber had first-mover advantage in China but was quickly followed by Chinese company Didi Chuxing which was flush with investment capital and has now moved into over 400 cities, while Uber has only launched in 60 plus cities, but that is changing fast. Uber lost over $1 billion last year in China and may lose even more this year in order to launch in new cities and gain market share.

    China has 16 cities with metropolitan populations of over 10 million making market launches challenging and expensive. By comparison, the largest city in the United States, New York City, has a population of (only) 8.2 million. “We are number two in China, which means that we still have a ways to go,” Kalanick said. “But we are putting everything on the field.” According to FT, Uber’s CEO spent nearly one in five days in China. “Travis was personally invested in the success of Uber in China to a much greater degree than any other country,” noted Allen Penn, head of Asia operations at Uber.

    China was always thought of as a huge challenge for Uber, but with potentially huge rewards. “We like to go after the thing that seems impossible,” Kalanick told San Francisco based FT writer Leslie Hook. “It was pretty far-flung for us to try at that time – but that was also what made it exciting.”

    In order to combat difficult Chinese regulations targeting foreign owned businesses the company launched in China different than other Silicon Valley heavyweights like Google and Facebook, they created a separate company called Uber China and brought in Chinese investors. This has allowed Uber to do business in China without being hampered by unfair Chinese regulations that favor Chinese based businesses.

    That’s the good news. The bad news is that Uber competitor Didi Chuxing is dominating the market and out-competing Uber and has launched in many more markets. Last year it arranged 1.4 billion rides in China, more than Uber has done worldwide in its history.

  • Stephen Colbert’s First Guests Include Elon Musk, Uber’s Travis Kalanick

    Stephen Colbert’s First Guests Include Elon Musk, Uber’s Travis Kalanick

    Stephen Colbert’s highly-anticipated debut in David Letterman’s old spot is fast approaching, and The Late Show has just revealed the guests Colbert will welcome in his first week.

    The list includes Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, as well as Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

    That’s a lot of tech for a first week, and for a network late night program. Musk is pretty well known and always interesting, but Kalanick is probably not on many people’s radar. Uber is, of course, so it’ll be interesting to see what Colbert has up his sleeve in that regard.

    The first week will only include four new episodes (Labor Day), and here’s the full lineup:

    September 8:
    George Clooney, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush
    Musical performance: Jon Batiste and Stay Human

    September 9:
    Scarlett Johansson, SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk
    Musical performance: Kendrick Lamar

    September 10:
    Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
    Musical performance: Toby Keith

    September 11:
    Amy Schumer, Stephen King
    Musical performance: Troubled Waters

    Kalanick appears to be the only non-musical guest of the night. Musk has to share his time with ScarJo – a tough act to follow for sure.

  • Uber Steals Facebook’s Chief Security Officer

    Uber’s just put a likely considerable amount of money where its mouth is, in regards to its promise to beef up the app’s safety and security. The on-demand ride company just poached Facebook’s Chief Security Officer.

    Joe Sullivan will move from Facebook to Uber and hold a similar title. This is the first time that Uber has ever had a Chief Security Officer.

    “I’m excited about Uber’s mission of revolutionizing transportation and, like Travis and the leadership team at Uber, firmly believe building world-class safety and security are critical to that mission. I had the good fortune to work at two amazing companies — eBay and Facebook — when they were growing rapidly. I look forward to bringing the best practices that I’ve learned along the way to Uber and doing defining work in bridging the divide between the digital and physical worlds. There’s a great foundation of safety already in place; my goal is to make it even stronger,” says Sullivan.

    The move follows recent reports of Uber users’ data going up for sale on the dark web. Uber denied any breach, saying they investigated and found no evidence of one. But according to some, it’s not that hard to buy Uber credentials for as little as $1. Uber also faces questions regarding the security of its passengers, as story after story emerges of drivers assaulting, raping, kidnapping, or attempting to rob passengers. Uber has promised on numerous occasions that its number one priority is making the service safer and more secure, but seem unable to fully deliver on the promise. From a security standpoint, protecting user data is a big part of keeping people safe.

    “In searching for a thought leader to help Uber redefine safety and data security, we couldn’t ask for someone better than Joe Sullivan, who’ll be joining us as our Chief Security Officer in late April. Joe is coming to us after 5 years at Facebook in a similar role after nearly 7 years at eBay and PayPal before that. He also spent 8 years with the Department of Justice as a pioneer in prosecuting cybercrime. I couldn’t be more excited to have Joe join our executive team, and look forward to years of working together to make Uber even better,” says Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

    He also took this announcement as an opportunity to reiterate Uber’s safety goals, some of which include tech advancement.

    “It’s no longer about traditional metrics for safe transportation or keeping our community’s data private and secure, but about how we lead efforts to redefine and strengthen physical and data security in the location-based world. We see opportunities ahead not just in technology, through biometrics and driver monitoring, but in the potential for inspiring collaborations with city and state governments around the world. Our goal is to redefine what it means to be a world-class, people-centric protector of privacy,” he said.

    Image via Joe Sullivan, LinkedIn

  • Uber CFO Brent Callinicos Steps Down

    Uber CFO Brent Callinicos Steps Down

    On-demand car service Uber is saying goodbye to its Chief Financial Officer.

    Brent Callinicos, who served as CFO of the startup since 2013, is stepping down to spend more time with his family.

    “For me, this ride is coming to an end. After 26 years of nonstop work since MBA School, I am going to step back and spend some time with my family and let someone else take this amazing company to the next level as CFO. My daughter is in middle school; my wife has been supportively waiting to spend time with me for 28 years. I made a promise to both of them that I would be taking a long break at this stage of life. And as the great philosopher put it, everything has conspired to give me this opportunity to acknowledge my heart’s desire. Right now, the happiest thing I can think of is driving my daughter to school and swim practice. Time, now, for the heart’s desire,” he said in an email to Uber staff obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

    Uber has not yet named a replacement, and Gautam Gupta, whom Uber CEO Travis Kalanick describes as “Brent’s right hand on Strategic Finance,” will be the acting head.

    “Almost 2 years ago, I brought on one of the great financial operators in Silicon Valley as our CFO. Though two years sounds short, Uber was a much smaller startup then – about 1/10th the size we are today. Brent has provided critical leadership to take Uber to the next level as we matured as a company. We have financial systems in place overseeing operations in 53 countries. We have a deep bench of talent poised to help our finance organization grow with the business,” said Kalanick in a memo to investors.

    Kalanick says Callinicos will serve the company as an “advisor”.

    Under his watch, Uber has grown to a valuation of over $40 billion. Callinicos is stepping down just as an IPO seems imminent.