Travis Kalanick

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Travis Kalanick, 2014.

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Travis Kalanickis an American entrepreneur who was the cofounding CEO (2009–17) of the ride-hailing app company Uber, which provided transportation by enabling users to page freelance drivers of privately owned vehicles via smartphones.

Kalanick grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. He was interested in computers from a young age and had learned to write computer code by the time he was in middle school. He studied computer engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but he dropped out in 1998 to help launch the start-up company Scour, Inc., with several of his UCLA classmates. Scour, which offered an Internet search engine and file-sharing services, was one of the first dot-com companies to enable users to share movies and music online. Although its services quickly became popular, the company was sued for copyright infringement by both the recording and motion-picture industries. Scour eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2000 and later sold off all of its assets.

By 2001 Kalanick had rebounded from the bankruptcy by founding Red Swoosh, another firm that specialized in file-sharing technology. Red Swoosh won a number of prominent corporate clients, and Kalanick was able to sell the company in 2007 to Akamai Technologies for nearly $19 million. He was subsequently active as an “angel investor” (funding promising start-ups) before launching, with cofounder Garrett Camp, Uber in 2009; it was headquartered in San Francisco. From an initial operation that offered only three cars for hire, the company soon developed into a juggernaut, expanding to multiple overseas markets by 2012. Three years later Uber operated in 66 countries and more than 360 cities worldwide. As the company expanded, Kalanick developed a reputation for being both aggressive and combative.

While Kalanick touted Uber’s efficiency and its innovative use of smartphones, cloud computing, and GPS technology, the company was fiercely opposed by the established taxicab industry and often found itself at odds with regulators. In 2014 taxi drivers in major European cities, including London, Paris, and Madrid, staged high-profile demonstrations to protest Uber and to call for government oversight of it and other ride services that relied on unregulated private-hire drivers. In Thailand, the Netherlands, and a number of other countries and cities, Uber faced complete or partial bans, with several courts ruling that Uber’s practices constituted unfair competition. Despite the regulatory headwinds, Kalanick remained intent on international expansion, particularly in Asia.

In 2013 Uber notably began operating in China, but, amid stiff competition and government raids, it was announced in 2016 that UberChina was being acquired by rival Didi Chuxing. In addition to offering car rides, Uber also launched (2016) a motorcycle taxi service, called UberMOTO, in several Asian cities.

In December 2016 it was announced that Kalanick would be joining President-elect Donald Trump’s economic advisory council. The news sparked a backlash against Uber, especially after Trump introduced a controversial immigration order, and Kalanick stepped down from the forum in February 2017. Later that month a former Uber employee wrote a highly publicized blog post in which she accused the company of failing to address allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. Shortly thereafter Kalanick announced that Eric Holder—a former U.S. attorney general—and his law firm had been hired to lead an investigation into those charges as well as claims that Uber promoted an overly aggressive workplace environment. Holder’s report was released to Uber’s board in June, and it included the action point “review and reallocate the responsibilities of Travis Kalanick.” The board approved the recommendations, and several days later Kalanick announced that he was taking a leave of absence. The following week he resigned as CEO.

In 2018 Kalanick created 10100, a venture fund. He stated that it would focus on e-commerce and real estate, with the goal of “large-scale job creation.”