Travis Kalanick

Family

Kalanick was born on August 6, 1976 and grew up in Northridge, California.^[5] Kalanick's parents are Bonnie Renée Horowitz Kalanick (née Bloom) (died 2017) and Donald Edward Kalanick. Bonnie, who was Jewish,^[6][7] worked in retail advertising for the Los Angeles Daily News.^[8] Donald, from a Slovakian-Austrian Catholic family whose grandparents immigrated to the United States,^{[9][6][10][7]} was a civil engineer^[8] for the city of Los Angeles.^[11] Kalanick has two half-sisters, one of whom is actress Allisyn Ashley Arm's mother Anji, and a brother, Cory, who is a firefighter.^[11][12]

Education

Kalanick studied computer engineering and business economics at the University of California, Los Angeles.^[5][13][14] While studying at UCLA, Kalanick was a member of Theta Xi fraternity and started his first business, an online file-exchange service called Scour. In 1998, he dropped out of UCLA to work at the start-up full-time.^[15]

Scour (1998–2000)

In 1998, Kalanick, along with Michael Todd and Vince Busam, dropped out of UCLA to help Dan Rodrigues found Scour Inc., a multimedia search engine, and Scour Exchange, a peer-to-peer file sharing service.^[16][17] In 2000, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) brought a $250 billion^[18] lawsuit against Scour, alleging copyright infringement.^[19] In September 2000, Scour filed for bankruptcy to protect itself from the lawsuit.^[20]

Red Swoosh (2001–2007)

In 2001, with Michael Todd, Kalanick started a new company called Red Swoosh, another peer-to-peer file-sharing company.^[21] Red Swoosh software took advantage of increased bandwidth efficiency on the Internet to allow users to transfer and trade large media files, including music files and videos. The company also received help from former Scour employees.

Kalanick has an archived blog, Swooshing, where he shares struggles during this time. This included living over 3 years without a salary,^[22][23][24] moving into his parents' house in 2001 (which he told the Failcon 2011 audience and commented that he "wasn't getting ladies. It sucked."), owing "$110,000 to the IRS in un-withheld income taxes, which is a white-collar crime that pierces the corporate shell, and it doesn't matter whether you knew or not. If you're an officer of the company you're going to jail," witnessing "all but one of the company's engineers" leaving (who eventually also departed), and moving to Thailand as a cost-saving measure.^[18] Kalanick committed tax fraud and perjury during the IRS investigation, blaming his partner Michael Todd, but was never prosecuted.^[25] In 2007 Akamai Technologies acquired the company for $19 million.^{[26][27][28][29]}

Uber (2009–2017)

In 2009, Kalanick joined Garrett Camp and gives him "credit for the original idea"^[18][30] of Uber.^[31][32][33] Camp, co-founder of StumbleUpon, spent $800 hiring a private driver with friends and had been mulling over ways to decrease the cost of black car services (meaning, taxis that are dispatched by a central service rather than hailed directly on the street) ever since. He realized that sharing the cost with people could make it affordable, and his idea morphed into Uber.^[18] "Garrett is the guy who invented that shit", Kalanick said at an early Uber event in San Francisco.^[18][30] The first prototype was built by Camp, and his friends, Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan, with Kalanick being brought on as a "mega advisor" to the company.^[18] In October 2010, Kalanick succeeded Ryan Graves as CEO,^[18] who had held the position for ten months.^[34]

On June 13, 2017, it was announced that Kalanick would take an indefinite leave of absence from Uber. His responsibilities would be assumed by his direct reports in the organization.^[35][36]

On June 20, 2017, Kalanick resigned as CEO after Benchmark Capital reportedly demanded his resignation only days after his mother's death in a boating accident.^[37] Despite his resignation, Kalanick will retain his seat on Uber's board of directors.^[4] Dara Khosrowshahi took his position of CEO in August 2017.^[38]

Benchmark controversy

On August 10, 2017, Axios reported that Benchmark is suing Kalanick for "fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty." The suit is based on Uber's decision to expand the number of board seats, with Benchmark arguing the decision is invalid due to withholding of material information prior to the vote.^[59] The lawsuit was very controversial in Silicon Valley because of the relationship between the founder and the investor.^[60] The court ruled in the favor of Kalanick to move the case to arbitration on August 30.^[61] In response to the court ruling Kalanick released a public statement:

Pleased that the court has ruled in his favor today and remains confident that he will prevail in the arbitration process. Benchmark's false allegations are wholly without merit and have unnecessarily harmed Uber and its shareholders.^[61]

In January 2018, Benchmark's dropped the lawsuit against Kalanick. The investment firm agreed to drop the lawsuit if Uber completed its transaction with Softbank, a prior condition Benchmark had agreed to. Completed in early January, Uber agreed to sell a sizable stake to SoftBank.^[62] The share purchase valued Uber at $48 billion.^[63]

10100 (2018–Present)

On March 7, 2018, Travis announced via his Twitter account that he would start a venture fund, 10100 (pronounced 'ten-one-hundred'), focused on job growth.^[64] The fund is likely named after the address of his childhood home. The fund is going to tackle large scale employment opportunities by investing in e-commerce, innovation and real estate in emerging markets like China and India.^[65]

Kalanick serves on an advisory board for Neom, the Saudi Arabia’s plan to build a futuristic "mega city" in the desert.^[66][67]