The Ledger, every show
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks, across all 44 shows. Pick shows below, then mix any filter with any other.
shows 
every show 44 of 44
Kalanick: Uber never passed anti-competitor regulations or donated to political campaigns
“We had never at Uber, we never
Got a regulation passed that would hurt a competitor.
We never would do that.
That's just not how we rolled.
We never donated to a campaign.
Ever.
To try to get something passed.”
Kalanick: Post-departure NYC regulations turned Uber into an expensive taxi system
“And if people are taking Ubers today in New York and wondering why it's so expensive, And why it's getting more unreliable. It's because after I left Uber, they started passing a bunch of laws that are turning Uber into the taxi system. They've, they have a li…”
Kalanick: Chinese sovereign funds poured billions into global rivals to drain Uber
“And what happened is the sovereign wealth their sovereign wealth funds in China started pouring billions of dollars into my competitors, Uber's competitors in different regions, so that they would subsidize in those regions and drain my resources.”
Kalanick: Automating a gold mine increases annual output by 20%
“Because we can go to a gold mine right now, go to a gold mine CEO and ask whether he wants 20% more gold per year. Why? Because when you automate it, that's the output.”
Kalanick: Waymo takes 100x more energy to drive than a human
“The Waymo machine takes a hundred times more energy to drive a Waymo than a human does to drive a Waymo.”
Travis Kalanick calculates a $500B surplus using 2019 spending and 2024 revenues
“2009, if we took 2019 spend, right, the year before COVID, and put it up against 20, 24 revenues, five hundred billion dollar surplus.”
Travis Kalanick says all-EV ride-sharing would require doubling California's energy capacity
“If all of the miles in California went EV ride sharing, you would need to double the energy capacity of California.”
Travis Kalanick warns expanding California's grid by 10% will take years
“Even getting 20% more, 10% more is going to be a gargantuan five to 10 year exercise.”
San Francisco Threatened Kalanick With 90 Days in Jail Per Uber Ride
“I got threatened by the city of San Francisco and the state of California three months after we launched Uber with 90 days in jail for every ride that had occurred.”
Kalanick: Uber spent tens of millions monthly fighting Didi in China
“So we were spending, let's say tens of millions of dollars a month fighting DD in all these cities.”
Kalanick confirms Anthony Levandowski and Eric Meyhofer joined Atoms robotics
“Anthony Lewandowski, of course Eric Maihofer, who ran Uber's advanced technology group. He's running food robotics.”
Travis Kalanick Announces $1.7 Billion Raise for Adams
“I announced earlier today we did a 1.7 billion dollar raise.”
Kalanick: DoorDash held only 5% market share when he left Uber
“DoorDash was five percent market share when I left.”
Kalanick reveals global brand pseudonyms used by CloudKitchens in stealth
“So people know it as cloud kitchens in the U.S., but it's Casinos Aqueltas in Latin America. And we have different names. That means, like, magical kitchens, essentially. We have, like, Kitchen Valley in Korea. We have Flash Kitchen and three other names in Ch…”
Kalanick: 13% of San Francisco vehicle miles were Uber when he departed
“When I left Uber, 13% of all San Francisco miles were Uber miles.”
Kalanick: Rare earth minerals are constrained by regulation, not physical scarcity
“Yeah, but it's not rare. It's what you have to do to the land is aggressive, and what's rare is the, is, is where the, where are the places they'll let you do it that you can also sort of get people to.”
Kalanick: Uber Eats and DoorDash represent only 2% of US meals
“Uber Eats and DoorDash, they represent like 1.8% or two percent of all meals right now.”
Travis Kalanick reveals CloudKitchens operates tens of thousands of delivery kitchens globally
“We, of course we have the real estate, so we have kitchens, you know, tens of thousands of kitchens around the world.”
Kalanick: Average Uber driver worked eight hours weekly during his tenure
“And let's be clear, the average Uber driver during my, you know, let's say at the end of my tenure was eight hours a week.”
Kalanick: Uber turned $1.5 billion into an $8–$9 billion Didi stake
“So we turned a bill and a half into eight or nine. I can't remember the exact math, but it's something like that.”
Kalanick: At one point, Uber's top 10 global cities were all Chinese
“At some point, probably our top 10 cities were all Chinese cities. That's wild. In rides. Yeah. Not in revenue because the rides instead of like at the, in my day, 13 bucks, 15 bucks, whatever they were, these were like three bucks, two bucks type stuff.”
Kalanick: Pre-Uber, NYC taxi drivers paid $40k yearly for half-time rentals
“When Uber rolled into New York the driver was getting a 12 hour shift seven days a week.
But there are 2:12 hour shifts.
Each of those drivers was paying 40,000 dollars a year to rent a car for half time.”
D.C. Regulators Pushed $1.5M Insurance for Uber Versus $25K for Taxis
“Like I remember we went to DC and the taxi system, the liability on a ride, if you took a taxi, it might still be this way to this day was like 25,000 dollars in a taxi.
But we went to, we being Uber at the time, went to DC and they pushed a one and a half mil…”
Kalanick: a16z's initial Lyft investment was valued at $210 million
“And the deal on Lyft was two 10.”
City Storage Systems Operates as a Food Conglomerate Across 30 Countries
“I was running a company called City Storage Systems. Okay, which was basically about the future of food, a conglomerate operating in about 30 countries”
Drew Houston Pioneered Late-Stage Institutional Fundraising for Tech Startups
“I have to give credit to Drew at Dropbox. He was like the first guy in that game.”
Kalanick: Lab37's food assembly machine produces 300 bowls per hour
“That machine right there does 300 bowls an hour.”
Kalanick: Tesla Hardware 5 will probably launch next year
“Hardware five is coming out on Tesla probably next year, which is going to make a big difference in what FSD can do.”
Travis Kalanick: Autonomous vehicle companies no longer use human data labeling
“You're some of the players in the autonomous software space, autonomous vehicle software space are no longer doing any labeling because the machines are doing it all.”
Kalanick: Uber launched ride sharing second to Lyft in almost every US city
“In almost every city in the US other than two, Portland, Vegas, We were number two in ride sharing for this reason.”
Kalanick: Uber's first venture round had a $4M pre-money valuation
“Our first round at Uber was four million pre.”
Kalanick: Scour was sued for $250B by 33 major media companies
“This is a couple of companies before Uber. I did a peer to peer file sharing system, got sued for a quarter of a trillion dollars by 33 of the largest media companies in the world”
Kalanick: Uber private funding round cleared at $17B valuation
“It was 17, but you know, no one's counting.”
Selling Red Swoosh for $19M Remains Kalanick's Happiest Day
“And I sold it to Akamai for like,
I think it was like nineteen million bucks and probably to this day is still the happiest day of my life.”
Ex-Uber ATG Head Eric Meyhofer Runs Atoms Robotics Unit Lab 37
“My head of the advanced technology group at Uber is running my robotics division at Adams. It's called lab 37 in Pittsburgh. No, no, that's Eric, my offer.”
Jason Calacanis Turned a $10,000 Early Uber Check Into $100 Million
“There was like a angel group that I pitched to. There were like 30, 40 people in the room. I think it was like three or four that invested. Okay. The 10 grand check became like a hundred million bucks.”