The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 34 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Kalanick: Founders definitely should not raise capital from Benchmark Capital
“You definitely shouldn't raise from benchmark capital.”
Kalanick: Benchmark ran an activist war room creating weekly crises at Uber
“Benchmark was running a war room. They were an unspoken activist investor that was creating a once a week crisis.”
Kalanick: Lyft remains smaller because Uber executed better on network efficiency
“This is why, you know, like Lyft is smaller than Uber because we were better at this part of this, the thing, and people don't really know that's what it takes.”
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: Elite founders are grandmasters; VCs are just enthusiasts checking in quarterly
“The way I think about it is an operator who's running a company is a, if they're good, is a grandmaster of chess. The VC, and by the way, that grandmaster of chess, this operator, entrepreneur, Is playing this chess match somewhere between 60 and 80 hours a we…”
Kalanick: VCs reflexively attack struggling founders like lions hunting limping antelopes
“Like if an antelope limps in the Serengeti, the lion will take it down even if it's not hungry. Can't even fucking help it. It's just what is, what he does. And that's kind of the nature of most VCs. This, the nature of it is they will, if the, if you are on t…”
Kalanick: Only 10% of VCs "do no harm," just 1% are helpful
“10%. And then the one percent is helpful.”
Kalanick: Atoms builds specialized industry robots, not general humanoid robots
“It's I wouldn't call myself anti-humanoid. It's just what we're doing is not that. It's specialized robotics that it's not like we make robotics and anybody can have some. It's more like robotics and AI that go after an industry, one industry at a time.”
Kalanick: Politicians only allow regulatory progress under threat of disruption
“And the only way to get progress In a democracy is for that politician who seeks to be popular when he's under threat. When there is a threat of disruption or instability is the only time you'll get progress in Western democracy.”
Kalanick: Well-funded challengers can force market leaders to burn cash
“Anybody who's a small player in a market, Has a natural advantage if they're well-funded is that you can gain market share very quickly and you can force the big guy to burn money.”
Kalanick: Dominant platforms crush rivals using targeted driver sign-up bonuses
“The other way where there's asymmetric going the other way is recruiting drivers. So for instance, I could give subsidies to drivers. If I'm the big guy, I can give subsidies to drivers that are like they're like thousand dollars. If you join Uber and you're, …”
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: Taking the first term sheet slows fundraising and risks deal failure
“If you just go take the first term sheet, Getting around done will actually take longer because there's no alternatives. You don't have alternatives. And then it gets weird. And then the VC will just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, getting more, more,…”
Kalanick: Excessive analytical rigor in pitches hurts founders during tech super cycles
“When it's average, it's super important
To tell a beautiful story that's woven, like that, that, that's like a story that numbers are woven through.
It's a beautiful, entertaining, interesting story with analytical numbers woven through it.
And you basically g…”
Kalanick: Founders should start fundraising auctions with intentionally low prices
“The right way to do it is to start with a low price... So a lot of entrepreneurs, they go and they say, they really have a, remember I said, attached to a process, not a price. So a lot of entrepreneurs will get attached to the price and not the process. And y…”
Kalanick: His biggest mistake was running too close to the line
“The problem was that I ran too close to the line in too many situations that it, when you are big and important,
The scrutiny and the expectation is that you don't run that close to line, even if it's correct.”
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: Pricing in transportation is the sum of all strategy
“Pricing in the transportation space is the sum of all strategy.”
Kalanick: Expanding a tech business into China requires starting from scratch
“What you learn when you go and do what we did in China is you learn that when you go and take your business and go to China, you have to start over. So many people think that you can take your business and take it somewhere, which by the way, Uber kind of like…”
Kalanick: Only Apple and Elon Musk have succeeded in China
“Most entrepreneurs, let's say Western entrepreneurs that go to China, that is almost none succeed... In our neck of the woods, you're like, okay, Elon definitely did, right? And Apple definitely did. Tim Apple and Elon, right? Those are the two guys.”
Kalanick: Uber gave Baidu 7% equity to survive Chinese regulatory heat
“Now we eventually did get a partner, but instead of giving up 50%, we gave up, I think it was seven percent and it was to Baidu, but it was because we were getting massive regulatory heat. And as long as we had a partner by our side, we could be Chinese.”
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: Anti-competitive behavior is only legal if regulators do it for you
“Being anti-competitive is illegal in the United States, unless you get a government official or regulator to do it for you, then it's legal.”
Kalanick: Traditional taxi industry captured regulators to make competition illegal
“It's everywhere, but taxis is by far the most intense, literally competent. We talk about Anti-competitive things and antitrust law and Rockefeller and things like this. No, no, no. Taxis. Competition is illegal. They've captured the regulators through lobbyin…”
Kalanick: Founders must draw power from being bothered by wrong outcomes
“You have to be careful of the ease at which you walk through it, because there is an extra power in being bothered by something that is wrong. You can get too used to wrong things happening.”
Kalanick: Uber's peak fundraising involved five simultaneous rooms tiered by check size
“Five rooms, 12 hours, one week... So I'm in the two hundred fifty million dollar check or over a room. Then there's like a hundred million dollar room and a fifty million dollar room and a twenty five million dollar room. And there'll be a guy in the twenty-fi…”
Kalanick: Humanoids belong in low-scale domestic settings, not industrial automation
“Humanoids have their place, which is let's call it low scale tasks in human design environments designed for humans.”
Kalanick: Companies die when problem creation outpaces problem-solving capacity
“Imagine if you have this equation, which is the derivative of problem solving DT. Must always be greater than or equal to the derivative of problem creation DT. And if that's ever not true, you have a real problem. I call that the meta problem. So what's happe…”
Kalanick: Meituan's Wang Xing warned him entering China was "worst idea ever"
“It's actually when I first met Wan Shing at Meizuan, actually. And he told me I was crazy. Don't do it. It's the worst idea ever.”
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: Network density enables low pricing without ongoing subsidies
“Your network gives you efficiency, which then means you can get to a lower price point without subsidies that the competitor still has to subsidize.”