Disclosure certainty 3/5 debate potential 1/5

Kaufer: I have one more non-travel startup left in me at 59

Steve Kaufer · Tripadvisor: Steve Kaufer · Oct 31, 2022 · at 1:13:00

Steve Kaufer, co-founder and former CEO of TripAdvisor, discusses stepping down after 22 years to pursue founding another company.

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“I want to do it again. I want to not travel not in software tools. But I figure I have one more startup left in me. And as I turn. As I had turned 59 years old, I look around and say, okay, better get moving. And so I am just open for another adventure that can have something akin to the type of impact that Trip advisors had, if I could get that lucky.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Opinion
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