Stealth Startups Need High-EQ Builders Who Can Reject Public Validation
Travis Kalanick · FULL INTERVIEW: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick is Back with a New AI Startup · Mar 13, 2026 · at 9:34
Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, reflects on company culture and employee psychology during his multi-year stealth period building Atoms (City Storage Systems).
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“You build a culture of people that want to build and do not need to be famous when they do it, which basically means emotional intelligence. Now it's a human nature. I want to be acknowledged for the things that I do. I'd like the things I build to be seen and I, I'd like somebody to know that I did it. And so this is when you cut against sort of the core of human nature and we sort of went all the way. And so we have a very high EQ culture”
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