Who is Travis Kalanick - Uber CEO: Biography, Personal Life, Career and Net Worth

Who is Travis Kalanick: Biography, Early Life, Career, Personal Life, Net Worth. Photo: Alchetron

Who is Travis Kalanick - Biography

Photo: NBCNews

Travis Cordell Kalanick (born August 6, 1976) is an American businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of Uber. Previously he worked for Scour, a peer-to-peer file sharing application company, and was the co-founder of Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer content delivery network that was sold to Akamai Technologies in 2007. Here is his biography, career, personal life and net worth, and other information.

Travis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur who has served on the board of directors of the car-ride service provider 'Uber.' A ‘UCLA’ dropout, Travis initially co-founded a file-sharing company called 'Scour.' The start-up flourished over time. Unfortunately, it was later accused of copyright infringement. The company was sued and faced a lawsuit worth a substantial amount. Kalanick had to eventually declare bankruptcy. He also traded all of the company’s assets. Kalanick, however, managed to get back his investors and established a new start-up called 'Red Swoosh.' After he sold 'Red Swoosh' to 'Akamai Technologies,' Kalanick co-established 'Uber.'

His tenure at the company was highly controversial. He was accused of being negligent in handling sexual harassment cases at the company and termed an inefficient leader. The company's unethical HR policies also came under scrutiny. He was eventually forced to resign. 'Forbes 400' has included Kalanick on its list of the wealthiest Americans.

Early Life and Education

Photo: INDreport

Kalanick was born on August 6, 1976, and grew up in Northridge, California. Kalanick's parents are Bonnie Renée Horowitz Kalanick (née Bloom) and Donald Edward Kalanick. Bonnie, whose family were Viennese Jews who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century, worked in retail advertising for the Los Angeles Daily News. Donald, from a Slovak-Austrian Catholic family whose grandparents immigrated to the United States from the Austrian city of Graz, was a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. Kalanick has two half-sisters, one of whom is the mother of actress Allisyn Ashley Arm, and a brother who is a firefighter.

Kalanick was born on August 6, 1976, and grew up in Northridge, California. Kalanick's parents are Bonnie Renée Horowitz Kalanick (née Bloom) and Donald Edward Kalanick. Bonnie, whose family were Viennese Jews who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century, worked in retail advertising for the Los Angeles Daily News. Donald, from a Slovak-Austrian Catholic family whose grandparents immigrated to the United States from the Austrian city of Graz, was a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. Kalanick has two half-sisters, one of whom is the mother of actress Allisyn Ashley Arm, and a brother who is a firefighter.

Career

Photo: Suno

In 1998, Kalanick and his ‘UCLA’ dropout mates Michael Todd and Vince Busam joined Dan Rodrigues (Founder and CEO of 'Kareo' software service) to establish the online file-exchange service called 'Scour Exchange' and a multimedia search engine named 'Scour Inc.'

In September 2000, ‘Scour’ had to be declared bankrupt to close a lawsuit worth $250 billion. The company had been accused of copyright infringement by the 'Motion Picture Association of America' (MPAA), the 'Recording Industry Association of America' (RIAA), and the 'National Music Publishers Association (NMPA).'

By 2001, Travis Kalanick had recovered from the bankruptcy. He then collaborated with Michael Todd to establish his second start-up, again a peer-to-peer file-sharing company, named 'Red Swoosh.'

As Kalanick has shared on his archived blog, 'Swooshing,' his initial years in 'Red Swoosh' were difficult, as he did not receive any salary. He was living with his parents to save rent and owed a debt of $110,000 to the ‘IRS’ in un-suspended income taxes. Almost all of the company's engineers quit. Following this, Kalanick lived in Trivandrum (India) and Thailand to save money.

'Red Swoosh' eventually accelerated its business and acquired prominent corporate clients. In 2007, Kalanick sold it to 'Akamai Technologies' for approximately $19 million. However, he got involved in tax & securities fraud and perjury, as he failed to pay the shareholders.

In 2009, Travis Kalanick joined Canadian entrepreneur and investor Garrett Camp to co-found 'Uber,' a car-drive share service provider. He, however, gave the credit for the idea to Camp. He created the base model of the concept, and then Kalanick, Oscar Salazar, and Conrad Whelan joined him as advisors.

In October 2010, Kalanick became the CEO of 'Uber.' The company faced severe criticism after the news of Kalanick joining the 'Strategy and Policy Forum' of President Donald Trump as an economic advisor, as announced in December 2016, surfaced.

Due to Trump’s negative image, especially after the announcement of his controversial immigration order, people criticized Kalanick for his political association with Trump. However, Kalanick maintained he would use the position to address issues related to immigration and emerged as a prominent opponent of Trump's immigration orders. Nevertheless, he was pressurized to withdraw, and he gave in. Kalanick had to withdraw from the forum in February 2017.

The same month, a former 'Uber' employee pointed out the failed HR policies of the company related to sexual harassment and discrimination at the workplace. In response, Kalanick dismissed the SVP of engineering at 'Uber,' Amit Singhal, for hiding a sexual harassment charge filed against him during his tenure as the VP at 'Google Search.'

Travis Kalanick also introduced former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the charges, working with his law firm. Kalanick had the reputation of being an "abrasive leader."

Amidst the investigation, a video released in February 2017 showed Kalanick in an 'UberBLACK' with two women, having a heated argument with an 'Uber' driver.

The following month, the 'Uber' VP of business, Emil Michael, reportedly asked Kalanick's former girlfriend not to speak about an HR complaint related to sexual harassment, which infuriated her. In response, she revealed to 'The Information' that Kalanick and a few other 'Uber' managers had visited a Korean escort bar to look for escort service, during a team outing. She also spoke to 'Businessweek' about the rape case in India involving 'Uber.'

These events amounted to a strong case against the company and Kalanick. According to Holder's investigation report, submitted in June 2017, a "review and reallocate" order was passed with respect to Kalanick's responsibilities in the company, and the company's board had approved it. Kalanick later took an indefinite leave of absence and then resigned as the CEO on June 20. Five significant investors in the company had reportedly demanded the resignation. Kalanick, however, remained on the board of directors.

In August that year, Kalanick was again involved in a controversy when the venture capital firm 'Benchmark' accused him of "fraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty." According to the court's order, Kalanick was to settle the case arbitrarily. 'Benchmark' withdrew the case in January 2018, with the condition that 'Uber' would trade a considerable number of shares with 'Softbank Group Co.,' to which the company agreed.

In March 2018, Kalanick ''tweeted'' about its new venture fund, '10100' (or “ten-one-hundred”). It aimed at providing employment opportunities by investing in e-commerce and real-estate development in emerging markets.

In June 2018, the U.K.-based start-up 'FoodStars' sold a controlling interest to Kalanick's real-estate investment company, 'City Storage Systems.' With that, he entered the rapidly growing prepared-food delivery sector, commonly known as "dark kitchens.''

Travis Kalanick stepped down from the board of directors of 'Uber' in December 2019. He also traded about 90% of his shares in the company.

Kalanick currently serves on the advisory board of 'Neom,' a planned cross-border futuristic city established in the Tabuk Province of northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Current Position

After leaving the position of CEO at Uber, Kalanick announced a new venture fund, 10100, that claims for investments in profitable and non-profitable organizations, in 2018. Currently, he works as the CEO of City Storage Systems. In 2019, Kalanick sold all of his shares at Uber for around $2.5 billion. At present, he holds an estimated net worth of about 2.8 billion dollars.

Personal Life

Photo: Bloomberg

Kalanick owns a townhouse in the upper hills of San Francisco's Castro District, which was nicknamed "the Jam Pad" and had its own Twitter account. In 2019, Kalanick purchased a penthouse in New York City for $36.4 million. In April 2020, he bought a home in Los Angeles for $43.3 million.

Kalanick dated violinist Gabi Holzwarth from 2014 to late 2016.

Kalanick has been described as a passionate libertarian and a fan of author Ayn Rand. However, Kalanick supported Obamacare because it allows Uber drivers, as independent contractors, to maintain health insurance as they transition between jobs.

Uber CEO Net Worth

Travis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur who has a net worth of $3 billion dollars. He earns a salary of $1 million a year. Travis is best known for being the co-founder of Uber, which was a very controversial company at the time. He was born on August 6, 1976, in Los Angeles. He was born and raised in the LA suburb of Northridge, and he went to school there. Afterward, he went to UCLA to study Computer Engineering. In the end, he decided to drop out of school so that he could help start a company called Scour, Inc., which is a multimedia search engine. His group also came up with Scour Exchange, a file-sharing program that works with other people. A company called Scour, Inc. was sued by a lot of film boards, and the company went bankrupt after that. In 2001, he started Red Swoosh, which is another company that lets people share files with each other. Red Swoosh was sold to Akamai Technologies for $19 million in the end.

Uber Stock Sale

Photo: Getty Images

After announcing that he was leaving Uber in December 2019, Travis said that he was done. He was no longer on the board or doing other things for the company. He also said that he had sold 90% of his shares in Uber. In the range of $27 to $30 per share, he sold his shares and made about $2.7 billion. When he sold his shares, the stock price dropped about half over the next six months. At the height of the COVID pandemic, the stock price hit an all-time low of $14.82 (as of this writing) in March 2020. In December 2020, a year after selling his shares for $27-30, Uber’s prospects had changed a lot. On December 4, 2020, the stock price hit $54. At that level, Travis’s stake would have grown to $5 billion, so he left $2.3 billion on the table.

Other facts

Some Lesser Known Facts About Travis Kalanick

• Does Travis Kalanick smoke?: Not Known
• Does Travis Kalanick drink alcohol?: Not Known
• As a kid, he wanted to be a spy.
• As a youngster, he used to sell knives for Cutco.
• At the age of 18, he started his SAT-prep course called ‘New Way Academy.’
• In 1998, he dropped out of college to work on Scour, a peer-to-peer search engine, with his classmates Michael Todd and Vince Busam.
• In 2009, Travis and his friend Garrett Camp struck with an idea of “pushing a button to get a ride”, after which they both founded ‘Uber’, a location-based app that makes hiring an on-demand private driver.
• His parents were “rider zero” or the first riders of his Uber cab service.
• On 21 June 2017, he resigned from the position of Uber’s CEO due to investors pressure because of the misogynistic workplace culture and Kalanick’s berating an Uber drive.

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