Travis Kalanick
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Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick reportedly saw violence against drivers as a tool for growth
A new trove of leaked documents has shed new light on the early days of Uber.
Uber Showtime series will star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Travis Kalanick
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star as Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick in the first season of Showtime's new anthology.
Hitting the Books: Why Travis Kalanick got Uber into the self-driving car game
Autonomous vehicle developers have faced myriad similar challenged over the past three decades but nothing, it seems, turns the wheels of innovation quite like a bit of good, old-fashioned competition — one which DARPA was only more than happy to provide. In Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car, Insider senior editor and former Wired Transportation editor, Alex Davies takes the reader on an immersive tour of DARPA’s “Grand Challenges” — the agency’s autonomous vehicle trials which drew top talents from across academia and the private sector in effort to spur on the state of autonomous vehicle technology — as well as profiles many of the elite engineers that took place in the competitions. In the excerpt below however Davies recalls how, back in 2014, then-CEO Travis Kalanick steered Uber into the murky waters of autonomous vehicle technology, setting off a flurry of acquihires, buyouts, furious R&D efforts, and one fatal accident — only to end up selling off the division this past December.
Uber founder Travis Kalanick is leaving the company's board
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is taking another step back from the company he helped found. On Tuesday, Uber announced that Kalanick plans to resign from its board of directors on December 31st. Moving forward, Kalanick plans to "focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors."
Uber's CEO is now a wanted man in South Korea
2014's been a year to forget for Travis Kalanick, but since there's still a week to go before 2015, there's one more nasty surprise waiting for him. South Korea has indicted Uber's CEO on charges of operating an illegal taxi service in the country, which could see him slapped with an $18,000 fine, or two years in jail. According to Yonhap News, Uber, along with its rental agency, MK Korea, has broken local laws specifically preventing car-rental businesses from operating as a passenger-transport service.
India's capital city bans Uber following sexual assault
Uber is no longer allowed to operate in New Delhi, India's capital city, after a woman was allegedly raped by one of its drivers. In an interview with India's Economic Times, local transport chief Satish Mathur says that the company misled customers by using vehicles with the wrong permits and has never applied for permission to operate in the city. A common complaint about the ride-sharing service is that it neglects safety-and-background-checks for its drivers. That appears to be the case here, since the alleged offender was working while out on bail for sexually assaulting a woman in a cab he was driving in 2011. In a statement, Uber CEO Travis Kalnick says that the company will do everything to support the victim and "bring this perpetrator to justice."
Uber CEO claims his company creates 50,000 new jobs every month
How fast is Uber growing? Pretty darn fast -- CEO Travis Kalanick claims the company adds tens of thousands of new drivers every month. "There are hundreds of thousands of partners connected to our system," he said at TechCrunch Disrupt this morning. "We're in the neck of 50,000 new jobs every month that are being created." Kalanick admitted he didn't have the exact number, but that's a pretty massive increase. Back in May, the company said it was adding an average of 20,000 new drivers every month. You're not alone in thinking those numbers seem a little optimistic. By comparison, the entire US added 142,000 job in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest jobs report.
