Building a Company in Stealth | Travis Kalanick with a16z

1. 0:00 – 1:09

   Intro

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      We know what Uber's 2017 was like.

   2. SPSpeaker0:02

      Travis Kalanick has stepped down from his role as chief executive.

   3. SPSpeaker0:06

      That wouldn't have gone that way if Ben or Marc was on the board. You're in this hell, you're dealing with the lawsuits. Are you worried about the, uh, lawsuit? And you say, "Hey, let's build again." It's not as much about where you start, it's about why you start.

   4. SPSpeaker0:21

      He's one of the very rare guys who made as much money as he did and wanted to keep playing.

   5. SPSpeaker0:27

      Also remember, I did it stealth.

   6. SPSpeaker0:29

      I know some of the techniques they used, very aggressive, but that name [laughs] , you can't use that name.

   7. SPSpeaker0:34

      And I remember David Drummond from Google was on our board, and he's like, "You know, Travis, that's not a thing, dude. [laughs] You've gotta change it." The meaningful thing about Adam's Food is can you make the preparation and delivery of a quality meal so efficient that it approaches the cost of going to the grocery store? If it does, you do to the kitchen what Uber did to the car.

   8. SPSpeaker0:59

      A lot of entrepreneurs have that idea. To build a company, a great company, it's always a great entrepreneur.

2. 1:09 – 13:22

   The Deal That Got Away: Uber's Series B in 2011

   1. SPSpeaker1:09

      Travis, this is the I'm Back podcast. This is the Return of the King-

   2. SPSpeaker1:12

      Dude

   3. SPSpeaker1:13

      ... uh, episode. Um-

   4. SPSpeaker1:14

      Return of the Mack. That's the-

   5. SPSpeaker1:16

      [laughs] That's what I'm all about. We can return, uh, return... I don't know what the right thing is, but we gotta come up with a walk on, walk on song for sure.

   6. SPSpeaker1:23

      Return of the Mack.

   7. SPSpeaker1:24

      Yeah.

   8. SPSpeaker1:24

      Return of the Mack. [laughs]

   9. SPSpeaker1:25

      And it's not just, it's not just the return of Travis, but it's also a return of this partnership or, or what could've been, uh, and this relationship w- with Travis and Ben.

   10. SPSpeaker1:32

       Yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker1:32

       So I wanna read a quote from Travis from y- your launch post. "I've known Marc and Ben for a long time, and we got oh so close to partnering up at Uber in 2011. I," Travis, "blame Marc. Ben blamed himself, but let's just say it was all on us, or, and it was, it was on all of us. And in 2017 Uber suffered the consequences of not having Marc on the board. If you know, you know." Travis, tell the story.

   12. SPSpeaker1:54

       Okay, so, um, this will be interesting because I think Ben and I have maybe discussed this once or twice.

   13. SPSpeaker1:59

       Yeah.

   14. SPSpeaker2:00

       And it'll be-

   15. SPSpeaker2:00

       It's very painful. [laughs]

   16. SPSpeaker2:01

       And, and I think that there could, there-

   17. SPSpeaker2:02

       Mostly for me. [laughs]

   18. SPSpeaker2:03

       I'm not sure if there's a difference of opinion on what happened, but I'll tell you what I thought happened.

   19. SPSpeaker2:07

       Yeah.

   20. SPSpeaker2:08

       So I'm in fundraising mode. This is our Series B. This is 2011. Uber started 2010, June 2010. I'm raising our Series B. Earlier that year I did Series A with a VCL main, remained nameless. And, uh, I'm hardcore, like, it, it's usually... I was such, I went through such tough times as an entrepreneur pre-Uber, that once I'm in Uber and things are working, I'm still acting like I'm not gonna eat tomorrow.

   21. SPSpeaker2:44

       Yeah.

   22. SPSpeaker2:44

       So I, I would do everything right up to the line, like be perfect. And so I have this whole fundraising process that I would do just to perfection, and that means I'd run an auction. So met with a16z guys, met with lots of folks. And it was a, what I would call winner takes all auction, meaning there's one major lead, they're gonna set the price, and then everybody else will fall in. So I'd go to the one guy, you know, I'd, I'd tell him what the story was. And, uh, they're like, "Oh, I, you know, we're interested." He's leaning forward. And I would... They're like, "So how much you raising? What's the price?" And I would, I would do this thing where I would say, um, "We don't know what... " Like, "This is gonna be one of the hottest deals in Silicon Valley this year. We don't know where the price is gonna be, where it's gonna go to, but it's at least blank." And I call this the uncapped anchor, meaning I'm never in a place where I'm negotiating with somebody where I'm here and they're here and we meet in the middle. I'm always saying, "It's at least this, and it can go up." But I start low-

   23. SPSpeaker3:56

       So it'll only go up. Yeah

   24. SPSpeaker3:57

       ... so that everybody's pumped.

   25. SPSpeaker4:00

       Yeah.

   26. SPSpeaker4:00

       Leaning forward. He's like, "Okay." You could see body language, you can read. It's good. You go to the next, the next guy literally comes to your office an hour later. Same thing happens. He's fired up. I'm showing all the analytics. It's great. Uh, "Okay, so we're interested. What's, what are you thinking about price?" Whatever. I'm like, "It's, if the last one was at least 2X our previous round, it just became 3X." I'll say, "We don't know. One of the best deals in Silicon... It's gonna be one of the top deals in Silicon Valley this year, but it will be at least 3X our last round." And he's like, "Okay." You then go call the guy before and you're like, "Hey, just, hey look, dude, it's, it's went from 2X to 3X, you know?"

   27. SPSpeaker4:43

       Yeah.

   28. SPSpeaker4:43

       "We'll see where it goes. I don't know." They start getting nervous. Anyways, you get all the way to the top, and then you go going once, going twice. And, uh, it's kinda funny, in this particular case, Yuri was almost coming over the top. So we got to 375 with, uh, 375 million pre with a16z. Yuri almost came in at 400, but he was like, "No, I can't do it." And so I'm like, "Okay, going once, going twice, sold."

   29. SPSpeaker5:12

       Yeah.

   30. SPSpeaker5:13

       And it's funny because that's a high momentum deal, and that's how you do it. And at the time you almost should feel a little shy about doing something like that, and it's a little bit crass, let's just say. But that's how I was wired back in the day.
3. 13:22 – 17:38

   Why Uber's 2017 Wouldn't Have Happened with Ben or Marc on the Board

   1. ETErik Torenberg13:22

      chance at a partnership, which is-

   2. SPSpeaker13:22

      Well, what I would say is there's one middle piece to this.

   3. ETErik Torenberg13:25

      Sure.

   4. SPSpeaker13:26

      Which is those who are obviously in the tech industry, like, we know what Uber's 2017 was like.

   5. ETErik Torenberg13:33

      Yeah.

   6. SPSpeaker13:35

      Uh, that wouldn't have gone that way if Ben or Marc was on the board.

   7. SPSpeaker13:43

      Nope. Certainly not.

   8. SPSpeaker13:44

      So, so when Ben and I talk about this, we're like, "It was our fault."

   9. SPSpeaker13:48

      Yeah.

   10. SPSpeaker13:48

       We, we screwed it up.

   11. SPSpeaker13:50

       Yeah.

   12. ETErik Torenberg13:51

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker13:52

       Um-

   14. SPSpeaker13:52

       We, I mean, it would've been... By the way, Uber would be, [laughs] I'll just say considerably larger and more important and more central a company today. There's no question. I mean, first of all, it would've won food. No que- Uber was dominating food.

   15. ETErik Torenberg14:12

       Yeah.

   16. SPSpeaker14:13

       Dominating food at the time, and it would've also been-

   17. SPSpeaker14:16

       DoorDash was-

   18. SPSpeaker14:16

       ... for sure a le- a leader in autonomous. Um, yeah

   19. SPSpeaker14:20

       ... DoorDash was 5% market share when I left.

   20. SPSpeaker14:24

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker14:25

       And, um-

   22. SPSpeaker14:26

       And, and by the way-

   23. SPSpeaker14:26

       ... if we lost a 10th of a percent-

   24. SPSpeaker14:28

       And, and 10-

   25. SPSpeaker14:29

       ... in a week-

   26. SPSpeaker14:29

       Yeah

   27. SPSpeaker14:30

       ... we're not going home this weekend.

   28. SPSpeaker14:32

       And by the way-

   29. SPSpeaker14:33

       Yeah

   30. SPSpeaker14:33

       ... Tony, God bless him, cr- had a hell of a time getting his round done at that time. Like, like-
4. 17:38 – 21:14

   When the Pirate Becomes the Navy

   1. SPSpeaker17:38

      I, I continue to stand by every decision I made at Uber. Um, but, you know, there are a lot of times where you could just make the argument I just got way too close to the line. And then, yeah, I could show that there's no chalk on m- on the shoe. I could show, but you would need a electromagnetic scanning microscope to see that there was no chalk [laughs] on the shoe.

   2. SPSpeaker18:01

      Hmm.

   3. SPSpeaker18:01

      You reverse angle-

   4. SPSpeaker18:02

      Sure

   5. SPSpeaker18:02

      ... slow-mo, and it's just like that's... The problem is, is the edge of being a, what's the word, a hardscrabble small startup kid- Brought to something that's working and going super big.

   6. SPSpeaker18:19

      Yeah.

   7. SPSpeaker18:20

      You don't realize that when you get big, there actually are different rules.

   8. SPSpeaker18:24

      Yeah. You-

   9. SPSpeaker18:25

      And they're not just the rules. There's the, there's the vibes-

   10. SPSpeaker18:30

       Well, when the-

   11. SPSpeaker18:31

       ... of the rules

   12. SPSpeaker18:31

       ... when the, when the pirate becomes the Navy.

   13. SPSpeaker18:32

       Yeah.

   14. SPSpeaker18:32

       We talk about this at the firm-

   15. SPSpeaker18:34

       Yeah

   16. SPSpeaker18:34

       ... a lot. You- wh- wh- when, when you're the upstart and you're battling the man, you can go hard in ways that if you do it when you're the big, the big dog-

   17. SPSpeaker18:45

       It's not okay

   18. SPSpeaker18:46

       ... yeah, it's very... That you're viewed entirely differently.

   19. SPSpeaker18:49

       Yeah. And I didn't-

   20. SPSpeaker18:50

       Yeah

   21. SPSpeaker18:50

       ... I hadn't consumed that information. [laughs]

   22. SPSpeaker18:53

       It actually helped me-

   23. SPSpeaker18:54

       You know?

   24. SPSpeaker18:54

       ... because, you know, when we started-

   25. SPSpeaker18:55

       Yeah

   26. SPSpeaker18:55

       ... the firm, we were the upstart, and I, I talked just fucking crazy shit about the other VCs and this and that, and, you know, c- c- call them bitches and all.

   27. SPSpeaker19:04

       [laughs]

   28. SPSpeaker19:05

       But, like, at some point, like, I could feel it turning.

   29. SPSpeaker19:09

       Yeah.

   30. SPSpeaker19:10

       And I remembered what happened to him, and I was like... And we, we, we actually had a whole thing.
5. 21:14 – 32:00

   The Fall from Uber & Finding CloudKitchens

   1. SPSpeaker21:14

      So what happened was, it's super interesting. Um, so I had a buddy who started a thing right near the end of my Uber tenure. Um, and it was called CloudKitchens. And what happened was is he, he's a real estate savant.

   2. SPSpeaker21:33

      Yeah.

   3. SPSpeaker21:34

      That's just his thing. And he was looking, like, for real estate. Like, "There's gotta be an angle in tech and real estate. How do we do this?" And he got a property up. Actually, maybe, you know what? Let me start even before this. We got Uber, we got Uber Eats up in 2015. We saw the first dark kitchens, I don't know, it was, like, late '15, early '16. We saw pictures of commercial kitchens in Melbourne that were not restaurants-

   4. SPSpeaker22:01

      Hmm

   5. SPSpeaker22:01

      ... that were on Uber Eats.

   6. SPSpeaker22:03

      Oh, wow, wow, wow.

   7. SPSpeaker22:04

      So the first dark kitchens were emerging. We're like-

   8. SPSpeaker22:06

      Yeah

   9. SPSpeaker22:06

      ... "This is crazy. That's so interesting." And, uh, a buddy of mine, who is this real estate savant, sort of, like, caught wind of, like, what's going on, and he had this idea, which was why don't we have a multi-tenant approach to this?

   10. SPSpeaker22:22

       Hmm.

   11. SPSpeaker22:22

       So 30 kitchens on a single property, and, uh, basically lease these kitchens, which are 200 square feet, as delivery-only locations. Anyways, he... I didn't really... I mean, I sorta knew what was going on, but not really. And then in the fall, like, uh, like, three months after I had left Uber, we meet up, and he's telling me about it. He's like, "Yeah, you know, we got a few tenants. It's kinda working." He's like, "I'm gonna do, like, a few more of these. I think I'm, I think I'm gonna try to figure out how to do a few more." I'm like, "You mean, like, a few thousand, right?" [laughs]

   12. SPSpeaker22:59

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker22:59

       And so then we partnered up. Um, I acquired it. Uh, I think they'd, they'd sort of... They'd done, like, their, uh, they'd just done their Series A. And, uh, so I acquired it, and then we just went to town, right? And so it's really interesting because sometimes you start a thing, and sometimes you're involved in a thing, and then you come in. Like, I think there's an interesting story about-

   14. SPSpeaker23:25

       Yeah

   15. SPSpeaker23:25

       ... like, Elon was invol- like, obviously involved in Tesla from the beginning. Was an investor-

   16. SPSpeaker23:31

       Yeah

   17. SPSpeaker23:31

       ... at first, but then went all the way in.

   18. SPSpeaker23:33

       Yeah.

   19. SPSpeaker23:33

       Um, and it's interesting how these ideas come. So I like to say that sometimes I... You, you have ideas. Sometimes ideas-

   20. SPSpeaker23:42

       Yeah

   21. SPSpeaker23:42

       ... come to you.

   22. SPSpeaker23:43

       Yeah.

   23. SPSpeaker23:44

       But if it's an idea that's meant to be... If it's your... It's meant to be your soulmate, you know it when you see it.

   24. SPSpeaker23:52

       Right.

   25. SPSpeaker23:53

       And-

   26. SPSpeaker23:54

       Like, it's-

   27. SPSpeaker23:55

       And you just-

   28. SPSpeaker23:55

       Yeah

   29. SPSpeaker23:56

       ... and sometimes you just... It's like a love affair. You just go for it.

   30. SPSpeaker23:59

       Yeah.
6. 32:00 – 34:47

   8 Years in Stealth: Building Without the New York Times

   1. SPSpeaker32:00

      in 30 countries, thousands of employees, you know, over an eight-year period-

   2. ETErik Torenberg32:04

      Yeah

   3. SPSpeaker32:04

      ... and you're in stealth.

   4. ETErik Torenberg32:06

      Yeah, dude. [laughs]

   5. SPSpeaker32:08

      That's just super hard mode.

   6. ETErik Torenberg32:09

      Yeah.

   7. SPSpeaker32:10

      And the thing is, is like, look, coming out of '17, things were... It was 150 articles a day of negative, you know, negativity, and so I wanted to be able to build without bringing that negativity into the system, and I wanted the team to be able to build without worrying about what The New York Times was writing tomorrow.

   8. ETErik Torenberg32:31

      Yeah.

   9. SPSpeaker32:32

      Simple as that, and it was the right thing to do. Now, we had to do hard mode, is we had to recruit cold, and it was always from a recruiter who has a stealth thing in LinkedIn and on their signature.

   10. ETErik Torenberg32:45

       Yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker32:46

       Okay? Um, and you had to go get customers with, like, stealth in LinkedIn. Like, and you're thousands of people big. This is hard mode.

   12. ETErik Torenberg32:59

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker33:00

       And it was interesting. We didn't know how long it was gonna go.

   14. ETErik Torenberg33:03

       And you have to trust that no one's gonna leak, um.

   15. SPSpeaker33:06

       You know what happens is, here's the cool part about stealth if you go that long, and I, I don't recommend this for anybody. Like, it's not-

   16. SPSpeaker33:13

       Hey, that's a very special case

   17. SPSpeaker33:14

       ... yeah, you don't really, I don't re-

   18. SPSpeaker33:15

       Yeah

   19. SPSpeaker33:16

       ... you know? But eventually there's this break in your narrative. Like, there was this story arc, and it was going, going, going, and then it's discontinuous. It stops, and there's this... Whoops. Sorry about that, guys.

   20. ETErik Torenberg33:31

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker33:31

       There's this long period of time now where nothing is filling in, and what happens then is the media doesn't want to cover a story because they, it's so hard to discuss a thing that has a gap a few years before it. So it's too hard to do the story, and it's too hard to cover it. So you get to this place where it becomes self-fulfilling-

   22. ETErik Torenberg33:59

       Yeah

   23. SPSpeaker33:59

       ... where it's easier to be stealth over time because even if somebody tries to leak, nobody even knows what to do with it.

   24. ETErik Torenberg34:07

       Yeah.

   25. SPSpeaker34:07

       They're just like, "I don't even understand it." By the way, we did crazy stuff. So people know it as CloudKitchens in the US, but it's Cocinas Equaltas in Latin America.

   26. SPSpeaker34:16

       [laughs]

   27. SPSpeaker34:16

       And we have different names.

   28. ETErik Torenberg34:18

       That's right.

   29. SPSpeaker34:18

       That means, like, magical kitchens, essentially.

   30. ETErik Torenberg34:21

       [laughs]
7. 34:47 – 39:47

   Digitizing the Physical World

   1. SPSpeaker34:47

      worked.

   2. ETErik Torenberg34:47

      And so at, at some point, an even bigger vision for, for this company-

   3. SPSpeaker34:51

      Yeah

   4. ETErik Torenberg34:51

      ... emerges to, to digitize the physical world, where, you know, where category creating the-

   5. SPSpeaker34:55

      Yeah

   6. ETErik Torenberg34:55

      ... the, the, the, you're creating a category, the term industrial AI.

   7. SPSpeaker34:57

      Yeah.

   8. ETErik Torenberg34:57

      Talk about when this bigger vision starts to culminate.

   9. SPSpeaker35:00

      So look, the, the vision for digitizing the physical world for me started at Uber, okay? And treating atoms like bits started at Uber. You were... It was sci-fi at one point, I promise. You would touch glass, and a car would come to you.

   10. ETErik Torenberg35:18

       Yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker35:19

       And you had satellite view. You're watching this car come to you. That was crazy.

   12. ETErik Torenberg35:23

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker35:24

       Now it's just like, whatever.

   14. ETErik Torenberg35:25

       Yeah. [laughs]

   15. SPSpeaker35:25

       Okay? But it was crazy at the time. Everybody's first Uber experience was a magical moment. So we... I n- you know, digitizing the physical world was the thing, and this idea of, of what I would call an atoms-based computer was something I sort of was working on in terms of a framework at the end of Uber, which is CPU manipulates bits, storage stores bits, network moves bits from point A to point B. Okay, well, CPU manipulates bits. What manipulates atoms? That's manufacturing. Storage stores bits. What stores atoms? That's real estate. Network moves bits from point A to p- point B. What moves atoms? Well, that's transport or logistics. And those now are your three core computing resources in an atoms-based computer. And you know what? Everything you learn in your computer science curriculum, everything you learn in engineering, it plays in the atoms world. Same frameworks, all the data structures, all the algorithms. It works exactly the same, and I c-

   16. SPSpeaker36:26

       Routing algorithms.

   17. SPSpeaker36:27

       Oh, totally.

   18. SPSpeaker36:28

       [laughs]

   19. SPSpeaker36:28

       Totally. In fact, we use-

   20. SPSpeaker36:30

       I like it

   21. SPSpeaker36:30

       ... we use TCP

   22. SPSpeaker36:32

       XPF

   23. SPSpeaker36:33

       We, we use TCP sawtooth to basically manage how much demand to send to certain kitchens based on capacity and reliability as an example.

   24. SPSpeaker36:46

       Okay.

   25. SPSpeaker36:46

       But, like, we look at when I go and I, I'm messing around, like when I'm pitching this to a tech person who wants to understand, that 10,000 square foot facility I call a 10,000 square foot semiconductor.

   26. SPSpeaker36:57

       Hmm.

   27. SPSpeaker36:58

       And it's a 30 core processor, 30 kitchens. They're computing atoms, not bits. The corridors where the food moves, that's a network bus. The processing center's like an L1 cache or something similar. The, the-

   28. SPSpeaker37:11

       [laughs]

   29. SPSpeaker37:11

       The-

   30. SPSpeaker37:11

       You've taken this analogy very far
8. 39:47 – 49:13

   Bringing It All Together: Atoms Vision

   1. ETErik Torenberg39:47

      So let's fast-forward to how the, the bigger vision for Atoms comes together in terms of the-

   2. SPSpeaker39:52

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg39:53

      ... combination of the companies.

   4. SPSpeaker39:54

      [laughs] I keep stopping you. I know.

   5. ETErik Torenberg39:56

      No, no.

   6. SPSpeaker39:56

      Yeah.

   7. ETErik Torenberg39:56

      Um, and then I also wanna get to the partnership 'cause it also-

   8. SPSpeaker39:59

      Yeah

   9. ETErik Torenberg39:59

      ... ties together.

   10. SPSpeaker40:00

       Yeah, it's all good. So okay, you've gotta have your manufacturing logistics hub. That's the real estate. You've gotta have your automated production, and you've gotta have your autonomous burritos. The minute, about a year ago, I started looking into autonomous burritos, and I went to China and checked out all of the autonomy guys. I was here in the US talking to a lot of the autonomy guys. Word got out. They're like, "Travis is looking at autonomy again." People started going, "What's going on?"

   11. SPSpeaker40:35

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. SPSpeaker40:36

       And, you know, folks like, you know, folks like Uber, other partners across different categories were like, "We're interested," like, for one reason or another 'cause it's like w- you could even be do- you, you could be, like, supply chain guy on food. You're also saying, "I need to have... I, I... For business continuity and just, like, peace of mind, I need to have another alternative for how these freight, uh, how these trucks, heavy transport are gonna move. And, um, I need an alternative, and I'd love to have a partner," as an example, this kind of stuff. And so, okay, so partnered with a couple folks. Actually created a new company to do it because funding autonomy through a sort of core food company, it just wasn't gonna work at first, and the reason why is because it's like these are just different profiles. The real estate company, this is, like, heavy duty software, big, big money going after it.

   13. SPSpeaker41:43

       It's like a computer company trying to build a network company off of the side.

   14. SPSpeaker41:47

       [laughs]

   15. ETErik Torenberg41:48

       [laughs]

   16. SPSpeaker41:48

       You, you gotta, you gotta buy a networking company.

   17. SPSpeaker41:51

       So, so we just got... And, and these partners wanted a pure play, and so we created that sort of near the end of last year. But what happened is, is like you gotta get, okay, well, now I need to get my team together. I need to get my guys from way back when, 2016, when we were-- 2017, when we were, we were running hardcore at Autonomy. We need to get that going because if you're gonna be in the specialized robotics game, you have to have autonomy for yourself. You have to. Your robots are ac- are moving and acting in the physical world, and you cannot depend of, on only one company that has an existence proof. Now, of course, Tesla's gonna get there, you know, sometime soon or maybe i- i- some amount of time. We don't know exactly. Um- You gotta, you, you, you can't be dependent in that way. And so okay, get your team together. Uh, Eric Meyhofer, who ran ATG, is already running my food robotics division. Um, that's Uber's advanced technology group, uh, is, is working for us. Uh, and then, uh, Anthony Levandowski, who was one of my top leads, uh, on autonomy in, uh, back at Uber, was running, uh, Pronto, which was an autonomous mining company. Let's call it off-road autonomy. But in a workflow or category where it's, like, much more than just like this thing needs to move. It's like how does it move? What is the context for which it's moving? It's like a very specialized thing.

   18. SPSpeaker43:21

       Yeah.

   19. SPSpeaker43:22

       I was the biggest investor in Pronto. I'm like, "Let's go." So, uh, acquired Pronto, and now I'm in the mining business. But it's not like I didn't know about it. I was the biggest investor in it to begin with, for a good reason.

   20. SPSpeaker43:37

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker43:37

       It's one of the most beautiful and interesting autonomy categories or use cases. And on our mining business, we, you know, we have ... Our mission statement is, more productive mines to power Earth's industries. We can go to a gold, a goldmine CEO right now and say, "Would you like to get 20% more gold per year?" We don't get no.

   22. SPSpeaker44:01

       [laughs]

   23. SPSpeaker44:02

       Right?

   24. SPSpeaker44:03

       Yeah. That's a good proposition, yeah.

   25. SPSpeaker44:03

       No, he says, "Prove it." He says, "Prove it," and we're like, "Let's go."

   26. SPSpeaker44:07

       Yeah.

   27. SPSpeaker44:07

       But that's what's happened is so separately, Pronto was working on mining for eight years on their own. Seven, eight years on their own. Go ahead, sorry.

   28. SPSpeaker44:15

       Also a great, a great target for autonomy because, you know, maybe the worst job for humans there is, is the mining jobs, right?

   29. SPSpeaker44:24

       And we have ... So our mining customers, 'cause we're operating in a bunch of mines around the world, our mining customers have existential safety problems. Or let's call safety issues, safety concerns.

   30. SPSpeaker44:40

       Yeah.
9. 49:13 – 1:04:57

   Great Companies Are Always About a Great Entrepreneur

   1. SPSpeaker49:13

      Yeah.

   2. SPSpeaker49:13

      Yeah, yeah. It's, it's very complex-

   3. SPSpeaker49:15

      Yeah

   4. SPSpeaker49:15

      ... complicated alignment. Um, but y- y- you know, it, it, it's a kind of an interesting point, 'cause it's very obvious to y- you know, when we talked about it here the way it should work, and I, and I think the, the narrative of how these things get built is, um, mistold constantly by the industry, by the press, which is, you know, if you hear about w- how did Facebook come about? How did Google come about? How did, you know, Tesla come- oh, they had this idea, and the idea was to do this. Um, but that's not really what happened. A lot of motherfuckers had that idea, you know? The- there's a lot of those ideas out there, and like, if you look at Tesla, there was a very famous documentary called Who Killed the Electric Car that came out before Tesla. And if you're an entrepreneur watching that, what you would see is big oil, big auto, big government-

   5. SPSpeaker50:12

      Mm-hmm

   6. SPSpeaker50:12

      ... were never gonna let that happen. They would kill you. Um, but then the reality is, oh, Elon Musk, that motherfucker's hard to kill, right?

   7. SPSpeaker50:21

      Yeah.

   8. SPSpeaker50:21

      Like, so he by himself kind of decarbonized American auto industry, which is, you know, really unbelievable in retrospect, but then it gets told, right? Like, if you listen to the politicians now, they're like, "Oh, he didn't build Tesla. He just, like, struck a gold mine and is just pulling the gold out." Like, all those people built it.

   9. SPSpeaker50:43

      Yeah.

   10. SPSpeaker50:43

       But why didn't all those people build another Tesla? Like, there's only one, 'cause there's only one non-fungible, very rare person-

   11. SPSpeaker50:52

       Yeah

   12. SPSpeaker50:52

       ... in that equation who could do that, and same, uh, and that's why there's only one SpaceX. Uh, and that's why, you know, that's why Meta's Meta and Friendster's Friendster-

   13. SPSpeaker51:02

       Yeah

   14. SPSpeaker51:02

       ... and all that kind of thing.

   15. SPSpeaker51:03

       That's a good one. Haven't heard that one for a long time. [laughs]

   16. SPSpeaker51:06

       Yeah. [laughs]

   17. SPSpeaker51:06

       That's good. Okay.

   18. SPSpeaker51:07

       And so to build, you know, to build a company, y- you know, a great company, it's always a great entrepreneur. And so when we looked at it, we're like, there's a very few entrepreneurs, you know, in the history of the Valley that built something like Uber. Uh, and that Uber, basically it survived and is still a very valuable company without him, which almost... Y- you know, like, that never happens without the founder. I mean, it, it usually turns to crap very fast. And so th- that was what we, like [laughs] yes, the idea is great. The ambition is amazing. It's gonna be amazing for the world if he pulls it off. But, like, we want to invest in the guy who could pull it off, and, and that's kind of what drove, drove the whole thing.

   19. SPSpeaker51:54

       And there's a fun thing. I, I realized this at Uber too, is that I think, I, y- in, in many ways, maybe, maybe Bezos was the guy to sort of really go there, which is, uh, the only constraint to your imagination is management capacity. Because, like, look at all the things that Amazon started doing. They were earlier than everybody else starting to do lots of things, right?

   20. SPSpeaker52:20

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker52:21

       And so I'm like-

   22. SPSpeaker52:21

       Oh, by the way, another good one. How many motherfuckers had the idea for an online bookstore or online retail or online any of that?

   23. SPSpeaker52:28

       There we go.

   24. SPSpeaker52:28

       And how many Amazons? [laughs]

   25. SPSpeaker52:30

       Yeah. Totally.

   26. SPSpeaker52:31

       Y- you know, and, and by the way, Jeff, like everybody who knows Jeff, everybody's heard him talk. You're like, "Oh, he's very special. That's a special CEO right there." And, and that, and look, and that's our business is to invest in that kind of very, very special individual, and they're super rare.

   27. SPSpeaker52:51

       And so in, I think in many ways, Bezos may have been... I, I always wanna say the OG on something, but then you find out 100 years earlier somebody else did that.

   28. SPSpeaker53:02

       Yeah.

   29. SPSpeaker53:02

       But-

   30. SPSpeaker53:02

       Yeah
10. 1:04:57 – 1:17:24

    Creating Problems vs Solving Them

    1. SPSpeaker1:04:57

       ... letting the imagination flourish- Yeah ... is a beautiful thing. Yeah, understanding what the core, core principles are- Yeah ... and applying them. So with that said, paint us more, paint us a picture about the future of, of, of Atoms- Yeah ... or more around the, or maybe say some of the guiding principles- Mm-hmm ... that will dictate, you know, which industries you enter next or how you think about where you go from here. Yeah, look, um, I tell people I'm very focused, uh, right now because it's, it's only food, mining, and transport. [laughs] There's so many things I haven't done yet. Yeah. [laughs] Like we're, like I'm so constrained right now. [laughs] Um, but it goes back to that thing I was saying before is you've gotta find that beachhead, make it flourish, build management capacity to solve 98% of the problems that are going on, and then you have the room to go do a new thing. And really what it is, it's, uh, you know, I, I'm, I've been accused of using the marathon analogy too much. Yeah. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna live up to that, which is, you know, uh, at some point you might be doing a business and it just starts working. I, I started seeing that on rides at Uber where it was like I had my leads in different geos and I'd call 'em up 'cause we would jam on hard ideas and crank and all this. Yeah. We didn't have much to talk about. Yeah, 'cause shit was working. It just worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And they're like, "Travis, we got this. I don't know why you're calling me right now." Yeah. [laughs] You know? But so actually this brings up one of the things that he did best at Uber, um, having had to deal with these guys, was like if you look at most companies, mo- most of the, um, really the big tech companies that, that emerged in the 2000, 2010s, the management team were kinda professional middle managers, et cetera. He had so many guys who you would've gone, "Now that's a founder."

    2. SPSpeaker1:06:59

       You know, that's a founder over there, that's a founder over there. That's a, that's an actual entrepreneur.

    3. SPSpeaker1:07:04

       Mm.

    4. SPSpeaker1:07:04

       And it's amazing that he's not building his own company, 'cause he's, like, working for Travis. But that enabled them... Like, to get-

    5. SPSpeaker1:07:11

       Mm

    6. SPSpeaker1:07:11

       ... to a multitude of ideas, you need l- like a team like that

    7. SPSpeaker1:07:16

       Yeah.

    8. SPSpeaker1:07:16

       Uh, and there's just not that many people who can build that kind of... It, it's just a, it's a very hard to attract and maintain that level of capability.

    9. SPSpeaker1:07:25

       Yeah.

    10. SPSpeaker1:07:25

        'Cause those guys, unless you're building something absolutely spectacular, the, you know, they're not gonna be in. And even if you are, you're dealing with... Y- you gotta be able to manage that.

    11. SPSpeaker1:07:38

        Well, it, what, what happens is the management of it becomes an empowerment puzzle.

    12. ETErik Torenberg1:07:44

        Yeah.

    13. SPSpeaker1:07:44

        Yeah.

    14. SPSpeaker1:07:45

        So-

    15. SPSpeaker1:07:45

        Yes

    16. SPSpeaker1:07:46

        ... okay, so-

    17. SPSpeaker1:07:46

        By the way, not unlike here, by the way.

    18. ETErik Torenberg1:07:48

        I know. I was about to say. [laughs]

    19. SPSpeaker1:07:48

        So you've got, you've got, I've got, you know, l- yeah, I'm running Uber, let's say. Uh, I have, I don't know, five continents going at any given time. You have an engineering team that's multiplexed across, a finance team that's multiplexed across, a product. Like, there's a lot going on, and the only way it works is, okay, you have that entrepreneur there, but they have to... Uh, the, basically empowerment starts with alignment, which is, okay, what's the strategy? Do, are we aligned on that?

    20. SPSpeaker1:08:24

        Oh, that's the... [laughs] That's the challenge, right? Empowerment plus alignment.

    21. SPSpeaker1:08:27

        So alignment on the front end, accountability on the back end.

    22. SPSpeaker1:08:33

        Yeah.

    23. SPSpeaker1:08:33

        And we would call this let builders build.

    24. SPSpeaker1:08:36

        Yeah.

    25. SPSpeaker1:08:36

        And so, but you-

    26. SPSpeaker1:08:37

        By the way, and th- there's also... [laughs] So you've got alignment, but alignment is multidimensional. 'Cause it's alignment on-

    27. SPSpeaker1:08:44

        Mm-hmm

    28. SPSpeaker1:08:45

        ... okay, what are the goals, what are the objectives? Also, what is the culture? Like-

    29. SPSpeaker1:08:50

        Yeah

    30. SPSpeaker1:08:50

        ... what is the behavior-
11. 1:17:24 – 1:28:07

    The Second Industrial Revolution & Resistance to Change

    1. SPSpeaker1:17:24

       in- industrial AI.

    2. SPSpeaker1:17:25

       Yeah. So look, I, I did a, a vision letter when we launched Atoms that outlined sort of a vision for, like, physical AI, where we sit in it, um, and even went into, like, what a physical AI stack is.

    3. SPSpeaker1:17:43

       Yeah.

    4. SPSpeaker1:17:43

       And i- it's really in some ways, I... It was like it was philosophy about where t- the technology world in the f- in, in, in the, the, the, the tech industry in the physical world, where it's gonna go. But what I didn't do was get to the brass tacks in sort of when you look at, okay, well, there's software, there's bits that are affecting how Atoms... What happens to Atoms, like, how they're assembled, where they go, what function do they do in the physical world. Um, we basically, we started, uh... I'm all over the place right now. Cut. Edit. Shh.

    5. SPSpeaker1:18:30

       [laughs]

    6. SPSpeaker1:18:30

       But, um, it... We wanted to create, we wanted to create a, an easy way to understand what it means, and I would s- I said, "Okay, Atoms' mission, physical automation to transform industries." You're like, "Okay. Okay kinda gets me there, but what does that mean exactly?" Well, it means we take entire industries and, that are ripe for automation and AI, and in doing so, that these are physical industries, and in doing so just completely transforms them.

    7. SPSpeaker1:19:08

       In a sense, you've had one idea

    8. SPSpeaker1:19:10

       Like the Uber and Atoms. Atoms is the evolution of Uber in a sense-

    9. SPSpeaker1:19:15

       Yeah. Yeah

    10. SPSpeaker1:19:15

        ... in that you kind of said, "Okay, we're the Cisco of the physical world." Um, and then you're like, "Well, what about the other parts of the physical world?"

    11. SPSpeaker1:19:28

        Yeah.

    12. SPSpeaker1:19:28

        And you built that, that you extended that vision-

    13. SPSpeaker1:19:31

        Yeah

    14. SPSpeaker1:19:31

        ... into the computer and-

    15. SPSpeaker1:19:32

        Yeah

    16. SPSpeaker1:19:32

        ... now you're adding the parts. Um, yeah

    17. SPSpeaker1:19:35

        But the computer is around an industry.

    18. SPSpeaker1:19:37

        Yeah. Yes.

    19. SPSpeaker1:19:38

        So we make computers for industries.

    20. SPSpeaker1:19:40

        Yeah.

    21. SPSpeaker1:19:41

        Those computers are-

    22. SPSpeaker1:19:43

        Right. That's a, uh, that's an important kind of distinction. They're industry-specific computers.

    23. SPSpeaker1:19:47

        Yeah.

    24. SPSpeaker1:19:48

        But-

    25. SPSpeaker1:19:48

        And-

    26. SPSpeaker1:19:48

        ... generalized networks in some sense.

    27. SPSpeaker1:19:50

        Yes. So you go, "Okay, why are we doing transport?" Well, because you've gotta have wheelbase for robots.

    28. SPSpeaker1:19:57

        Yeah.

    29. SPSpeaker1:19:57

        Okay. Cool. But like actually what it means is every industry is moving things. There's some movement of things eventually.

    30. SPSpeaker1:20:06

        Yeah.
12. 1:28:07 – 1:32:01

    Building the Team

    1. SPSpeaker1:28:07

       out.

    2. SPSpeaker1:28:07

       Yeah. Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker1:28:07

       Yeah.

    4. SPSpeaker1:28:07

       Otherwise we'd be Europe.

    5. SPSpeaker1:28:08

       Yeah. Yep. Okay.

    6. SPSpeaker1:28:10

       Yeah.

    7. SPSpeaker1:28:11

       So we were talking offline, you were saying when you started Uber, um, you, you know, worked with people who would choose to work with you.

    8. SPSpeaker1:28:18

       Yeah.

    9. SPSpeaker1:28:18

       But now you're in a different position.

    10. SPSpeaker1:28:20

        Yeah.

    11. SPSpeaker1:28:20

        You, you have a, you know, a bit more choice. You've been building in stealth.

    12. SPSpeaker1:28:23

        Sure.

    13. SPSpeaker1:28:23

        Now you're, you know, this is your coming out story.

    14. SPSpeaker1:28:25

        Yeah.

    15. SPSpeaker1:28:27

        Talk to us about, you know, what, what kind of team you're, you're building here.

    16. SPSpeaker1:28:29

        Yeah. For sure.

    17. SPSpeaker1:28:30

        How, how, how folks can help.

    18. SPSpeaker1:28:31

        Well, look, we multi- we just multiplied the number of industries we're going after by three. So that's a kind of a thing, and each of them is a multi-trillion dollar-

    19. SPSpeaker1:28:39

        Yeah

    20. SPSpeaker1:28:40

        ... opportunity.

    21. SPSpeaker1:28:42

        [laughs]

    22. SPSpeaker1:28:42

        And, you know, look, I had-

    23. SPSpeaker1:28:44

        Those are big numbers

    24. SPSpeaker1:28:44

        ... I had some awesome guys. Like, uh, you know, this is kind of a funny thing to say, but when you make somebody hundreds of millions of dollars, it's hard to hire them again.

    25. SPSpeaker1:28:52

        [laughs]

    26. SPSpeaker1:28:53

        So, uh, so- I've never had great success hiring rich people.

    27. SPSpeaker1:28:57

        [laughs] Yeah. So there you go. So, you know, it, but, but, you know, there's the crew, like, uh, Emil Michael's now Under Secretary of Defense, but, uh, he was my right hand on doing just epic deal making and strategic moves. I need the next Emil Michael-

    28. SPSpeaker1:29:16

        Yeah

    29. SPSpeaker1:29:17

        ... if that makes sense. Uh, like a head of corp dev, biz dev that can build an inspired team, an inspiring team, uh, as an example. Um, we're, we're, uh, we're in the market for a general counsel, so we're looking for somebody who can ride shotgun and-

    30. SPSpeaker1:29:36

        Yeah

Episode duration: 1:32:17