“That’s when they went in for the kill. I just couldn’t hang. Bottom line, I just couldn’t hang.”

That’s Travis Kalanick at the All-In Summit. Right after his mother’s death, his investors pushed him out of the company he built from nothing. In this talk, Travis tells us how he came back.

Losing the Company He Loved

It was right before Christmas. Travis’ mother had just died. And he was about to lose everything he’d built.

For months, Uber’s investors had been trying to push Travis out.

They complained that he had created a “toxic culture,” whatever that means. The media piled on — anything for clicks, right?

For a long time, Travis resisted. But having just lost his dear mother, he just couldn’t fight anymore.

He stepped aside. The Uber board replaced him with Dara Khosrowshahi, the former CEO of Expedia.

Don’t Call It a Comeback

Travis wasn’t out of the game for long. He invested in an obscure company called City Storage Systems.

Shortly thereafter, he took over as CEO. That company is now known as Cloud Kitchens.

Travis’ vision for it might be even crazier than Uber. He wants to make delivered restaurant food cost competitive with cooking at home.

“If that happens, you do to the kitchen what Uber did to the car.”

To get there, Cloud Kitchens is using robots to handle almost all the food prep. In time, Travis wants to get the ingredients and deliver the meals using autonomous vehicles, cutting costs further.

I never do food delivery. It’s slow, cold when it arrives, and incredibly expensive.

But if Travis can get me a beautiful pasta meal for the same cost as cooking, delivered fast and hot by a robot, I’m in! If he succeeds, this could be even bigger than Uber.

A Role Model for Investors

If it weren’t for his investors, Travis might still be at Uber. It’s incredible — a man does this much for you, and you push him aside at the worst moment in his life?

When business operates this way, it’s disgusting and I want nothing to do with it. I’d rather hang it up and lay on a beach.

But you don’t have to be that kind of investor. Jason Calacanis, who interviewed Travis at the Summit, stuck by him.

When Travis got choked up talking about his mother’s death, Jason put a hand on his knee to comfort him. You can tell that Jason got teared up too.

For JCal, this is clearly a lot more than dollars and cents. That’s the kind of investor I want to be.

Wrap-Up

“Would you consider doing what Steve Jobs did and coming back and merging Cloud Kitchens with Uber?”

Jason couldn’t help but ask. And while Travis didn’t answer him directly, he didn’t rule it out.

If Travis came back, Uber would be a trillion dollar company and Jason would be a billionaire. As a fan of technology, I’d love to see it.

Travis shows the resilience it takes to be one of the great entrepreneurs of a generation. I only hope that some day, I can find my Travis.

What did you think of Travis’ talk?

Have a great weekend everybody!

More on tech:

Elon at the All-In Summit

Sergey Brin at the All-In Summit

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