The a16z Show - Ben Horowitz and Travis Kalanick on Building Again

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Ben Horowitz, Travis Kalanick, and Erik Torenberg take the stage at Atoms' launch event for a candid fireside conversation about entrepreneurship, company building, and why Kalanick believes the next industrial revolution will be powered by AI. They revisit pivotal moments from Uber's history, including the decision not to acquire Lyft, lessons from scaling one of the world's fastest-growing companies, and how Kalanick has evolved as a founder. The conversation also explores Atoms' vision for industrial AI, why software is moving into the physical world, what it takes to build enduring company cultures, and why Kalanick believes the biggest opportunities of the next decade lie in transforming industries like food production, mining, and manufacturing.   Resources: Follow Travis Kalanick on X: https://x.com/travisk Follow Ben Horowitz on X: https://x.com/bhorowitz Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Travis is back, but I've actually been working for eight years. I just haven't been talking about it. We're competing for the next industrial revolution. People said, are you pissed off about Uber? Does that grind you? When you fall in love again, you don't think about the X very much. We had a massive, high-fidelity playbook on how to not get attention for anything we did. A lot of the things that would have happened with Uber over time are things we're doing now.

Basically, multiple trillion-dollar industries that are going to get automated. We talk about digital AI and what it does to the enterprise. But these industries on their own are big. You think you were successful because of what you did versus in spite of what you did. If you don't fight for the best idea, then what idea are you fighting for? You're fighting for the mediocre idea. An idea that's going to make you less good than if you went for the best idea. The real question is, what are you guys going to buy over?

After nearly eight years building largely out of public view, Travis Kalanick is finally ready to talk about what comes next. In this fireside conversation from Adam's launch event, Ben Horowitz and I sit down with Travis to discuss why he stayed quiet for so long, how his thinking has evolved since Uber, and why he believes industrial AI will define the next era of technology. Along the way, we revisit the biggest decisions of Uber, founder culture, and what it takes to build transformational companies twice.

So the reason why people loved our podcast The first one that we did together is because we just got right into it, right into the good stuff. So we're going to do that here and we're going to open it up for Q&A. Eric's good at this and it stresses me out. All right.

What do you got, Eric? So Travis, why didn't you buy Lyft? And do you regret it? What would you do if you can go back in time? I think this will surprise a lot of people, but Lyft's culture was very different than ours. Maybe it started with the pink mustache. But I think it's interesting, right,

when it comes to entrepreneurs that are in that moment where you could acquire something. By the way, I got a lot of shit for this for a long time. So, yeah, the culture didn't. Yeah, the culture didn't mix. And when you meet with somebody and you're going to acquire them

and there's so much goodness that could come from it, by the way, we're in some crazy war, probably spending a billion dollars a year on it or some insane amount of money, you want it to work. So you wouldn't do anything different? I wouldn't do anything different. And it's easy to say now, but I got a lot of shit for that for a long time. But it was basically I would sit across the table from the guys,

and I just didn't, it was just clear that we were very culturally different, and you couldn't, it get harder and harder to make that happen. By the way, I agree with that. I think it, I mean, you'd have to do the counterfeit, If Travis was still running Uber, because... What would that look like? Travis was still running Uber today? Well, I think it would have been the original culture.

And the culture they went to, which was a reaction to the resistance, just ended up being a much more milk-toast culture than the original Uber culture was a special, very pronounced culture. My favorite thing in that culture doc was meritocracy slash toast-step. or toe stomping. I can't remember. I always thought of it as stomping. Baritocracy and toe stepping.

Toe stepping. Yeah? Which is kind of like, fuck your feelings. We're here to build. We're going to do it. We're going to push as hard as we can. And yeah, you may get your toe stepped on,

but you've got to keep going. You got to keep bringing it. And to me, that was the part that got diluted when Travis went out. And it was, in some ways, it was the core part. It was a very essential element to at least what I saw kind of from the side in it.

Yeah, we've rebranded at the current company at Adams. We call it the best idea wins. But the toe stepping is important because there's so many people that are not willing to fight for the best idea because they're going to upset somebody else. And if you don't fight for the best idea, then what idea are you fighting for? You're fighting for the mediocre idea, the politically expedient idea, an idea that's going to make you less good than if you went for the best idea. And so having everybody oriented towards that is a cultural vibe that helps you win. Yeah, when Andy Grove was at Intel, he used to call that constructive confrontation. Yeah.

Which is the only way to get better. You have to get tested. There's a polymarket on when Travis is going to come back at Uber. Or when they were going to ask Travis to come back at Uber. But the real question is, when are you guys going to buy Uber? I think we solved a lot to earn. it's a fun it's fun so much of what i'm doing and people go what would you be doing if and i can't say all the things that i would be doing at uber i'm doing now there's a lot of things i'm not but it is a

continuation of the things and a lot of the things that would have happened with uber over time are things we're doing now and if those things play out and you take a over. Look, I outlined what industrial AI is and where it's going over time. It's basically multiple, like, $100 billion or trillion dollar industries that are going to get automated. We talk about digital AI and what it does to the enterprise, but these industries on their own are big. And so this is a new industrial age that basically is sort of coming. I compare it to the second industrial revolution. So if we're correct and we ever, execute well, then it's a thing because you're like, is food going to be at automated?

Is it production of food going to get automated? And is the delivery of food going to get automated? I think we'd all say yes. And if that's the case, then there will be a service that prepares and delivers that food at cheaper than going to the grocery store. And if that happens, this occurs and food will be completely revolutionized. Will mining get automated? And if it does, not just the movement of the materials, but every part of mining, then what is a mine? company. It just owns real estate. It will be completely revolutionized a multi-trillion dollar market, and there's many of these. And now we've got to deliver. Talk about how you're different as a founder building Adams than you were building Uber in terms of what have you changed, what have you

kept the same? When you reflect back, what do you think you were successful because of what you did versus in spite of what you did? The, look, some of how I did Uber is, very related to what I did before Uber. And what I did before Uber was I failed. I mean, I got, my company barely got acquired. I did the first four years without a salary. I had socks that said blood, sweat, and ramen. It was stuff like that.

And when you're that on the line and your own welfare and you've got to make ends meet, and then you go into something like Uber, which is like ultra product market fit times a thousand, but you still think you're poor and you can't go to the grocery store next week, you get too close to the line. Like I would go right up against the line. Some people might have guessed that.

But I'd go right up against the line, and the only way you knew that I didn't get chalk on my shoe was you'd get an electromagnetic scanning microscope, and you would zoom in, reverse, angle, and you'd be like, okay, he's fine. But if you get big and you roll that way, you get to a place where people, you're bringing a lot of change really fast and you haven't brought trust along for the ride.

So I would say today, I'm a few inches off that line. You don't need to do the slow motion replay to know that I did the right thing. I'd stand by every decision I made at Uber. But you don't need to guess anymore. It's like super clean. You don't have to be that close. the other thing is interesting

and I think sometimes the young entrepreneurs that are just coming up right now they don't totally get it is that when you get into your third and fourth I don't know this may be even my fifth at this point

company you get freaking really good at doing stuff and so things that used to take me a day or three days a lot of stress, anxiety I don't want to do this take me 45 minutes

And that's a beautiful thing. There are things you don't get. Like, I'm, like, so used to adversity at this point that it's kind of normal, so I don't get as pissed off. But being pissed off makes you good as an entrepreneur. So, like, I got to make sure I'm still fired up. Come on. That's that pissed off energy.

You're fucked with me. I'm going to kick your ass. It's easier when you're 25, I think. I don't know. I'm just not as though. I'm like, I do. Whatever, it's fine. You be you, dude, it's good.

You get too used to adversity, and that's kind of a problem. But, yeah, so I'd say those are some of the fun changes, yeah. What's that an example of something that used to take a long time, but is now just so much easier, like a... Look, I wrote a vision note when we rolled out Adams was a few months ago. It was like, like, a bias, obviously, but it was very, I think very well-written vision note. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that would have taken me, I don't know. hundreds of hours. Yeah.

And it just flowed. Yeah. Like, okay, I can't say I wasn't thinking about it a lot. But when I was doing the writing, it actually just flowed and just happened. I'm like, holy shit. It just happened. Holy shit. Like, the one I just did for this funding, like, okay, I procrastinated, but, you know,

that's a thing. But like, once I did the ride, I'm like, oh, dude, we got it. It took like 45 minutes. I'm like, this is amazing. And it's related to presentation, communication. education, strategy, this kind of thing I'm faster at, which is pretty awesome. Ben, how have you seen Travis evolve since you first got to know him and comment more broadly? We have a lot of repeat entrepreneurs in the room in terms of when like Travis, you have a massive

success that also has some mistakes along the way. You know, what lessons do you learn for the next time versus, you know, what do you make sure to keep and continue because that's what got you there? Well, I thought that was actually a really good way to characterize it, which was, you know, he thought he was in survival mode when he had 20,000 people working for him. And that idea is dangerous when you have such a big organization. It's dangerous on two levels. One, it's dangerous because you're not, as he said, bringing enough people along with you. but it's also dangerous in that you've got all these people working for you.

And their interpretation of that idea could be a lot. You know, you kind of have to stay way on this side of the line so the guy, you know, eight levels down, doesn't do something stupid. And so that, you know, that's a big change, I would say. But like, he was always great. Always, I mean, that's why it was so tragic that we didn't invest. an Uber. But, yeah, and I think, like, when you do get, I think everything comes easier.

It was what's the prince line? People say nothing comes too easy, but when you got it, nothing comes too hard. That's like, that's where he got to. The one thing I add to it, though, and again, I feel like I don't want to prescribe to folks. like everybody, a lot of folks here already know this, but it's like when it gets easy, it's time to push hard. I always used to say like,

if something, if it's getting easy, it's about to get really fucking hard. And you don't want it to be that way. You want to make it hard versus hard and make it hard on you, if that makes sense. Yeah. And I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs over the years where they're like, oh, man,

we're just cranking, we're on easy street right now. And I'm like, dude, you are about to get your ass whooped, and you don't even know it. Now I know that too, because, of course, I've experienced it myself. Yeah. And that's a, that's an oriented insight. Yeah, so it's... I notice that all the time when I talk to entrepreneurs

when they start going, oh, yeah, I just, yeah, it's easy. It's going so well. We're going to have competition. You know, I just hired this guy. He had an offer from Anthropic for $5 billion, but he took my $400,000. your job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, bro, check yourself for wounds

because I assure you you're bleeding, you know, like you're in trouble. For sure. But there's times when it's actually easy. That's a guy pretending. So I call that the fake it so you make it, which he's lying to himself plus others. But there's actual times when it's easy,

but it's because you're not continuing to push. So it's one thing when you're just not winning, but you're pretending like you are. And there's another thing when you're winning, but you're taking it easy and you're about to start losing. Yeah. Many such cases.

Yeah, for sure. Last question, then I'll open up to a couple of Q&A. So Ben, Travis, when your first external round at Uber, the venture round, I believe, was at 4 million post or something like that. It's 4 million pre. You're talking about Uber.

First round. Our first round at Uber was 4 million pre. This one, you know, several orders of magnitude, a bigger. Ben, I believe this is one of, if not our biggest check you've ever written. Yeah. Certainly the biggest check I ever written.

You know, when did you get to conviction that we were 100%? Like, what was your process like? I was on 100. When I first started talking to him, as soon as I knew what it was, the only question for me was, was it going to be one thing?

Yeah. because, look, I've known Travis for many, many, many years, and he's always been the opposite of the... Like, our conversations were always the real shit. Like, when we... I mean, I was on the board of Lyft, and I was talking to him about Uber, and he would tell me, like, all the stuff that Chinese ride-sharing companies were doing to him,

breaking into his apps, giving shit away for free, this and that and the other. And he was fired up about that. like, oh, if I can deal with these guys, the rest of the world is going to be no problem. And there are just not that many. There are very few. I'm telling you, I've been in this a while,

very few entrepreneurs that come out of like that. So I knew if we could put money in Travis, and he was still, the other thing that I learned was he was still Travis. Like he hadn't turned into, he wasn't living his best life. He wasn't doing that. So, yeah, it was a very,

I was that conviction very fast. I think a lot of people don't, some people know this, but not a lot, is that we actually had separate companies going. And so when I went to do the fundraise, I kind of showed up at A16, kind of like the guy with a trench coat with a bunch of watches saying, you want to watch? Which watch you would you like?

I got lots of stuff. Did you want some food stuff? Actually, I got different parts of the food thing. What do you like? I've got some mining stuff. That's pretty cool. And they're like, we just want, the stuff.

And we heard that from the first few people that we talked to. And so actually the tricky part about this deal, or what added trickiness this deal that made us sweat a little bit and just made it hard, was like I had to merge separate entities with different investors and put it together, which was pretty interesting because, like, how do you do a ratio when certain things are very early? but it's super great because it was like you see some of the things with Elon and he's starting to put the pieces back together.

He's not only phenomenal, of course, on all the five or six or eight things, and of course, 816 is in most or at all of them, but he was managing five or six or seven different companies. And so I was really trying to put it together under a single roof, which is amazing. He's doing it many, you know, a couple decades later. But, I mean, it's, it makes things better in some ways, yeah. Before we get to Q&A, lastly, Travis, why don't you say a couple words about what it's like to have a lot of the Uber gang back together? Yeah.

It's where, you know, putting the pieces back together. You know, Anthony, this company you bought, there's a bunch of people in this room. who were alongside with you for the first round. When I first got going, look, I was on the board of Uber when I first got going. So I got thousands of inbound from actual Uber employees that are like, let's go. And I had to be careful because if you're on the board of a company, you can't hire thousands of their people. It's not just a bad look. It's actually illegal.

So there's that, too. and I'm very familiar with the law here. Okay. So you pick your guys, you pick your spots, the whole thing. But, you know, there's a few, there's a lot of really special people in this room. I mean, Godham, who was a CFO over at Uber, has joined Adams. That's a recent thing. Ganesh, who was a VP or SVP of engineering over at Uber, has just joined Adams.

And there's a lot of young guns at Uber that joined that are now the big guns, right? There's a guy, Brian Atwell, who's one of our engineering leads on the food side and on infrastructure. Anthony Lewandowski, of course. Eric Meyerhofer, who ran Uber's Advanced Technology Group. He's running food robotics. Like, the list goes on, guys. Oh, Jessica Morton, she was head of Uber Eats, Japan. and I went to Japan when we first got going

and I met with Mossa because like maybe Masa's going to be in and like I could never get over him just stealing my stuff and then investing in like eight other companies that do what I do. And then I met with Jess because that was like my number one

in Japan, like my number one thing to, my number one number two thing to do there. But she's now doing a lot of really cool stuff. Now we're not just an Uber company. We have more executives that are not Uber than are. But there's a lot of heart from that time and people who are there. And it's like, what do they say, run it back.

But there's also run it forward, which is do it new, different. Don't be what you were before. So anyways, we're having fun. Speaking of special people of this room, I want to open it up to some Q&A. Gary. Travis, congratulations. My favorite question to ask for especially a room like this, this is what if you could like send a message in a bottle to the 18 to 22 year old version of

yourself what say um look the 18 year old version of me uh was a super geek uh pretending not to be so i would just be like dude just be a geek it's going to be fine you know the pretending to not be a geek when you're a geek is just a lot of cognitive space you know load that's not necessary. You know, I'm not sure that things would have gone better, but that's certainly one of the things I probably would have told myself, yeah. What about you, Ben? That's good.

Just not to worry about stuff, you know, like it is what it is, do what you got to do. You know, don't, don't, like, consequences. is going to be what the consequence is. You've got to find a way out. And you just got to keep looking until you find it. And there's nothing else to do. So worrying doesn't help at all. No stress.

Don't worry, be happy. Yeah. Don't worry. Well, but you need urgency. Don't be too happy. Yeah, yeah, don't be too happy. Don't be happy, Travis Plannick. Don't be too happy.

Don't be fat and happy. Yeah. Okay. Next question. Owen. Question for Travis, how are you going to structure all this? Are you going to have shared resources across the divisions? Are you going to have CEOs?

Are you going to have many boards? Like, how are you thinking of all about? Yeah, that's super great. So one of the things I'm happy about is that I don't have multiple boards because that's a thing I was just like, oh, my God, I definitely don't want that. But shared resources is just sort of like this is the management architecture, organizational architecture geek thing that we got to figure out. Okay, the normal GNA, finance, legal, HR, shared.

Then you're like, okay, infrastructure on the technology side, shared. Is manufacturing shared? Sometimes you want manufacturing to go deep. Okay, we're just going to do this kind of manufacturing, but it just so happens that a lot of the manufacturing that we're doing on mining is similar to the manufacturing that we're doing on transport. But it's very different than the manufacturer we're doing on food. So do you have a guru of manufacturing?

You probably do because it's a thing. It's a specialized thing. And when you do it at scale, you can get way better talent and just all the other things work better. So my guess is manufacturing is also one of those things. And then you're like, which parts of software get locked in mostly, but not complete? And I don't have all the answers on that one. But like these are business units that run a separate business. is like the guy who runs, you know, mining is just like all in on that and has lots of control

and empowerment to make mining successful. And same for the other situations, yeah. Yeah, it's super interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, that's the thing, right? It's like I had to make it a bit painful. Otherwise, I'm just not, I'm just like, I will make, it's just inevitable. I just do that.

Yeah. Next question. Brent. Hi, Travis. One thing that you said earlier was being pissed off makes you a really good entrepreneur. You know, it's interesting. Sometimes people say that if you're successful and you're driven by a desire for revenge, it's like a dirty fuel.

Like it works, but it's not the best source of fuel that you can possibly have. I'm curious throughout your career and just like everything that you've felt, have you found a cleaner source of fuel? Or you just, you know, what's your take? takeaway on that. Look, most people don't know this, but before, this is a couple of companies before Uber. I did a peer-to-peer file sharing system, got sued for a quarter of a trillion dollars by 33 of the largest media companies in the world and I was pissed. I did a revenge business, which was I'm going to do a peer-to-peer CDN like Akamai, BitTorrent meets Akamai before BitTorin existed. And my whole thing

was turn those guys who sued me into customers. It was like a full spite business. like full spite store like let's go okay um but i think in many ways the there is a there is a dirty there is a dirty revenge or dirty it's dirty it can be successful but it ends up being less than what it should be when it comes from the wrong place if that makes sense uh part of what drove me earlier was a little bit of like a fear of failure a fear of failure and that can mean long nights where you get little done. And it just means you have this edge, this weird vibe that people like, dude, something's wrong with that guy.

Right. And it's just a thing. You're just not going to go all the way, right? When the Uber thing happened and then moved on to new stuff, which was like eight months after I left Uber, I was doing the new thing, uh, yeah, I kind of fell in love again, you know? And so people said, are you pissed off about Uber? Are you this thing?

Like, does that grind you or, you know, is it on your mind? And it's just like, when you fall in love again, you don't think about the X very much. And if you come from that place, you can create in a beautiful, undirty way, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's important. And it's not, that doesn't, you got to work on it to get to that place probably over time. But by the time I got there, I was there.

Yeah. Maybe one last question. Oh, and by the way, you can't be retard maxing to get to that place. Okay. For our boy, Mark, I got to still have a debate on that one. All right. Yeah. Question.

You mentioned, I remember this slide. I'll remember it forever. Killer boss. Was the killer boss for Adams, especially in this. What is the killer boss? What does that mean? Final boss. Yeah.

Oh. Final boss. Killer boss is my version for a fan. Look, there's huge opportunities here. It's maybe the final boss is, like, I don't know the final boss, but like I'll just riff a little bit on this concept, which is there are a lot of people in this room and not in this room who will gladly vanquish me.

I don't mean not in a bad way, but we're competing for the next. industrial revolution. You know, Magic Johnson, this is old school, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird were like kind of guys, but like they'll kick each other's butt, right? So this is the wrong analogy for this crew, but you get, it's like Patrick Ewing, like you know, some shit.

Okay, but so I think there's, that is actually pretty important. Is there like an ultra, like you have to, you always have to think when you go into a space like this, you go, who's the best of the best of industrial AI? Anybody want to guess? It's really obvious. His name rhymes with

Shmielan. Okay? He's the best of the best. And he'll just keep going and keep doing lots more, even if what you do now is not what he does now. So, if you want to go final boss mode, I mean, he, I don't even know who his final boss is.

Like, he'll like, dude, Elon's the goat. I'm like, dude, I'm a baby goat. It's great. you know but that maybe he's the final boss you know but mad respect of course he's he's obviously the best by a long shot and so anyways yeah i'm not sure exactly that I answered that was a little riff on it yeah maybe we'll we'll end on this question which is

you you've never left but you were in a cave for a while you know you were you were focusing i had a I had a presentation that I gave to my leadership team in like 2019. The title was be uniconic. Be uniconic. We had a fucking massive high fidelity playbook on how to not get attention for anything we did. We had thousands of employees who were not allowed to put our company on LinkedIn. It was weird.

So this is your coming out party, so to speak. Yeah. You're back in the flow. Talk about how you've seen Silicon Valley or the tech industry at large change from when you were, you know, right in the center in it to be coming back eight years later. What surprised you or what's most notable about where we are as maybe so. Look, I think probably one of the coolest things, and this is part of Yon Out versus not before, is that the media landscape has completely changed.

the media landscape 10 years ago, 90% of what was said was very negative. Business had become politics, and we didn't know it. So think of your favorite politician if you have one. I mean, many of you may not have one, but let's just pretend you did, okay? It's fucking hilarious. But let's just say, okay? take your favorite politician.

Go type his name in on Google. Do you think you're going to find anything good? It's going to be just tsunami waves of negativity is what you're going to find. Of course, if it leads, if it bleeds, it leads, right? And that's human nature and there's negativity and that gets the clicks and the whole thing. But we weren't used to it then,

and we thought everything that the New York Times said was real. And we know now that that's not even close to true. And we now understand. And so the media landscape is like, yeah, you don't have to talk to those guys. And you can go and talk to a David Senra. You can go and talk to Joe Rogan or name your guy. And you can say what you need to say in an environment that's not like a struggle session in Maoist China. Right.

So that's a big freaking change. And I think it's a, you know, Elon buying Twitter is like the beginning of us being able to speak our minds and for disagreeing to not be illegal. That's a big deal. We should all thank Elon for that. And it allows so you go, okay, somebody like myself who basically was just like, okay, I want to build. I want to I want to not think about what the New York Times is writing

when I make decisions about what I build. I had to emulate what it's like being a capitalist in Russia which is their number one KPI is called shut the fuck up. And that's what I did for eight years.

In a weird way, it was like that for different reasons, but it was like that. And so we're now out of that mode or getting out of that mode. and let's go. And I think that's the biggest change

for all of us in the last eight years. And God bless. And hopefully that continues. I think it's a great note to wrap on Travis's back. Travis never left. Give it up for Travis. And thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A60s podcast.

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