00:00:00
the reason that he was kicked out is
00:00:02
because of this toxic culture some big
00:00:05
news that took place on Christmas Eve if
00:00:08
you missed it Travis kenck planning to
00:00:10
leave the board at Uber and when he
00:00:12
showed me what he was working on I
00:00:13
immediately said hey can I invest a
00:00:14
popular 70 billion doll ride sharing
00:00:17
company is searching for a new CEO to
00:00:19
take the wheel so you want to talk about
00:00:21
structure being completely screwy
00:00:24
competition is good I'll bet my entire
00:00:26
network that Uber will be here and
00:00:27
thriving in 10 years you're you're at
00:00:30
War prematurely with your customers
00:00:33
sorry about
00:00:34
[Music]
00:00:36
that all right
00:00:42
[Applause]
00:00:44
everybody my
00:00:49
guy
00:00:51
um uh I can't believe I can't believe I
00:00:54
get to sit down with one of the most
00:00:56
famous investors in Uber
00:01:00
I'm honored I'm honored to be
00:01:02
here
00:01:04
um we we wanted to have a surprise for
00:01:06
you every day uh I've been you know
00:01:09
Travis and I have been friends for 25
00:01:10
years um the first time I interviewed
00:01:13
Travis was 1999 I was doing a little
00:01:16
magazine out here digital Coast reporter
00:01:17
you were doing a little company called
00:01:19
scour um which was a peer-to-peer
00:01:22
Network to share
00:01:24
files um and you were 22 years old I was
00:01:27
28 I think if we put those two numbers
00:01:29
together just don't let people do the
00:01:30
math you know it's just like just keep
00:01:32
moving was a while ago 1999 um and um I
00:01:38
just
00:01:39
remember the enthusiasm drive and fire
00:01:43
that you had at that time and it always
00:01:45
struck me I said to myself I don't know
00:01:47
if he's going to win on this one I'm
00:01:49
pretty sure he's going to get his ass
00:01:50
handed to him in fact correct correct um
00:01:54
but I know this guy's going to win big
00:01:56
in the future and and sure enough uh we
00:01:58
got to go on a great journey together
00:02:00
with Uber and now again with Cloud
00:02:02
kitchens and I every year when we're
00:02:04
hanging out I
00:02:06
say since you left Uber I say you know
00:02:08
whenever you're ready let's have a
00:02:10
conversation and here we are and then
00:02:12
you call me every year I call you every
00:02:13
year if you're ready just and I'm just a
00:02:16
block away from
00:02:17
you you're Alma moer UCLA let's go come
00:02:20
on I'm like all right let's let's go and
00:02:24
this year you said okay so here we are
00:02:26
um let's chop it up let's talk about
00:02:28
Cloud kitchens you have since uh you
00:02:32
left Uber been working extremely hard
00:02:36
and quietly on cloud kitchens what is
00:02:38
the vision what is cloud kitchens for
00:02:40
people who don't
00:02:42
know well uh
00:02:44
so yeah I mean it it is kind of funny
00:02:46
when you go from being a tech guy to a
00:02:48
kitchen guy I mean that's interesting um
00:02:51
look food has I think we all know like
00:02:54
food is it's at the center of the Human
00:02:58
Experience the center of humanity and
00:03:00
just just how we live but it's got a lot
00:03:02
of
00:03:03
problems Health cost convenience like
00:03:08
all that stuff and it could be a hell of
00:03:12
a lot better and so um of course in my
00:03:16
last at my last gig we did Uber Eats it
00:03:20
was a starting point but the difference
00:03:23
with food versus rides is that the
00:03:25
infrastructure was already there you had
00:03:27
a bunch of cars that were 98% unutilized
00:03:30
and so you just had to light it up but
00:03:32
to do food right you needed to build the
00:03:36
infrastructure and so the mission for
00:03:38
our company is infrastructure for better
00:03:40
food and the idea is like can you get
00:03:44
the preparation and delivery of food so
00:03:49
high quality and most importantly so
00:03:51
cost efficient that it starts to
00:03:53
approach the cost of you going to the
00:03:54
grocery store if that happens you do to
00:03:57
the kitchen what Uber did to the car
00:04:00
and so the quiet part is like we go and
00:04:04
buy real estate we do
00:04:08
construction we then go talk to the
00:04:11
center point of what matters in food
00:04:14
which is the restaurant tour the
00:04:16
entrepreneur who's making it who does it
00:04:20
just because I mean it's a labor of love
00:04:22
you got to have a deep passion for food
00:04:24
and a deep passion for people because
00:04:26
otherwise you couldn't survive in that
00:04:27
world uh but these guys are like like
00:04:30
true blue entrepreneurs and they are our
00:04:32
customer and you do it from their
00:04:34
perspective and you help them get their
00:04:38
vision for what they're doing out there
00:04:40
and do it super super efficiently um and
00:04:44
so we like to say we serve those who
00:04:45
serve others we're not the restaurant
00:04:48
we're the guys
00:04:49
underneath and uh currently I think we
00:04:52
have real estate we we have facilities
00:04:54
in all the major cities in 30 countries
00:04:57
around the world um we also have a
00:05:00
software division so we have hundreds of
00:05:02
thousands of restaurants using our
00:05:03
software stack um and we have a robotics
00:05:06
division um that you know got going with
00:05:10
a lot of the original sort of uber atg
00:05:12
guys Advanced Technology Group the the
00:05:14
autonomy guys so we got that crew
00:05:16
together and um have really you know
00:05:20
robots that are going to that
00:05:22
already are out there but are going to
00:05:26
be out there in a really big way over
00:05:29
the coming you know quarters and years
00:05:31
so the premise of uber was hey press a
00:05:34
button we move you or anything from
00:05:37
point A to point B what a profound
00:05:39
simple but profound um insight as an
00:05:42
entrepreneur and the Insight here is
00:05:45
hey getting you food uh quickly
00:05:49
efficiently and then making it easier
00:05:51
for a restaurant tour to pop up a
00:05:53
restaurant tell us the economics of a
00:05:56
food brand um when Jade and I and the
00:05:59
family were out here here on vacation
00:06:00
over the summer at Manhattan Beach we
00:06:01
had a wonderful experience of ordering
00:06:04
gwenneth Pal's Cloud kitchen and these
00:06:06
new brands great um yeah great great new
00:06:10
brands popping up um talk about the
00:06:12
economics for that food entrepreneur I
00:06:15
mean It's just tough I think most of us
00:06:17
know a restaurant tour some of us may
00:06:20
have even tried to do a restaurant or be
00:06:22
a part of it in some fashion I like I
00:06:24
said it's a labor of love but like your
00:06:27
big costs are going to be labor let's
00:06:29
call it between you know let's call it
00:06:32
30% but it can range from like 25 to 40%
00:06:35
of your overall Revenue occupancy which
00:06:38
is the the physical space itself uh
00:06:41
let's call it between six and 12% of
00:06:46
Revenue uh supply chain is
00:06:49
30% uh marketing let's call it 10 um I
00:06:52
know I'm missing something somewhere but
00:06:54
those are the that's the big stuff and a
00:06:57
successful restaurant's going to have a
00:06:59
10 % profit margin and be really pumped
00:07:01
about that wow um and so yeah that's
00:07:05
just how it works um you know one thing
00:07:06
I wanted to say just sort of the high
00:07:08
level to like sort of how do you connect
00:07:10
the dots on like sort of where
00:07:12
Innovation is going is that um you know
00:07:15
my sweet spot is digitizing the physical
00:07:17
world and you know you could take that
00:07:20
to mean a lot of different things but
00:07:22
it's basically treating atoms like
00:07:25
bits and so we know the bits world is a
00:07:28
computer okay computers well CPU
00:07:30
manipulates the bits storage stores the
00:07:33
bits Network moves bits from point A to
00:07:36
point B but if you're treating atoms
00:07:39
like bits you go CPU manipulates the
00:07:42
bits what manipulates
00:07:43
atoms that's
00:07:45
manufacturing storage stores bits what
00:07:48
stores atoms that's Real Estate Network
00:07:52
moves bits from point A to point
00:07:54
B what uh yeah what moves atoms well
00:07:59
that's transport of logistics and so
00:08:03
these are the three sort of core
00:08:05
Computing resources in a atoms based
00:08:09
computer and you can say my last gig was
00:08:11
so much about the network for the
00:08:14
physical world but there's just a huge
00:08:16
amount of innovation left in compute and
00:08:20
storage for the physical world also
00:08:22
known as
00:08:23
digitized manufacturing and digitized
00:08:26
real estate and so our company is really
00:08:29
sort of
00:08:30
building atoms based computers and sort
00:08:33
of our first computer is really a food
00:08:36
computer so that's kind of how we think
00:08:38
about it yeah um let's take a look at
00:08:40
the video of um some of the robots uh
00:08:44
that are making food in Cloud kitchens
00:08:49
[Music]
00:08:59
and that's our lab we're doing that in
00:09:01
house all in house yeah all this stuff
00:09:03
is in house
00:09:05
[Music]
00:09:22
[Applause]
00:09:23
[Music]
00:09:44
so we call this part like look ma no
00:09:46
hands right so once the dispensers are
00:09:48
full of
00:09:50
food nobody touches it and what comes
00:09:52
out on a conveyor belt is bags of food
00:09:54
that get delivered amazing right so you
00:09:58
know LED
00:10:00
bag sealed you get the general idea so
00:10:02
now you have a a restaurant that can
00:10:06
asynchronously produce for consumers
00:10:09
from what labor is doing and the labor
00:10:11
is primarily on the on the prep side of
00:10:14
things so we see there's kind of vessels
00:10:17
there um I'm assuming they have
00:10:19
ingredients in them the bowl goes by
00:10:22
stuff gets dropped in organized covered
00:10:25
put in a bag label goes on the human has
00:10:28
no part in that except for maybe
00:10:31
preparing and and filling prep let's say
00:10:33
you have prep in the morning this
00:10:35
machine can run for hours without
00:10:37
anybody there um and so you know there's
00:10:42
interesting you know so so it just
00:10:43
becomes a more efficient thing so the if
00:10:46
you want to do to the kitchen what Uber
00:10:49
did to the car you have to make sure two
00:10:51
things happen one is that you need the
00:10:54
logistics the movement of food needs to
00:10:56
go to the cost of that needs to go to
00:10:58
zero this is a autonomous vehicles
00:11:00
things along these lines and then the
00:11:02
production of food must also get uh sort
00:11:05
of roboticized mechanized essentially
00:11:08
those two things happen and then we can
00:11:11
always cook but it can be out of choice
00:11:15
and um you know I like to say I like a I
00:11:17
I like horses but I don't ride a horse
00:11:19
to work and so um you can get higher
00:11:23
quality food to the people at a lower
00:11:25
cost and just give people the most
00:11:27
precious of commodities
00:11:29
back which is called time to do all the
00:11:32
things all the other things in life that
00:11:34
they love and you're strategically
00:11:37
placing these Cloud
00:11:38
kitchens um in I get I would assume very
00:11:42
lowcost real estate but that's at very
00:11:45
key uh locations that make it very
00:11:49
efficient to uh deliver the food yeah
00:11:52
yeah so on the software side we we have
00:11:56
a software stack that like I said
00:11:58
hundreds of of thousands of restaurants
00:12:00
use we're seeing 18% of all online
00:12:04
delivery in the US as an example our
00:12:07
software is touching so because we see
00:12:09
where all of the delivery is we know
00:12:12
where to put a delivery only restaurant
00:12:16
facility um and so we find distressed
00:12:19
real estate or sort of unique situations
00:12:22
where it's hard to develop and we've
00:12:24
built a competence in sort of turning
00:12:27
that into a 30 kitchen facility that we
00:12:30
then lease those kitchens to restaurant
00:12:32
tours let's talk about the Playbook this
00:12:35
is something you worked on really hard
00:12:37
at Uber hiring Josh in New York will in
00:12:41
La we had a podcast and you were set on
00:12:44
that podcast years and years ago hey I'm
00:12:46
looking for some people to run some
00:12:47
cities to run Uber and you found this
00:12:49
eclectic group of Samurai and you let
00:12:54
them go um and man they cooked yeah talk
00:12:58
to me about that management principle
00:13:01
and your management principles hey be
00:13:03
pumped you know and and bringing that
00:13:05
enthusiasm that fire and letting those
00:13:08
cities cook because most people have
00:13:10
this top down they do things
00:13:12
sequentially you've really and and in
00:13:15
those early days got more and more
00:13:17
emboldened and excited about doing
00:13:19
things in parallel and letting people
00:13:21
make mistakes in those regions and
00:13:24
learning they could I remember Josh
00:13:26
started doing messenger delivery you let
00:13:28
other people deliver kittens for a day
00:13:30
to an office to that was a funny thing
00:13:32
yeah JD Vance that's when he uninstalled
00:13:34
Uber um no kittens um but cookies
00:13:38
whatever it was ice cream trucks yeah
00:13:41
talk about that model of letting you
00:13:43
know a th flowers bloom letting these
00:13:45
Samurai go crazy so look we had a a
00:13:50
cultural value at Uber called let
00:13:52
Builders build and I'm sure it was there
00:13:55
are other companies that I think may
00:13:56
have said that before us uh but we we
00:13:59
certainly took a hold of that and look
00:14:01
as it related to our GM model and and
00:14:04
how to empower GMS to do well it starts
00:14:06
with who is the person and we I always
00:14:10
felt that the the magic making happens
00:14:13
when you
00:14:14
cross uh sort
00:14:16
of uh creative instincts with
00:14:20
analytical capabilities or prowess
00:14:23
really so we would just design tests
00:14:27
that sort of simulated what it would be
00:14:28
like working together that tested their
00:14:33
creative stuff their secret their secret
00:14:36
sauce and creativity but would create
00:14:39
problems where it was crossed with the
00:14:41
necessity to analytically solve problems
00:14:45
got it and so you put those two things
00:14:48
together with a hungry person that maybe
00:14:50
just got out their MBA or let's say
00:14:53
equivalent and they're fired up and
00:14:55
ready to go and you Empower them and
00:14:57
then you put
00:15:00
very simple controls to make sure that
00:15:05
they're check that like like like
00:15:07
waypoints that in order to go further
00:15:09
they have to pass that test once they're
00:15:12
in the job and just simple things like
00:15:15
we would have a pricing call in the
00:15:17
early days of uber where you cannot put
00:15:20
it up in the app until you pass the
00:15:22
pricing call the first 30 cities I was
00:15:24
on that pricing call and the thing about
00:15:27
price when it comes to Transportation
00:15:28
it's a amalgamation of all strategy
00:15:31
across everything across what does your
00:15:34
cars look like what's the supply the
00:15:37
supply uh what does uh what does Metro
00:15:40
or public uh public transport look like
00:15:42
what is cost of Labor in that City uh
00:15:45
what are their General alternatives for
00:15:47
getting around what are regulations like
00:15:49
ultimately becomes a service with a
00:15:51
price you pass that and then you run you
00:15:55
get to run a
00:15:57
city but that means the previous 30 days
00:16:00
or 90 days when they're just doing lots
00:16:02
of stuff I don't have to worry and then
00:16:06
they get to that point they pass the
00:16:07
test they know what the criteria for
00:16:10
passing the test is so it forces them
00:16:13
into the right mode right let's talk
00:16:17
about strategy you know one of the great
00:16:19
privileges of of getting to be involved
00:16:21
you know in your journey for a little
00:16:23
bit was we would talk sometimes late at
00:16:26
night weekends uh when there were really
00:16:29
dicey strategy moments and I'd ask you
00:16:32
what you're thinking and we would just
00:16:34
jam out and a couple of those
00:16:37
conversations I remember calling you in
00:16:38
a panic after having taken a lift a ride
00:16:42
chair and we were only Uber black yeah
00:16:44
and I said trais I just got out of this
00:16:46
[ __ ] thing it's $16 it would have
00:16:48
been 60 I'm pricing sensitive but man
00:16:51
this is going to change everything and
00:16:52
you're like jakow and I said don't you
00:16:54
don't understand J no this is disrup and
00:16:57
you said we're launching it next week we
00:17:00
got it you know it is disruptive and you
00:17:02
saw you know the the Lincoln Town Cars
00:17:05
were so brilliant you know because there
00:17:07
were such high margins but you saw the
00:17:09
disruptiveness of of the rering thing
00:17:11
and then surge pricing we had a big
00:17:13
debate about tipping let's talk about
00:17:15
some of those seminal moments in product
00:17:18
design yeah and
00:17:20
competition because this was not
00:17:23
happening in a vacuum people forget
00:17:24
there was sidecar there was lift yeah
00:17:26
and then there were Regulators this was
00:17:29
a war yeah so I mean kind of a funny
00:17:32
story I'm not sure if I've ever told you
00:17:33
this you were you were only six weeks
00:17:36
behind Zuck right which is I first heard
00:17:39
about Lyft from Zuck H and he's
00:17:43
like yo
00:17:46
yo I think you have a situation on your
00:17:48
hands and like Su would sort of do that
00:17:50
like with like a little [ __ ] with you
00:17:52
kind of sit yeah kind of like that yeah
00:17:54
he's he's a puck
00:17:56
yeah and I'm like thank
00:18:00
you and um but the thing was was look it
00:18:04
was at the beginning that was like they
00:18:07
called their rides donation it was a
00:18:10
donation thing it was non-commercial
00:18:14
because there was no insurance there was
00:18:17
no regulation there was basically just
00:18:20
citizen giving another citizen a ride
00:18:21
across town and we didn't do anything
00:18:24
about it for 9 months because we were
00:18:27
already getting our asses hand handed to
00:18:29
us and we were doing the legal thing and
00:18:31
so I'm like dude like we're we got like
00:18:34
I got threatened by the city of San
00:18:35
Francisco and the state of California 3
00:18:37
months after we launched Uber with 90
00:18:39
days in jail for every ride that had
00:18:43
occurred yeah so then this thing is like
00:18:46
it's a donation I swear and by the way
00:18:48
if you don't give the donation they
00:18:49
suggest then you get kicked off the
00:18:51
system yeah right so we're like H we're
00:18:54
not going to do that and we saw Lyft
00:18:56
eating our market share up from the
00:18:59
bottom up because they didn't have
00:19:01
insurance or regulation or any of these
00:19:03
other things and then nine months into
00:19:07
it uh the city of San Francisco the
00:19:10
state of California because it's was a
00:19:11
California pu said ah you know it's
00:19:14
totally
00:19:15
fine and then we're like oh [ __ ] so then
00:19:18
we hustled got our thing going which is
00:19:22
called would at the time was called
00:19:23
peer-to-peer ride sharing right um and
00:19:26
then just got working and um um the way
00:19:29
we did it was like the reason we didn't
00:19:31
do it in the first place is because it
00:19:32
was clearly not like legit and but then
00:19:37
California said yes and so I made a PCT
00:19:40
with myself that was like I'm never
00:19:42
going to let this happen again and so
00:19:44
each and every city we went to we would
00:19:47
send we would wait for Lift to launch
00:19:51
and then we would basically say to the
00:19:52
city we'd send them a letter saying
00:19:54
there's this really cool thing called
00:19:55
ride sharing this company called lft is
00:19:57
doing it
00:19:59
um we think it's great but our read of
00:20:01
your regs is like it's probably not
00:20:05
allowed because you're thoughtful you
00:20:07
want to be thoughtful but if you don't
00:20:12
enforce in the next 30 days we're going
00:20:14
to participate as well great so almost
00:20:18
every city in the US other than two we
00:20:21
can talk about those two by the way but
00:20:23
in all every city in the US other than
00:20:24
two Portland
00:20:26
Vegas we were number two in R
00:20:30
sharing um be for this
00:20:33
reason um and we did this actually
00:20:35
internationally we did it across Europe
00:20:36
we did it everywhere there were other
00:20:38
folks that were out there and we would
00:20:40
talk to the regulatory guys say if
00:20:41
you're going to enforce do it but if
00:20:42
you're not we're going to participate
00:20:44
yeah and that work that's kind of how we
00:20:45
rolled and surch pricing was an
00:20:47
interesting one you know um the
00:20:51
Brilliance of the of the Uber
00:20:53
Marketplace was in many ways tackling
00:20:58
demand
00:20:59
and figuring out a way to get uh
00:21:03
drivers to come out on New Year's Eve
00:21:05
the worst night of their
00:21:07
lives to drive and you came up with a
00:21:10
pretty novel approach which is hey we'll
00:21:12
pay you double we'll pay you triple yeah
00:21:14
and if you don't want to participate in
00:21:16
that as a customer that's fine but we
00:21:18
think availability is more important uh
00:21:22
than necessarily having standardized
00:21:24
pricing and man the world got very very
00:21:27
upset at this
00:21:29
and you and I talked about when you
00:21:30
explained it to me I said that makes
00:21:31
logical sense and I said you know what
00:21:33
we should do we should write a blog post
00:21:35
and that blog post is still up I think
00:21:36
where you just explained it to people I
00:21:37
thought Uber took down all my blog posts
00:21:39
they probably yeah that might be a
00:21:40
little but this blog post where you just
00:21:42
said hey here's how to handle New Year's
00:21:44
Eve leave at this time go back at this
00:21:47
time but we need to get these people on
00:21:49
the road and they deserve to be
00:21:50
compensated so surge pricing there's
00:21:52
another way to say it
00:21:54
now I called it surge pricing on purpose
00:21:57
because I didn't want any body to think
00:21:59
we were trying to deceive them right so
00:22:03
we said surge pricing like it's clear
00:22:04
what's going on um but the other way to
00:22:07
say surge pricing is called the lowest
00:22:11
cost reliable
00:22:14
ride because if surge pricing goes up
00:22:17
too much then you have drivers that
00:22:19
aren't making any money um and by the
00:22:22
way they'll go to the
00:22:23
competition but if surge pricing is
00:22:25
exactly at and by the way if surge
00:22:27
pricing is not enough you're not not
00:22:28
going to be able to get a ride because
00:22:29
too many people are going to want it and
00:22:30
there won't be enough cars sech price in
00:22:33
the right spot it draws enough Supply
00:22:36
in and fends off enough customers and
00:22:40
the market clears so it's the lowest
00:22:43
cost reliable ride and that's why we
00:22:45
knew it was a winner even when all of
00:22:47
the competition and the world generally
00:22:50
was like hating on this idea
00:22:54
anytime we were doing surge pricing and
00:22:56
our competitor wasn't we knew we were
00:22:58
gaining market share because somebody
00:23:00
could just come to us and get a ride
00:23:01
when in the other system they couldn't
00:23:04
so you're proving reliability you're
00:23:06
proving it's the lowest cost reliable
00:23:08
ride that's it yeah um take me to you
00:23:14
know real quick led to a
00:23:18
massive super interesting Logistics
00:23:22
cross with economics problem where at
00:23:25
the peak I mean and I don't know what it
00:23:27
is at Uber today but it was like I don't
00:23:30
know like 150 phds working on this
00:23:34
problem that we just described huh
00:23:36
inside the company yeah which is like
00:23:39
how do you find that lowest cost
00:23:41
reliable ride is a very very difficult
00:23:44
problem in a live Logistics system like
00:23:47
this let's talk about Regulators in
00:23:49
relation to people being independent
00:23:51
contractors this is when I realized the
00:23:54
Press was acting
00:23:56
without good faith data or logic and as
00:24:00
a former journalist you know it was kind
00:24:02
of eye openening to me to be on the
00:24:04
other side of the table and watching
00:24:06
this happened because we knew full well
00:24:09
based on driver data that they loved
00:24:11
their jobs at Uber because they had Free
00:24:14
Will and they could go and do any other
00:24:16
job they wanted and let's be clear the
00:24:18
average Uber driver during my you know
00:24:21
let's say at the end of my tenure was
00:24:23
eight hours a week so they clearly like
00:24:26
it clearly a side gig yeah side hustle
00:24:29
and they wanted the
00:24:32
flexibility over everything else work
00:24:35
when I want don't work when I want and
00:24:38
then these
00:24:40
Union politicians and everything said no
00:24:43
and the people who own the medallions
00:24:45
and this is a cobal of really bad actors
00:24:48
who were saying no they have to work a
00:24:51
shift and they have to go work for
00:24:53
somebody who owns a medallion who gets
00:24:55
50 60 70% of the economics and they
00:24:59
portrayed us or you as the bad guy in
00:25:01
all this and this was the exact opposite
00:25:05
of the
00:25:06
truth so um yeah I mean it was a union
00:25:10
problem which is it's very difficult to
00:25:13
organize people who in this classic area
00:25:18
which is very Union organized called
00:25:21
drivers it's very difficult to organize
00:25:24
them when they choose when they want to
00:25:26
work their office is their own it's
00:25:29
their own like nobody controls it like
00:25:32
there there's just no control and so
00:25:35
other than the control given to the
00:25:36
individual and so it was very
00:25:39
disruptive to the union and their own
00:25:42
business model and so they had to cut it
00:25:46
off at the knees and so that became a
00:25:50
mix of a sort of political discourse and
00:25:54
like a media push crossed with sort of
00:25:58
of
00:25:59
regulatory uh lobbying and like like
00:26:03
trying to make political apparatuses do
00:26:05
what's necessary to constrain it and you
00:26:10
took the approach we will fight there
00:26:12
are wartime CEOs there are peacetime
00:26:15
CEOs I put you in the category with Elon
00:26:17
of wartime CEOs who it does not matter
00:26:21
how many battles you must battle
00:26:24
concurrently we're going to fight
00:26:26
because it's we're on the right side
00:26:29
yeah of History yeah uh but this became
00:26:32
acute the number of battles yeah that
00:26:36
you had to fight the number of fronts
00:26:37
increase take us to the
00:26:39
darkest peak of it because every time I
00:26:42
talked to you I felt fine about it but
00:26:44
other investors other people felt like
00:26:46
hey this is too many battles to wage at
00:26:49
once talk to me about you personally
00:26:52
fighting all those battles I my
00:26:54
perception of you was the more battles
00:26:57
emerged Yeah the more you realized you
00:27:00
were doing the right thing it filled
00:27:02
your bucket it powered you it gave
00:27:04
energy to you to know we were on the
00:27:07
right
00:27:08
side so yeah I you know sort of in
00:27:11
justest I would I would say to folks I'd
00:27:13
be like
00:27:15
so you know I'm not sure how it became
00:27:18
so
00:27:19
controversial that one citizen giving
00:27:21
another citizen aide across town became
00:27:25
such a thing I I'm not sure how that
00:27:27
happened but it did
00:27:28
uh the darkest moment I me the thing is
00:27:30
is like you'd
00:27:32
keep it was almost like we were always
00:27:35
pushing into that
00:27:38
area so like if something became easy
00:27:40
then we'd push elsewhere until that
00:27:43
became hard so it was constant is like I
00:27:46
make the analogy to like
00:27:49
a to teams that we have in different
00:27:52
places then and now like a a world class
00:27:55
marathoner I've never seen a worldclass
00:27:56
marathoner a mile 19
00:27:59
look like he's just honky Dory yeah
00:28:02
right and if he was he's about to
00:28:04
lose so you push right to that edge of
00:28:09
what's possible and if that starts to
00:28:11
get easy you push further now it doesn't
00:28:13
necessar mean you push in exactly that
00:28:16
along that axis it could be in a totally
00:28:18
different area but um as long as the
00:28:23
problems you're
00:28:25
solving are greater than the problems
00:28:28
you're
00:28:29
creating then you're fine when the
00:28:32
problems you're creating are starts
00:28:36
to when the derivative of problems
00:28:38
you're creating is greater than the
00:28:41
derivative of the problems you're
00:28:42
solving then you have a real problem
00:28:44
right and that's when you have to start
00:28:46
pulling back get back to above water and
00:28:50
then go back into it but when I talk
00:28:52
about creating problems I think of it
00:28:54
like think of it as like a math
00:28:56
professor a math profess professor
00:28:58
without a really cool interesting
00:29:00
problem to solve is a sad math
00:29:02
professor and that's how we would think
00:29:04
about it right these we always pushing
00:29:06
to the point where we're sweating yeah
00:29:08
and it's
00:29:10
like not sure and there could be late
00:29:13
nights there could be all nighters it
00:29:14
could be that thing but because we were
00:29:17
doing the right thing because we had
00:29:20
great people in the field who believed
00:29:23
then we could push all the way to that
00:29:25
edge uh only they could be world class
00:29:28
marathoners too only two entrepreneurs I
00:29:31
know have had the audacity to not build
00:29:36
their products in China everybody does
00:29:38
that that's pretty easy but to actually
00:29:40
operate a business in China yeah you and
00:29:43
Elon uh decided we're going to try to
00:29:46
compete him with selling cars inside of
00:29:49
China pretty crazy uh and even crazier
00:29:52
self- driving cars in China wow yeah
00:29:55
okay let's go let's go byd like you're
00:29:57
up against some serious competition and
00:29:59
it's not
00:30:00
exactly um a fair game maybe or there
00:30:03
might be complications to that game um
00:30:06
we had a long conversation about China
00:30:08
and I said to you wow we're burning a
00:30:11
lot of money there what do you what's
00:30:13
the strategy here let me just hear it
00:30:14
from you and uh you said we're we're
00:30:16
going for gold yeah but I mean there's a
00:30:19
lot of fun there I mean look the thing
00:30:21
about doing business in China is it
00:30:24
forces you to rethink everything
00:30:28
everything like if you go into China
00:30:30
thinking you got it you're going to get
00:30:33
your ass handed to you you have to start
00:30:36
first principles Bottoms Up um let's see
00:30:40
where could I go with this um look we
00:30:43
tell me tell everybody the strategy hey
00:30:44
we're going for gold but they're silver
00:30:46
and and you how you looked at the world
00:30:49
in that regard yeah yeah so I'll get
00:30:51
there is that we so a lot of times when
00:30:54
you go in ENT China they're basically
00:30:55
somebody's going you got to have a
00:30:57
partner if you just go and you do your
00:31:00
first exploration trip they' be like you
00:31:01
got to get a partner they're like 50/50
00:31:04
blah blah blah and I'm like why nobody
00:31:06
could tell me why so then we just went
00:31:08
on our own and started building
00:31:10
something and we never saw on the ground
00:31:14
we never saw bias we were treated fairly
00:31:18
on the
00:31:20
ground um
00:31:23
but at some point what I'd say is the
00:31:26
China war went Global and what what I
00:31:28
mean by that is the Chinese government I
00:31:32
think it
00:31:33
was safe there was a there's some
00:31:36
there's some I think it were called safe
00:31:38
like a it was like The Sovereign wealth
00:31:40
of China cic there's like a few things
00:31:42
like that they started investing
00:31:44
hundreds of millions and billions of
00:31:45
dollars in all of our competitors
00:31:48
globally to drain us of money so that it
00:31:52
was harder to compete in
00:31:53
China
00:31:55
they made apple and I'd love to have a
00:32:00
discussion with Tim at some point we had
00:32:02
some interesting words for each other at
00:32:03
this point but they made
00:32:06
Apple uh invest a billion dollars in Dee
00:32:09
and apple doesn't invest anything in
00:32:11
anybody no that's not their like what
00:32:13
was he protecting there there's
00:32:14
something going on
00:32:16
so whole really amazing story there holy
00:32:19
cow anyways uh the Chinese War went
00:32:22
Global and so that's when we had to go
00:32:25
from going for the goal
00:32:28
to making sure we got the silver and
00:32:32
that's when we started negotiating with
00:32:33
de to basically say we had
00:32:36
20% of the of the overall entity of the
00:32:40
merged entity uh but in order to do that
00:32:42
in China that's when we actually had to
00:32:44
push our spend super hard because they
00:32:47
had to be
00:32:48
scared so I think at the
00:32:51
peak uh right be right as we were
00:32:54
negotiating the term sheet we pushed we
00:32:57
were burning
00:32:58
I think it
00:32:59
was $75 million a
00:33:04
week it's a big number yeah that was
00:33:07
that yeah
00:33:09
and but it but we knew we had the deal
00:33:12
but we only have the deal if they're
00:33:14
scared right this is a poker so our
00:33:17
market share was skyrocketing as we did
00:33:20
this
00:33:22
they're pissed and tripping and then ail
00:33:26
who's negot the deal is like just chain
00:33:30
smoking
00:33:33
yeah but that's how you get a deal done
00:33:35
in China right uh and that turned out to
00:33:38
be there it is um that's that's your
00:33:43
wartime CEO right there um that deal we
00:33:47
had invested millions in ch billions in
00:33:49
China at that point and I think we I
00:33:51
think we invested yeah we probably were
00:33:53
around a billion billion and a half and
00:33:55
the DD St at the time when deal got done
00:33:58
was we at 891 yeah something like that
00:34:00
so we turned a bill and a half into
00:34:01
eight or nine I can't remember the exact
00:34:03
math but it's something like that uh
00:34:05
let's talk about in like two years yeah
00:34:09
let's talk about when you got atin U
00:34:12
this was heartbreaking
00:34:14
crushing brutal um you fought hard to
00:34:19
remain in the seat I got out there and
00:34:22
did what I could on the Press front to
00:34:24
try to defend you and and try to keep
00:34:27
you in the seat but we failed yeah uh
00:34:30
and it was brutal and it was
00:34:32
particularly hard on you because you put
00:34:33
your soul into this
00:34:35
company yeah well look I think there's a
00:34:37
little bit more I mean uh you know like
00:34:40
if an
00:34:41
investor is
00:34:43
running a political Oppo campaign
00:34:46
against you for six months sort of
00:34:49
generating a crisis every week for six
00:34:51
months straight it's going to wear you
00:34:54
down and then you know my
00:34:58
this one's hard your mom
00:35:03
passed I
00:35:05
know I was there with you no no it's all
00:35:08
good with you but that's that's when
00:35:11
they went in for the kill uh that I just
00:35:14
couldn't hang yeah bottom line I just
00:35:16
couldn't hang
00:35:19
[Applause]
00:35:24
yeah
00:35:26
and yeah
00:35:28
it was um it was dark it was dark yeah
00:35:32
so but look I a lot of people go hey are
00:35:35
you pissed off or this thing and I
00:35:37
say um
00:35:40
first I loved it every
00:35:43
minute I loved every minute but when you
00:35:47
fall in love again you don't think about
00:35:50
the ex very much right Cloud kitchen the
00:35:53
X you moved on
00:35:58
and you put all that in there in
00:36:02
in the I I just want to say
00:36:05
like I am proud of everything you did
00:36:09
and and watching you do it and getting
00:36:10
to be there and witness it I learned so
00:36:13
much from you the community learned so
00:36:15
much from you and I think we all owe
00:36:18
like the Playbook I I can tell you the
00:36:21
impact you had on the Next Generation
00:36:24
because you know I never talk about Uber
00:36:28
I brought it up once or twice never talk
00:36:30
I never talk about it I try to keep it
00:36:32
lowkey but I brought it up once or twice
00:36:33
and it was good for my deal flow and I
00:36:35
got to
00:36:37
see I got to see I got I'm so honored to
00:36:41
be here I'm so honored to be here too uh
00:36:44
but I got to see that famous Uber
00:36:47
investor and I mean this sincerely the
00:36:51
number of entrepreneurs who came to me
00:36:53
who said I started this company because
00:36:57
I watch Travis I watched what he did I
00:37:00
want to be Travis you inspired that
00:37:03
generation along with Elon to say I want
00:37:06
to operate in the real world I want to
00:37:09
build something that has an impact and I
00:37:11
am willing to fight and have that
00:37:15
entrepreneurial Spirit which I'm going
00:37:16
to be honest there's a large amount of
00:37:19
entrepreneurs who don't have the fight
00:37:22
in they don't have the dog in them you
00:37:24
got the dog in you you got the fight in
00:37:26
you you know and and that's so rare and
00:37:29
that's why you're so successful it's
00:37:30
because you're willing to fight the
00:37:32
fight
00:37:35
yeah
00:37:40
um you know look we just saw the
00:37:42
Olympics and I know I made that
00:37:44
marathoner analogy before but like every
00:37:46
one of those gold medalists they got the
00:37:49
dog in them there's no way no other way
00:37:53
um we're just playing a different sport
00:37:55
and I think the you know some of the
00:37:56
interesting parts about this sport is
00:37:59
that it's it's not just an individual
00:38:01
thing it's a it's a massive team and
00:38:05
there's stakeholders in cities and
00:38:07
citizens and and all that um it's just
00:38:11
fun you know like a lot of folks go look
00:38:14
you did the Uber thing why are you doing
00:38:16
it again I mean you catched in a lot of
00:38:18
chips you could be just chilling I'm
00:38:20
like look Serena keeps getting on the
00:38:22
court she's totally badass why is she
00:38:24
doing it right you know or take your
00:38:27
favorite
00:38:28
star of anything yeah LeBron's in his 40
00:38:31
what he's 40 now and he he's looks great
00:38:33
out there so it's because they have a
00:38:35
love of the game and it's not just
00:38:37
Showtime that day yeah it's everything
00:38:40
behind the scenes it's working with
00:38:42
people especially in this sport like
00:38:43
again individual stuff is a little
00:38:45
different like you got to I like the
00:38:47
magic of working with magical people
00:38:52
doing it as a crew is where all the good
00:38:54
stuff happens and they and you know they
00:38:56
all keep coming back you know I've seen
00:38:58
a lot of the the the folks who who came
00:39:01
for a second Tour of Duty with you that
00:39:02
speaks volumes as we end here um Dar has
00:39:06
done I got to know him yeah um try to
00:39:08
support the team over there for the
00:39:09
Legacy um and he's he's he's done a
00:39:12
decent job solid job profitable what's
00:39:15
that let's go they went from my 75
00:39:17
million a week to profitable I like it
00:39:20
well I mean it is great the Legacy we
00:39:22
always knew it was easily to make it
00:39:23
profitable people were saying oh it
00:39:25
could never be profitable and you and I
00:39:26
would talk and be like we were raise the
00:39:28
price of dollar profitable like it's not
00:39:30
difficult just do you know look there's
00:39:33
there's an art to that too it's all good
00:39:35
yeah um but yeah like like I
00:39:39
think Uber's gotten to a great place the
00:39:41
profitability is there that's means it's
00:39:43
going to be around now we they've got to
00:39:46
figure out the autonomous thing that's I
00:39:48
think that's the next big challenge to
00:39:50
uh to go after well let me just put it
00:39:52
out
00:39:53
there he's he's going to do his tour
00:39:57
and uh his stour is going to end would
00:40:00
you consider doing what Steve Job did
00:40:03
and coming back and merging Cloud
00:40:05
kitchens with
00:40:06
Uber would you consider it if if if the
00:40:10
opportunity was there or can can you not
00:40:13
go you're saying there's a
00:40:15
chance can you go home I mean if he this
00:40:18
would be the Return of the King this
00:40:20
would be my dream if you came back I
00:40:23
know it's not your dream but it's
00:40:25
mine could you if Cloud kitchens became
00:40:28
part of uber it would be it would be a
00:40:31
trillion dollar company with you back in
00:40:33
that seat would you take the seat again
00:40:34
if if it was
00:40:36
offered would you consider
00:40:41
it well I definitely know who my head of
00:40:43
comms would
00:40:44
be on that note Travis
00:40:48
Kalen my man I love you great job