Travis Kalanick is back in Silicon Valley with a multibillion-dollar robotics and AI venture, and some of the same industry leaders who once viewed him as a cautionary tale are now welcoming him back.
Kalanick was forced out of Uber by investors in 2017 after a spate of scandals and allegations ranging from sexism to corporate espionage. Since then, he has spent nearly a decade in what the story describes as self-imposed exile. Now, he has a new company, Atoms, the backing of Andreessen Horowitz, and a fresh audience of young founders who see his downfall differently.
Those supporters include Kush Bavaria, who has raised $33 million for his AI data startup Ornn. Bavaria called Kalanick ‘the Steve Jobs for founders of my generation,’ saying young entrepreneurs admire him for building a company like Google or Airbnb whose name became a verb. Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz also wrote that ‘Travis is that guy’ when it comes to changing ‘old-school, heavy parts of our economy.’
Kalanick has not offered signs of remorse. In a video released by a16z, he said, ‘I continue to stand by every decision I made at Uber,’ and blamed his removal on ‘extreme wokeness.’ Bradley Tusk, an early investor in Uber, echoed that defense and asked, ‘What is it he should apologize for? Why does he need to turn over a new leaf?’
The earlier Uber story is still central to the way Kalanick is being judged. Uber launched in 2009 and quickly became the world’s leading ride-sharing platform through aggressive marketing and a win-at-all-costs growth strategy. But the company also drew scrutiny over allegations of a misogynistic, boozy corporate culture, covert programs called ‘Greyball’ and ‘Hell’ that used underhanded methods to sabotage regulators and competition, and concerns over passenger safety and driver vetting.
The numbers come first: what is changing now is not the facts of Kalanick’s past, but the market’s tolerance for the kind of founder who builds fast, breaks norms, and keeps pushing. Silicon Valley is again rewarding forceful execution, and the capital is following the same pattern. For investors and builders who prize free enterprise, that is the real signal.
Power leaves a paper trail. Kalanick’s return shows how quickly the Valley’s moral fashion can swing when a founder is linked to a multibillion-dollar opportunity. The lesson is not that standards no longer matter; it is that the market still responds to results, and the people who can move old, heavy industries still attract money when the upside is large enough.
