Like going back is like, is it just when you're doing Uber, is it just you raised money from the wrong people? What did you, how do you look at it now? And how could you, what would you tell like a young founder now that has to raise a ton of money?

I always I got to do that.

I got to first shoot the arrow, which is you definitely shouldn't raise from benchmark capital.

Got to get that out there.

And OK, let's get into the real stuff.

Look, I think it's really interesting to start with what where where did it get weird? I mean, basically at.

The peak, so 2017 was my problem year, right? I mean, it was always hard, but this is when it got dialed up.

AI and robotics

Can you explain the environment in which you started Uber?

Let's start with what is a taxi? [chuckles] Okay, what is a taxi? Um, we'll do New York 'cause it's the best, it's the best way to tell it.

In the early nineteen hundreds, there were people that were picking up other citizens, uh, that needed a ride across town and charging them for it.

And, um, eventually, the city decided, "Hey, look, we wanna have this to be licensed and controlled in some way," or, like, certainly rules of the road, just rules of the road.

So you'd get a license, but anybody could get a license.

You'd get that license for free, and they would make sure, like, you weren't, like, a felon and, like, different things like this, which you'd go, "That sounds great.

Good idea." But anybody could get a license and get it for free, a taxi license in New York.

Do you still put an emphasis, I've heard you speak about this in the past, an emphasis of hiring and empowering young people? Is this business different than like when you were launching new cities in Uber, for example, where you gave a lot of responsibility to, you know, aggressive young people?

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.

[laughs] I, I mean, I got-- my company barely got acquired.

I did the fours-- 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 you're on welfare, and you've gotta 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.

W-w-what, what would've, what surprised you or what's, what's most notable about where we are as an industry?

Mm-hmm.

"So how much of the money I'm putting in is going to go to that?" There, there has to be a theory of the case of how you put it together, how you allocate capital across, and honestly, once you're starting to get to profitability on one or more, then that conversation starts to get easier.

And I think that's, that could be why...

I, I, I can't, I can't speculate on, on, on sort of Elon's world, but certainly I'm super excited to have those pieces put together into a single, into a si- single puzzle.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's, it's, it's weird because what will happen is, uh, executives talk a fucking awesome game, and there's two things you want an executive to do.

You want them to be able to organize at scale, organize and manage at scale, lead at scale.

the firm, we were the upstart.

upstart.And I, I talk just fucking crazy shit about the other VCs and this and that and, you know, c- c- call them bitches.

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

Yeah.

And I remembered what happened to him, and I was like...

And we, we, we actually had a whole thing- Yeah ... like we're not the pirates anymore.

[laughs] Don't say that type of stuff.

I already thought about this as digitized manufacturing and real estate.

Mm-hmm.

"So how much of the money I'm putting in is going to go to that?" There, there has to be a theory of the case of how you put it together, how you allocate capital across, and honestly, once you're starting to get to profitability on one or more, then that conversation starts to get easier.

And I think that's, that could be why...

I, I, I can't, I can't speculate on, on, on sort of Elon's world, but certainly I'm super excited to have those pieces put together into a single, into a si- single puzzle.

Yeah.

Mm

... they're either humanoids, which we're not.

I'm not anti-humanoid, I'm just non-humanoid.

Early March.

So four months.

So four months.

So- So yeah, so- What happened with the business to unlock the next round? Uh, I mean, we continue to go up and to the right- Yeah ...

but, like, the announcement of Adams was we are, we are gonna do physical automation, physical AI- Mm-hmm ... what we are calling industrial AI- Yeah ... to transform these industries one at a time.

Yeah.

We were...

Mm-hmm.

What's your take on what's happening in these pockets? Because it's not national yet, but it's definitely notable.

All right, I've got sort of two aphorisms for us, okay? First is truth and justice is the immune system for society.

When the immune system is suppressed, all the social ills flare up, okay? So if you're seeing us losing truth, like social media, mainstream media, whatever you call it, like that's an early indicator for bad things happening in society.

And it's not just like social media, mainstream media, it's just everything around us.

And the same on the justice side too.

If people commit crimes and there's no consequences, it's a nice early indicator.

So you can kind of watch, you can watch these things and say, is truth winning today or is it losing? Is justice winning today or is it losing? And what is the trajectory will tell you, are we going to get worse? Are we going to get better?

Social media ban is now starting at 16, and Canada has

Yeah

... there's a lot packed into that, but you can unpack it.

If we had a lot of time, we could unpack it, but those become the sort of atomic things that you look at.

And then the other thing I'd say, and, and some people get a little surprised when I say this, which is communism is in, is in all of us.

Communism is in, is in our blood as humans.

And people go, "What the hell are you talking about? You're crazy.

What do you mean?" Well, I'm like, "Well, have you, have you ever in your life been lazy?" And everybody's like, "Yes, I've been lazy in my life before." I said, "Have you ever in your life wanted something for nothing?" Yeah.

Go ahead, Travis.

Unpack it for us, Travis.

Yeah, so while I was beating you back, Ammon, I sort of had a, you know, there's like the, because J. Cal asked me, and the inside is, is like, and I think this maybe is just the more simple view of things, which is Trump's weather vane is the stock market.

Like, we see vol is up, we see the VIX is really high, but you know what? The S&P is trading in this band that's actually fairly tight given the crazy shit that's going down.

And everybody's nervous, but actually, he moves in the policy space.

He does not let the S&P go down too low.

People also get the sort of the panicking thing now, which is like he gets people nervous.

He makes moves.

Final word from Travis,

Oof

...

I sort of had a, a, you know, there's like the in- 'cause J. Cal asked me.

W- and the insight is, is like... and I, I think this maybe is just the more simple view of things, which is Trump's weather vane is the stock market.

Like, we see vol is up.

We see the VIX is really high, but you know what? The S&P is trading in this band that's actually fairly tight given the crazy shit that's going down, and everybody's nervous, but actually he ch- he moves in the policy space.

He's m- he, he does not let the S&P go down too low.

Crats

You're not just renting kitchen space.

Those who, I mean, know how I thought about things in the Uber day, a lot of this stuff's not surprising.

I, I would often talk about digitizing the physical world.

I think I even did it at All-In Summit.

The quick version of this, I'll try to do it quickly, but it's like, uh, we know the bits world, the computer world, the one that Michael Dell essentially invented for us.

CPU, storage, network.

These are the three core computing resources when you go to computer science class your first day.

[laughs]

Are there other categories that are interesting or are you happy to be kind of the transport rails?

Look, I think once you are in physical AI, you should basically understand that manufacturing is part of your tech stack.

Like, it just is.

And by the way, energy is part of your tech stack.

Land development, real estate is part of your tech stack.

That's just what it's gonna be.

People don't think about it like that, but it's true.

[laughs]

Are there other categories that are interesting, or are you happy to be kind of the transport rails?

Look, I think once you are in physical AI, you should basically understand that manufacturing is part of your tech stack.

Like, it just is.

And by the way, energy is part of your tech stack.

Land development, real estate is part of your tech stack.

That's just what it's gonna be.

People don't think about it like that, but it's true.

[laughs]

Well, the deal was basically that you would partner with Uber, license in the Pony technology and essentially start a competitor, I guess, to Waymo and Tesla?

Let me work on this one.

Okay.

So, so in the US we have Waymo.

We see the Waymos in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, coming soon to Miami, coming soon to Atlanta, coming soon to DC.

They're even talking about New York.

Tesla's sort of like the, you know, they're doing it the hard way, you know? Classic Elon style.

(laughs)

look, well, the deal was basically that you partner with Uber license in the pony technology and essentially start a competitor, I guess, to Waymo and Tesla.

Let me work on this one.

Okay.

So in the U.S., we have Waymo.

We see the Waymos in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, coming soon to Miami, coming soon to Atlanta, coming soon to D.C. They're even talking about New York.

Tesla is sort of like, you know, they're doing it the hard way, you know, classic Elon style, like let's...

Let's do this sort of in a fundamental, holy shit, let's go all the way kind of approach.

So what does it mean for everybody that's not grok when they wake up today and they have to decide, how do I change my strategy or double down?

Yeah.

We're not working with these brands specifically, but I'll, I'll just sort of...

I- it's a good analogy.

Like think of Chipotle, or Cava, or Sweetgreen, or you get the idea.

We created test brands that were like those things and built the machine at the same time as we were building an actual restaurant, and we built that restaurant to prove that the machine works.

Then we have our customers now touring, checking it out.

We're rolling out with five customers in April that are using the machine, and the way it will, the way it's gonna go down is they will come into...

... like a commissary concept in DTLA?

geopolitically? How's China going to operate differently than the US, Travis, from your experience, your point of view? Tell us a little bit about the culture and business ethics in China, particularly as it relates to AI development.

Okay.

So look, I had this thing.

I'm going back almost 10 years here.

Uber day, we're running Uber China.

And I mean, I cannot, there's no way I could express the frenetic intensity of copying that they would do on everything that we would roll out in China.

And it was so epically intense that I basically had a massive, amount of respect for their ability to copy what we did.

What do you think about it? And do you think that's the future of transportation? And how does Uber play into the self-driving car business now?