Building a Company in Stealth | Travis Kalanick with a16z

以下是这段内容的中文翻译： 优步（Uber）前首席执行官特拉维斯·卡兰尼克（Travis Kalanick）做客本·霍洛维茨（Ben Horowitz）的播客节目“我回来了”，讨论了他的创业历程、安德森·霍洛维茨（Andreessen Horowitz，简称A16Z）错失早期投资优步的机会，以及他从CloudKitchens发展而来的新公司Atoms。 霍洛维茨强调了A16Z在2011年错失对优步B轮融资的投资，并断言如果A16Z（特别是马克·安德森）当时是优步董事会成员，公司在2017年的动荡就不会发生。卡兰尼克回顾了融资过程，称他为领投方举办了一场“赢家通吃”的拍卖。A16Z最初同意以3.75亿美元的投前估值投资，但在一次内部合伙人会议后，又撤回报价，只愿出2.1亿美元。这让卡兰尼克感到被背叛，被迫重新启动拍卖，最终由门罗公园（Menlo Park）的肖恩（Shawn）进行了投资。霍洛维茨承认他很后悔，称他当时因自己董事会事务繁重，将这笔交易交给了马克和约翰·奥费雷尔（John O'Ferrell）处理，而这次交易的错失让他“备受煎熬”。两人都认为，如果A16Z参与其中，优步会成为一家“规模更大、更重要”的公司，将主导食品配送并成为自动驾驶领域的领导者。 2017年卡兰尼克离开优步后，随之而来的是密集的诉讼和调查。他承认自己“行事过于激进”，未能将优步的“海盗”心态适当地转变为其“海军”地位。他举例说明了内部项目名称“偷窃”（旨在招募Lyft司机），在董事会干预后，最终改为更具企业色彩的“北美冠军系列赛”（NACS）。 走出这段“炼狱”后，卡兰尼克于2018年创立了CloudKitchens（现名为Atoms）。离开优步仅三个月，他便加入了一个朋友初创的房地产公司，并在该公司只有六名员工时将其收购。对卡兰尼克来说，这是一个“灵魂伴侣般的想法”——他对复杂性有着深刻的吸引力，并从中看到了创造的机会。CloudKitchens的愿景是“让高品质餐食的准备和配送变得如此高效，以至于其成本接近去杂货店购物的成本”，从而有效地“对厨房进行优步对汽车所做的一切”。这涉及建立一个“互联网美食广场”，配备生产（自动化生产/机器人）和物流（机器人快递员）基础设施。 卡兰尼克让CloudKitchens多年来处于“隐身模式”运营，以保护他的团队免受优步后他所面临的负面媒体审视。他解释说，这种“硬核模式”培养了一种“内部正确性而非外部认可”的文化，员工在工作中而非公共认可中找到满足感。公司以各种名称在30个国家扩展了数百个设施，使得媒体难以追踪。 卡兰尼克称之为“工业AI”的总体愿景，是通过“基于原子的计算机”来“数字化物理世界”。他将制造业比作CPU，房地产比作存储，运输/物流比作网络。这个在优步时期就开始形成的框架，将计算机科学原理应用于物理世界。Atoms的融资正式确立了这一愿景，它将CloudKitchens（餐饮/房地产）与一个自动运输部门相结合，并收购了由优步前自动驾驶负责人安东尼·莱万多夫斯基（Anthony Levandowski）创立的自动驾驶矿业公司Pronto。采矿业通过自动化带来了显著的安全和生产力提升，成为这种“通过物理自动化改造行业”愿景的关键组成部分。 霍洛维茨强调，成功往往取决于“伟大的企业家”，而不仅仅是想法本身，他将卡兰尼克与埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）和杰夫·贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）相提并论。卡兰尼克是少数几个仍然想“继续玩下去”的富人之一，他强调自己的动力“不在于从哪里开始，而在于为什么开始”，以及对创造的热情。他现在正专注于扩大Atoms及其三大核心产业——餐饮、采矿和运输——并积极招募“卓越的领导者”，以迎接下一阶段的增长，他已经从隐身模式中走出，公开分享他的宏伟愿景。

Travis Kalanick, former CEO of Uber, appeared on the "I'm Back" podcast with Ben Horowitz, discussing his entrepreneurial journey, the missed opportunity for Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) to invest in early Uber, and his new venture, Atoms, which evolved from CloudKitchens. Horowitz highlighted the missed A16Z investment in Uber's Series B in 2011, asserting that if A16Z (specifically Mark Andreessen) had been on Uber's board, the company's tumultuous 2017 wouldn't have happened. Kalanick recounted the fundraising process, where he ran a "winner takes all auction" for the lead investment. A16Z initially agreed to a $375 million pre-money valuation, but then pulled back, offering only $210 million after an internal partnership meeting. This left Kalanick feeling betrayed and forced him to restart the auction, eventually leading to Shawn at Menlo Park investing. Horowitz conceded his regret, noting he had passed the deal to Mark and John O'Ferrell due to his own heavy board commitments, and the subsequent loss of the deal was a source of "torture." Both agreed that A16Z's involvement would have made Uber a "considerably larger and more important" company, having dominated food delivery and becoming a leader in autonomous driving. Kalanick's departure from Uber in 2017 was followed by an intense period of lawsuits and investigations. He admitted he'd gotten "way too close to the line," failing to adapt Uber's "pirate" mentality to its "navy" status. He illustrated this with the internal project name "shoplifting" (to recruit Lyft drivers), which was eventually changed to the more corporate "North American Championship Series" (NACS) after board intervention. Emerging from this "hell," Kalanick started CloudKitchens (now Atoms) in 2018. He joined a buddy's nascent real estate venture just three months after leaving Uber, acquiring it when it had only six employees. For Kalanick, it was a "soulmate idea" – a deep attraction to complexity and an opportunity to build. The vision for CloudKitchens was to make "the preparation and delivery of a quality meal so efficient that it approaches the cost of going to the grocery store," effectively doing "to the kitchen what Uber did to the car." This involved creating an "Internet food court" with manufacturing (automated production/robotics) and logistics (robotic couriers) infrastructure. Kalanick operated CloudKitchens in "stealth mode" for years to shield his team from the negative media scrutiny he faced post-Uber. This "hard mode" approach, he explained, fostered a culture of "internal correctness versus external validation," where employees found fulfillment in their work, not in public recognition. The company expanded to hundreds of facilities in 30 countries under various names, making it difficult for the media to track. The overarching vision, which Kalanick calls "Industrial AI," is about "digitizing the physical world" through an "atoms-based computer." He likens manufacturing to a CPU, real estate to storage, and transport/logistics to a network. This framework, which began forming at Uber, applies computer science principles to the physical world. The fundraise for Atoms formalized this by combining CloudKitchens (food/real estate) with an autonomous transport arm and the acquisition of Pronto, an autonomous mining company founded by former Uber autonomy lead Anthony Levandowski. Mining, with its significant safety and productivity gains through automation, became a critical part of this "physical automation to transform industries." Horowitz underscored that success often comes down to the "great entrepreneur," not just the idea, drawing parallels to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Kalanick, one of the rare wealthy individuals who wanted to "keep playing," emphasized that his motivation was "not as much about where you start, it's about why you start" and the passion to build. He is now focused on scaling Atoms and its three core industries – food, mining, and transport – and is actively recruiting "epic leaders" for the next phase of growth, having emerged from stealth to publicly share his ambitious vision.