Travis Cordell Kalanick, an American computer programmer and businessman, is the co-founder of the peer-to-peer file sharing company Red Swoosh and the transportation network company Uber.
Kalanick has come under major fire over the last couple of years, so much so that he has stepped down from his position of CEO of Uber.
However, even if Kalanick were to never work for Uber for another day in his life, he’d still be just fine, given the truly insane amount of money he amassed from starting the company.
But how much is Travis Kalanick worth, exactly? We take a look at Kalanick’s history, investments, and businesses to determine his current net worth.
Travis Kalanick Net Worth as of 2017: How Much Is Uber CEO Worth Right Now?
Travis Kalanick’s estimated net worth is at about $6.3 billion.
via Forbes:
While other startups compares themselves to Uber, Travis Kalanick is thinking about what’s next: from people to freight, if something is in motion, he wants to be at the center of it. Kalanick has already driven his taxi-killing startup from nothing to a valuation of $68 billion in just seven years. In June 2016 the company raised a massive $5.5 billion financing round that included a large investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. But despite investing those billions around the world, Uber can’t win everywhere. In July 2016, it admitted defeat in China, striking a deal that gives it 20% of rival Didi Chuxing in exchange for leaving the country. Kalanick started his first business, an online file-exchange service called Scour, with some UCLA classmates. He dropped out of UCLA in 1998 to work at the startup full time. It was later sued by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America before filing for bankruptcy in 2000. His second company, another file-sharing company called RedSwoosh, was sold to Akamai in an all-stock deal valued at $18.7 million in 2007.
1998-2000
In 1998, Travis Kalanick, along with Michael Todd and Vince Busam, dropped out of UCLA to help Dan Rodrigues found Scour Inc., a multimedia search engine, and Scour Exchange, a peer-to-peer file sharing service.
In the year 2000, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the National Music Publishers Association brought a $250 billion lawsuit against Scour, alleging copyright infringement. In September 2000, Scour filed for bankruptcy to protect itself from the pending lawsuit.
2001-2007
In 2001, Kalanick started a new company called Red Swoosh, another peer-to-peer file-sharing company with Michael Todd. Red Swoosh software took advantage of increased bandwidth efficiency on the Internet to allow users to transfer and trade large media files, including music files and videos.
In 2007, Akamai Technologies acquired the company for $19 million.
2008-2016
In 2009, Kalanick joined Garrett Camp, who Kalanick gives “full credit for the idea” of Uber, a mobile app that connects passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire and ridesharing services.
Camp, the cofounder of StumbleUpon, spent $800 hiring a private driver with friends and had been mulling over ways to decrease the cost of black car services (meaning, taxis that are dispatched by a central service rather than hailed directly on the street) ever since.
The first prototype was built by Camp, and his friends, Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan, with Kalanick being brought on as a “mega advisor” to the company. In December 2010, Kalanick succeeded Ryan Graves as CEO, who had held the position for ten months.
2017-Present
(Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Over the last couple of years, Kalanick has faced a multitude of controversies.
In 2017, it was reported that Kalanick had knowledge of sexual harassment allegations at Uber and did nothing. In the same week, he asked his direct report, Uber’s SVP of Engineering Amit Singhal, to resign after a month for failing to disclose a sexual harassment claim during Singhal’s 15 years as VP of Google Search.
In February 2017, a video was released where Kalanick was shimmying between two women in an UberBLACK, before arguing with an Uber driver during a heated debate.
In March 2017, Uber VP of Business, Emil Michael contacted Kalanick’s ex-girlfriend in an attempt to silence her into hiding a HR complaint.
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