The a16z Show · Friday, August 14, 2026
Travis Kalanick reflected on his past as a founder, noting a shift in his approach to risk and efficiency. He stated that he used to operate much closer to the financial edge, drawing a comparison to being "a few inches off that line" now. Kalanick also highlighted that with experience, tasks that once took days and caused stress now take him significantly less time, crediting his learning curve as a founder.
“So I would say today, I'm a few inches off that line. You don't need to do the slow motion replay to know that I did the right thing. I'd stand by every decision I made at Uber. But you don't need to guess anymore. It's like super clean. You don't have to be that close.”
“And so things that used to take me a day or three days, a lot of stress, anxiety, I don't know, I'm gonna do this. Take me 45 minutes. And that's a beautiful thing.”
“I wrote a vision note. When we rolled out Adams as of a few months ago. It was like, look, I obviously, but it was very well written vision note. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that would have taken me. I don't know. hundreds of hours.”