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Rocked by scandals at Uber, Travis Kalanick announces his next venture

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March 8, 2018 at 10:36 a.m. EST
Travis Kalanick left as Uber chief executive amid a spate of troubles for the company. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

Travis Kalanick, the former chief executive and co-founder of the ride-hailing company Uber, has announced his next venture: an investment fund. The announcement answers lingering questions about what the brash tech entrepreneur would take up after his tumultuous departure from Uber.

“Over the past few months I've started thinking about what's next,” Kalanick wrote in a tweet Wednesday evening. “I've begun making investments, joining boards, working with entrepreneurs and non-profits. Today I'm announcing the creation of a fund called 10100 (pronounced 'ten-one-hundred'), home to my passions, investments, ideas and big-bets.”

Kalanick said his investments will center on large-scale job creation. His portfolio will comprise real estate, e-commerce and emerging technologies in China and India, he said. He added that he will begin work on nonprofit projects involving education and the future of cities.

Kalanick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Kalanick resigned from his position as chief executive of Uber, which he helped establish in 2009. He built the company into a high-flying start-up with global reach. But as unrelenting scandals rocked the company last year, many viewed the controversies as a reflection of Kalanick's aggressive leadership style.

Under the new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber has taken a markedly lower-risk approach, a repudiation of sorts to Kalanick's style. The latest sign of Uber's shift came last month, when the company abruptly settled a lawsuit brought by Waymo, part of Google's parent company, Alphabet, over the alleged theft of trade secrets tied to self-driving cars.