Travis Kalanick Net Worth and How He Made Money from Uber

Travis Kalanick has a net worth of $4 billion and ranks amongst the 300 wealthiest individuals in the world. The billionaire made a huge portion of his wealth from being the co-founder of Uber.

With such a mouth-watering net worth, Kalanick also makes it to the list of the richest entrepreneurs in America as well as the wealthiest people in technology. So, what exactly is Travis Kalanick’s net worth, and how did he accumulate his fortune from Uber? All these and more of your questions about the trailblazing entrepreneur is answered below.

Travis Kalanick’s Sources of Income

• Uber as co-founder
• Venture capital firm 10100
• CloudKitchens
• Real Estate

Who is Travis Kalanick?

Travis Cordell Kalanick was born on the 6th of August 1976 in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Bonnie Renee, is Jewish, while his father, Donald, hailed from a catholic background. The entrepreneur also has a total of three siblings, including a firefighter brother named Cory.

Kalanick grew up in California and initially pursued a degree at UCLA. He was, however, on the lookout for innovative start-up ideas and dropped out of college to pursue them. The first of such ideas was Scour, a multimedia search engine with provision for peer-to-peer file exchange. The company existed for two years before filing for bankruptcy in 2000.

A few years later, the irrepressible Kalanick returned with another similar company, Red Swoosh. The early days of Red Swoosh were tough as Kalanick earned no salary and even had to move back in with his parents. He, however, persevered and made his first millions when Red Swoosh was sold for $19 million in 2007.

Travis Kalanick’s Net worth and How He Made His Money from Uber

Upon the sale of Red Swoosh, Travis Kalanick became a millionaire and spent several months traveling the world. He later returned to L.A. and continued his lavish lifestyle. During this time, he and his pals discovered that hiring central cab services was quite exorbitant.

They then came up with the idea of Uber, a ride-sharing app that would significantly reduce the cost of these rides. Uber came into existence in 2009 and by 2010, Kalanick became the CEO of the company.

Under his watch, Uber has expanded its services to 700 cities across the world. The company now has 110 million users worldwide and offers services such as bike rides, UberX, luxury vehicles, green vehicles, Uber Eats, driverless cars, etc.

Travis Kalanick’s net worth is currently estimated at $5.4 billion, and the majority of this comes from his ownership stake in Uber. The California native sold off a fraction of that stake to the Japanese company Soft Bank and netted $1.4 billion from the deal.

Additionally, Uber went public in May 2019 with an IPO of $8.1 billion. The company’s shares did not perform as well as expected, but Travis Kalanick’s net worth did not suffer. The California native still made $118 million from the sale of his 3.7 million shares.

Another means through which Kalanick made money from Uber was his pay package as the CEO of the company. He spent nearly seven years as Uber CEO, during which his annual salary rose to as much as $40 million.

So, how does Kalanick spend his fortune? The businessman spends it on traveling the world as well as some choice properties. He owns a $36.4 million penthouse apartment in Manhattan. The 6655 square-foot apartment boasts a 20-foot heated pool, two floors, four bedrooms as well as 4.5 bathrooms.

What happened to Travis Kalanick?

Travis Kalanick spent an uninterrupted six years as the CEO of Uber. Trouble, however, arose in 2017 when the company faced a public relations nightmare. The California native was accused of superintending over a work environment that was toxic and discriminatory.

They were also allegations of workplace sexual harassment as well as executives indulging in inappropriate behavior. Kalanick himself further compounded the situation after a video of him berating an Uber driver surfaced online.

The whole situation forced the company into crisis mode, and Kalanick had no choice but to step down as CEO in June 2017. The California native, however, remains on the board of the company. Meanwhile, since his resignation, Kalanick has turned his focus to a new investment fund known as 10100 (ten-one-hundred).

10100 is a venture fund that focuses on job growth with the hopes of penetrating the e-commerce and real estate markets as well as emerging economies such as China and India. 10100 has so far invested in City Storage Systems, a holding company that is focused on redeveloping distressed real estate.