Uber founder Travis Kalanick has a brand new firm referred to as Atoms targeted on robotics that, in line with its web site, will function within the meals, mining, and transportation industries.
Kalanick is rolling his current ghost kitchen firm, CloudKitchens, into Atoms. It’s not instantly clear how he plans to deal with mining and transportation. Atoms’ web site says it’ll construct a “wheelbase for robots,” and Kalanick mentioned in a live interview with TBPN on Friday that his firm will apply this wheelbase to “specialised robots” — not humanoids.
“Humanoids have their place, however there’s plenty of room for specialised robots that do issues in an environment friendly, type of industrial-scale sort of manner, which is type of the place we play,” he mentioned.
To help the mining enterprise, Kalanick mentioned Friday that he’s on the precipice of buying Pronto, the autonomous automobile startup targeted on industrial and mining websites that was created by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick revealed Friday that he’s already the “largest investor” in Pronto.
“The commercial factor is type of like, in all probability, our primary jam,” Kalanick instructed TBPN. Kalanick demurred on the concept of utilizing Atoms robots to maneuver individuals, no less than within the near-term. “When you crack motion within the bodily world, there’s heaps of people that need entry to that.”
Earlier Friday The Information reported Kalanick was getting again into self-driving automobiles with “main backing” from Uber, and that he has reportedly instructed individuals he “needs to be extra aggressive in rolling out self-driving know-how than Waymo.” Uber didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Atoms’ web site makes no point out of Uber. The Data first reported Kalanick was discussing buying Pronto.
Final yr, Kalanick was mentioned to be fascinated about shopping for the U.S. arm of Chinese language self-driving automobile firm Pony AI with backing from Uber, although The Data mentioned Friday that these talks ended.
Kalanick resigned from Uber in 2017 after a confluence of crises on the ride-hail firm. On the time, the corporate was tormented by complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination, which sparked an exterior investigation that resulted in additional than 20 workers being fired.
Earlier than that, Kalanick had created a self-driving division at Uber in 2015. Levandowski performed a giant function in that venture after Kalanick lured him away from Google. Uber was finally sued by Google for stealing secrets and techniques associated to its personal self-driving automobile venture (which ultimately turned Waymo). The 2 corporations settled, however Levandowski was criminally charged and sentenced to 18 months in jail for his function within the affair. The engineer obtained a last-minute pardon from President Trump on the finish of his first time period.
The corporate stored engaged on the venture after Kalanick resigned, together with after certainly one of its take a look at automobiles struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018. Kalanick’s successor, Dara Khosrowshahi, shuttered and bought the division to autonomous trucking firm Aurora in 2020.
In a uncommon interview in March 2025, Kalanick expressed remorse that Uber had deserted creating its personal self-driving vehicles.
This story has been up to date to replicate new data from Atoms’ web site and an interview with Kalanick.
