Uber CEO Travis Kalanick believes that Uber needs to work on self-driving cars, lest it end up like the taxi industry that it's currently disrupting.

"That Uber, a five-year-old company has the potential to be disrupted if we don't do this right, is super fascinating," he said on stage at The Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference. 

In the last year, Uber has poached more than 40 autonomous vehicle experts from the robotics program at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as top car security researchers. 

This move comes at a time when the likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla are all working on some sort of autonomous-driving projects. Kalanick says he believes Google to be the farthest ahead, but that we're still a while away from seeing any company's self-driving cars on the roads.

"Getting Google's cars to a 90% solution is going to happen soon," he said, but he asks, "when do they get to that 99.99% success level?" By his count, it could be five, 10, even 15 years. 

"It's going to be interesting, ultimately, to see how cities handle these disruption waves, which are going to be coming faster and faster," he said. "Some cities are going to allow it, and then they're going to be the bastion of the future, and the other cities are going to look like they're in the middle ages."

Although he didn't give any specifics about whether Uber envisions itself building its own car or working with partners, he believes that self-driving cars are going to be "in the world that exists tomorrow," no matter what.

"Are we going to be part of the future?" he asked. "Or are we going to resist the future, like that taxi industry before us? For us, we're a tech company, so we've said, let's be part of that. It's a super exciting place to be."

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(Reuters) - Uber Technologies Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said about 30 percent of the ride-hailing company's trips now take place in China, underlining how important the world's second-biggest economy is to Uber's global growth ambitions.

Speaking on Tuesday at a tech conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal in Laguna Beach, Calif., Kalanick said Uber's market share in China has climbed since the start of the year and now stands at about 30 percent to 35 percent.

Although the company faces stiff competition from Chinese rival Didi Kuaidi, Kalanick said he relishes the challenge. "We're still number two, so we still have a long way to go," he said.

"There are a lot of things we don't know about China, but what an interesting problem to solve," he said.

(Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

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Last weekend, two thousand tech billionaires, celebrities, and influencers hopped on a boat for the second-ever Summit at Sea.

Amid the yoga sessions and concerts, big names like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and VC Chris Sacca gave keynotes. One of the particularly high-profile talks took place between Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. 

Schmidt kicked the session off by asking Kalanick for his craziest Uber-related incident, according to Gregory Ferenstein, who attended the summit and wrote about the talk for Forbes. 

Kalanick's tale turned out to be rather insane story from the company's early days about a passenger who discovered the driver's wife riding in the trunk. 

"Evidently, the new driver didn’t think his wife should be in the car while working, but the wife refused to get out of the car and be stranded in the middle of the city," Ferenstein writes, paraphrasing Kalanick's story. "So, he managed to convince her to climb into the trunk, thinking no one would be any the wiser."

The plan backfired, however, when the customer had luggage and went to put it in the occupied trunk. 

Kalanick told the crowd that Uber only found out about the situation after the customer left a one-star review.

Sounds like a horrifying story for pretty much everyone involved. 

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In a rare and far-ranging interview, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt sat down with each other to discuss their vision for the future of transportation. At the Summit At Sea gathering in Miami last Friday, Schmidt interviewed Kalanick about the endgame for Uber, taxi regulations, transitioning workers after driverless cars, and Uber’s most bizarre tales.

I’ve summarized the highlights of the talk in 5 quotes (note: Google is an investor in Uber):

On taxi union and medallions

“Whoever bought that medallion basically is buying into a corrupt system that’s bad for society” — Travis Kalanick

In no uncertain terms, Kalanick called the taxi medallion system, which regulates the number of cars on the road, a corrupt and inefficient regulation. While acknowledging the unfortunate fact that many taxi drivers had to sacrifice a lot of time and money to the medallion system, Kalanick argued that propping up a bad system wasn’t worth perpetuating. Ultimately, he said that the medallion system keeps drivers tethered to low-paying and inflexible jobs. “That system must be taken down,” he concluded.

Shared cars and efficiency:

“If one fully licensed Uber car is out there in a day, you might be sharing one car across 30 or 40 people. instead of having 30 or 40 people having 30 or 40 cars.” — Kalanick

Futuristic simulations suggest that universal ride-sharing and self-driving cars could radically reduce the impact of car ownership in cities. Cars on the road would be reduced by about 90%, parking structures would open up space for more housing or parks, and pollution would be reduced. Kalanick believes ownership is a massive inefficiency that Uber is out to solve.

De-manager-ing

“They took all the five managers, demoted them and we had what we called the ‘disorg,’ where no one had a boss. And, everyone was incredibly happy because productivity increased. Shows you how cultures can run when you have empowered people. Many of the initial products, like Ad Words ($50B in revenue), came through that process” — Eric Schmidt

Schmidt recalled the early days of Google when the co-founders asked him to eliminate much of the managerial structure. Initially dismayed, Schmidt argues that the unorthodox move led Google to some of its best ideas. Now, he says that Google is too big for such radical restructuring and that products need global management. But, in the beginning, it was helpful to eliminate a lot of managers.

The strangest story from Uber

“He somehow convinced his wife to get into the trunk” — Kalanick

Schmidt asked about Uber’s strangest story and Kalanick regaled the Summit Series attendees with an early incident of a passenger who found out that the driver’s wife was in the trunk of the car. Evidently, the new driver didn’t think his wife should be in the car while working, but the wife refused to get out of the car and be stranded in the middle of the city. So, he managed to convince her to climb into the trunk, thinking no one would be any the wiser. “The driver goes to meet the pickup and the customer has luggage” (the crowd broke out in laughter after this line).

Uber only found out about the incident after it was reported to the company through the poor (1-star) review.

Transitioning to driverless tech

Because we are in cities and we’re doing this without autonomous technology, is there a way to optimistically lead through that (transition to driverless technology)? There are easy ideas like vocational training, education and transition periods. This is not just going to happen all at once. These are things you’ll see Uber working on way before the transition actually starts to occur. — Kalanick

Kalanick and Schmidt have both heavily invested in driverless cars. This puts Uber in the awkward position of phasing out its own contractors. Kalanick argues that nothing can stop driverless cars, but he can help drivers transition to other employment, perhaps through education.

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Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick is known for being an innovative business entrepreneur and a bit of a jerk.

He's been heckled during a taping of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." He's reviled in the taxi industry. He's been accused of not promoting the same "Do No Evil" mantra adopted by many companies, including Google, one of its investors. 

On Wednesday, Time named Kalanick the sixth runner-up for person of the year for his vision for Uber. But when asked about those who may criticize his style, his eyes narrowed as he answered Time's Rana Foroohar.

"Those people don’t know me," Kalanick told Time.

“What drives me is a hard problem that hasn’t been solved, that has a really interesting and impactful solution. And for me it doesn’t even matter what the problem is. I just gravitate towards it. Maybe that results in a style that’s a little different,” he adds.

But, the bad boy of Silicon Valley is trying to change his tune:

“I’m learning how to be as passionate as I am but understand that when you get bigger, you have to listen more and be more welcoming,"Kalanick continued. "And step on toes more lightly.”

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At age 38, Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick made Forbes' list of the world's billionaires with a reported net worth of $5.3 billion. Here's how this college dropout came out on top.

Produced by Jenner Deal. Original reporting by Maya Kosoff.

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Five years ago, Travis Kalanick launched a startup called UberCab in San Francisco.

Fast-forward a few years and Kalanick's company, now just called Uber, is one of the most lucrative in Silicon Valley.

Uber operates in more than 300 cities in 58 countries, and it could be worth as much as $60 billion.

Thanks to that sky-high valuation, Kalanick made Forbes' list of the world's billionaires this year, where the 39-year-old serial entrepreneur is said to have a net worth of about $6 billion.

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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick grew up in Northridge, California, a suburb outside Los Angeles. When he was a kid, he wanted to be a spy.

Source.

But Kalanick would eventually follow in the entrepreneurial footsteps of his mom, a retail advertiser. He went door-to-door, selling knives for Cutco as a youngster. He started his first business at 18, an SAT-prep course called New Way Academy.

Source.

Kalanick's parents, Don and Bonnie, would be "rider zero" when Uber launched in Los Angeles.

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It's not by accident or poor calculation that the time estimated in the Uber app is different than the time it takes for a car to arrive, said its CEO, Travis Kalanick, in a series of tweets on Sunday.

Investor Jason Calacanis launched a debate when he called it a "#firstworldproblem" that Uber cars are always later than their estimates in the apps. Others quickly disagreed, including Fortune's Dan Primack, who argued that the wrong estimates leave room for a rival to come in and provide better service at same price.

The difference in time estimated to some people is an annoyance, especially if it jumps from two to six minutes.

In a rare public response, Kalanick explained in a series of tweets that Uber statistically guesses on the time estimate, which is "almost always" different than the actual time it takes to arrive. But that statistically expected time will be less wrong or different on average than guessing each time, Kalanick wrote.

In suburbs or rural areas, that time may be longer because the next closest car to accept the ride is likely farther away. But in major cities, the total wait time is, on average, down to only three minutes, Kalanick said.

Read his full explanation below, or view his full tweetstorm here.

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Uber can't call its safety checks "industry-leading" any more.

On Thursday, Uber agreed to pay $28.5 million to 25 million riders to settle a class-action case surrounding its safety practices advertisements.

After expected lawyer's fees, that will leave riders with a whopping 82 cents each.

As part of the settlement, Uber must refrain from using certain superlatives like "industry-leading" or "best in class" when describing its background checks. 

Plaintiffs in two separate lawsuits argued that the company misled its customers about its safety practices in its consumer advertising when it said it was "safer than a taxi" or had "industry-leading" background checks. 

Uber does perform background checks for all of its drivers, but it does not fingerprint its drivers like other transportation services, including some taxi companies. While the company initially described its background checks as "industry-leading," it's since backed away from that language and endeavors to be more precise as part of the proposal. 

The settlement won't have any bearing on how Uber conducts its safety checks, as the lawsuit only covered its advertising.

Uber also agreed to rename its "Safe Rides Fee," which charged anywhere from $1 to as high as $4.50 in some places, to a "Booking Fee." Uber had originally started charging a $1 Safe Rides Fee in April 2014 as a way to recoup the cost of its background checks and 24/7 support. The money from the booking fee will be used for both safety and operations costs. 

Uber isn't the only one to face this change. Its rival, Lyft, also quietly re-named its "Trust and Safety Fee" to "Trust and Service Fee" after being sued in San Diego Superior Court for a similar reason.

The settlement is the conclusion of two cases, Philliben vs. Uber Technologies Inc. and Mena vs. Uber Technologies Inc, which were filed in December 2014 and January 2015 respectively. The combined plaintiffs plan to file the settlement agreement in U.S. California Northern District court on Thursday. In the proposed settlement, Uber admits no wrongdoing in its advertising practices. 

The judge still needs to approve the proposed settlement, which will likely happen in mid-March. 

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Uber has raised more than $8 billion from investors wanting a piece of the privately held ride-hailing giant.

Yet even Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick, chides the "irrational funding going on"— and he's not talking about his own company.

In a fireside chat at Vancouver's Launch Academy, the city's leading startup hub, Kalanick condemned the amount of money some competitors are raising to buy up market share, according to a report from BetaKit.

"You can get your butt kicked by others who are raising more money and buying market share," he said. "So you have to find a way to contain the irrational when it's happening."

Kalanick is not talking about Uber raising billions to edge out Lyft, but his Chinese competitor Didi Kuaidi, which has raised more than $3 billion to defeat Uber in China.

"We're profitable in the USA, but we're losing over $1 billion a year in China. We have a fierce competitor that's unprofitable in every city they exist in, but they're buying up market share. I wish the world wasn't that way," Kalanick told the crowd in Vancouver, according to BetaKit. (Didi denies that it is unprofitable and says it has broken even in 100 cities so far)

While Uber's appetite for cash has shown no bounds, the company's CEO seems to be weary of the continuous fundraising while accepting that this is how the game is played.

"I prefer building rather than fundraising. But if I don't participate in the fundraising bonanza, I'll get squeezed out by others buying market share," Kalanick said.

SEE ALSO: Uber agrees to pay $28.5 million to end lawsuit about safety ads

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SHANGHAI — The chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc. said the company was burning through more than a billion dollars a year in China, where it is locked in a fierce battle with its larger local rival Didi Kuaidi to lure consumers with cut-price deals.

Uber's China unit boosted its valuation last month to more than $8 billion after it raised over $1 billion in its latest funding round, though the US ride-hailing app is not yet profitable in the mainland because of intense competition.

"We're profitable in the USA, but we're losing over $1 billion a year in China," Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick, told the Canadian technology platform BetaKit. Uber officials in China confirmed the comments in an email to Reuters on Thursday.

"We have a fierce competitor that's unprofitable in every city they exist in, but they're buying up market share. I wish the world wasn't that way."

Uber and China's Didi Kuaidi, backed by the Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, have each spent heavily to subsidize rides to gain market share, betting on China's internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest.

Uber China said in an emailed statement that Didi Kuaidi was having to spend "many multiples" more than the US firm to increase its share of the market, adding that Uber's China operation was backed up by profitable ones outside the region.

A spokesman for Didi Kuaidi, which has the biggest market share of China's car-hailing app market, did not provide an immediate comment when contacted by email.

In January, Kalanick said spending on subsidies was "how you win" in China, adding that Uber aimed to beat Didi Kuaidi by spending subsidies more efficiently. Uber operates in more than 40 Chinese cities and plans to be in 100 by the end of the year.

"I prefer building rather than fund-raising," Kalanick added in the interview with BetaKit. "But if I don't participate in the fund-raising bonanza, I'll get squeezed out by others buying market share."

(Reporting by Adam Jourdan and John Ruwitch; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Don't expect an Uber IPO anytime soon.

That's the message from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who told CNBC he is in no hurry to sell shares of the fast-growing ride-hailing company to the public. 

"I'm going to make sure it happens as late as possible," Kalanick said in an interview with CNBC on Monday.

Pressed on whether that might mean an IPO in the next two years, three years or five years, Kalanick said he had "no idea."

Uber, which has been valued at more than $60 billion by private market investors, is considered one of the top candidates for a blockbuster tech IPO. Given the billions of dollars in funding that Uber has raised however, many expect that the company will eventually need to float shares on the public market to provide an exit for its early investors. 

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For two weeks straight, Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick called Thuan Pham every day.

The former VMware executive had met with Kalanick and their first one-hour meeting turned into two, Pham told GeekWire in an interview.

Kalanick is nothing short of intense, so that interview turned into a two-week straight phone marathon with the pair talking one-on-one over Skype for 30 hours.

Kalanick sent Pham a photo of a list of topics he wanted to talk about, and then the two would get on a Skype call and go through it.

"We’d pick each topic and drill all the way down. One topic could be how to hire and fire people. Another was about project management and engineering management," Pham said. "I had my view and he had his, and because he’s an engineer by training as well, we just jammed like that."

The 30 hours of quizzing felt less like an interview and more like a discussion between two colleagues, Pham told GeekWire. On one call, Kalanick just stopped talking and switched the discussion to offers.

"It dawned on me afterward that he wasn’t looking for someone that shared his view — he was looking for diversity of thought, someone who could challenge him and who he could challenge," Pham said.

Thankfully, sealing the deal on the job didn't take the same 30 hours of interrogation that Kalanick had put into it. Instead, Pham says he took 30 minutes to think about it, and then Kalanick took an hour to make some calls on his end. That was it. Pham was brought on as CTO and has since grown the engineering team from 40 people to 1,200 in three years.

"Everything moves super fast at Uber,"Pham said. "Once we decide to do something, we just lean in."

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Uber has reached a settlement agreement with its drivers in California and Massachusetts, according to a statement from the attorney representing drivers in the two cases.

The $100 million settlement effectively staves off what could have been a massive legal fight over the employment classification of about 385,000 Uber drivers in the two states.

The statement from attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, says the settlement will allow Uber to continue recognizing those drivers as independent contractors, not employees, and pay $100 million.

Of that amount, $84 million is guaranteed, and the remaining $16 million "is contingent on an increase in Uber's future value," the statement noted.

Here are some of the terms of the agreement:

• Uber will no longer be able to deactivate drivers at will. Under some circumstances, drivers may be warned and given an opportunity to correct any outstanding issues.
• Drivers will be allowed to solicit tips from passengers.
• Uber will recognize the formation of a "Drivers Association" led by fellow Uber drivers who will discuss concerns and bring them to the attention of Uber management.

A San Francisco jury trial on the matter had been set to start in June, but that could be taken off the table if the judge presiding over the case approves the agreement.

In her statement to Business Insider, Liss-Riordan said "We realize that some may be disappointed not to see this case go to trial," but she cast the proposed settlement as a victory that "provides significant benefits — both monetary and non-monetary — that will improve the work lives of the drivers."

Lyft earlier this year agreed to pay its drivers more than $12 million to settle its own driver-classification dispute. Liss-Riordan represented drivers in that case, also.

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One would imagine that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was not pleased to learn about a big new investment Apple just made in its competitor, Didi Chuxing.

Late Thursday night, news broke that Apple invested $1 billion in Didi, a ride-hailing app that's popular in China and has partnered with Uber's main US competitor, Lyft.

But at least on Twitter, Kalanick is making light of the news.

His girlfriend, professional violinist Gabi Holzwarth, apparently owns some Apple shares. Which sort of technically makes her invested in Didi now.

Kalanick tweeted early Friday morning:

girlfriend owns @apple shares which makes her a didi investor... #Smh#ridesharewars#domesticissues#thanksALotTim

— travis kalanick (@travisk) May 13, 2016

For anyone not up to speed on teen slang, "#smh" means "shaking my head."

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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick rocked up at the Axel Springer NOAH Berlin tech conference in the back of a comical yellow car on Wednesday.

The entrepreneur was driven a short distance in a roofless Trabant (a popular car in East Germany before the Berlin wall came down) that happened to resemble a taxi.

Kalanick was one of three people in the vehicle, which parked up alongside the stage as the Rocky theme tune ("Eye of the Tiger") was played was played in the background.

Kai Diekmann, ‎editor-in-chief of German newspaper Bild, drove the Trabant and repeatedly beeped its horn, while Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche sat in the back next to Kalanick.

It's unclear whose idea the stunt was but their arrival was met with laughter from the audience of entrepreneurs, investors, and other tech workers.

Kalanick — whose company is valued at over $60 billion (£41 billion) — went on to give a keynote presentation about how Uber is helping cities around the world to become greener, talking specifically about the company's UberPool service, which allows people to share a ride if they are travelling in the same direction.

I had a lot of fun at @NOAHConference! Thanks to @Daimler-CEO Dieter Zetsche & @Uber-CEO @travisk! @BILDpic.twitter.com/rrbDsd80ZJ

— Kai Diekmann (@KaiDiekmann) June 8, 2016

One of the key announcements from Kalanick was the fact that UberPool, a cheaper and greener version of Uber's standard service, now accounts for 40% of all rides in San Francisco, California, and 20% globally.

Following his keynote, Kalanick was quizzed by Diekmann on a number of topics, including when Uber plans to IPO, whether Uber has considered buying a car company, and why Uber chose to accept $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia.

In response, Kalanick said: Uber will IPO at some point in the next one to 10 years; Uber would rather work with people that build cars as opposed to make them itself; and Uber is helping women in Saudi Arabia to get around.

Kalanick added that San Francisco is almost a $1 billion (£687 million) city for San Francisco.

The full video of Kalanick arriving at Noah Berlin can be seen below.

Uber CEO has arrived #NOAH16pic.twitter.com/nhVpLMDXS7

— Sam Shead (@Sam_L_Shead) June 8, 2016

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Don't expect to see Uber's CEO behind the wheel any time soon. 

On stage at the Axel Springer NOAH Berlin tech conference, Travis Kalanick fessed up that he's let his driver's license expire. 

As for owning a car? Yeah, that's broken too. 

During the on-stage interview, Kai Diekmann, editor-in-chief of German newspaper Bild, asked the ride-hailing CEO if he actually owned a car or even had a driver's license at this point.

"I have a very weird car," Kalanick said. "It’s a 1999 BMW M3 convertible. Now the alternator valve is broken and my driver’s license has expired. So it’s been a while."

It's no surprise given he founded one of the world's largest transportation companies, although his entrance at the conference did include being driven in a Trabant that happened to be painted like a taxi. 

Kalanick's lack of a license though probably puts a hold on his escapades as an Uber driver. When he does have a license, he claims he's a 5-star Uber driver and has even had passengers make out in the back seat while he's been at the wheel.

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Uber expects to go public at some point within the next one to 10 years, according to the company's CEO, Travis Kalanick, who says he plans to leave it as late as possible.

The company, which isn't currently profitable, has been able to resist an IPO by raising $12.5 billion (£8.6 billion) from venture capital investors and large corporates. But Uber ultimately plans to carry out a stock market listing.

Kai Diekmann, editor-in-chief of German newspaper Bild, asked Kalanick at the Axel Springer NOAH Berlin conference if his investors are asking him about an IPO.

Kalanick replied: "Sometimes they ask. What I say is we have an obligation to ultimately find liquidity for the investors. But more importantly we have thousands of employees that own stock [who gave] their blood, sweat, and tears to make Uber a great company.

"So I say we are going to IPO as late as humanly possible. It’ll be one day before my employees and significant others come to my office with pitchforks and torches. We will IPO the day before that. Do you get it?"

Kalanick went on to mention Facebook's IPO, which valued the company at over $104 billion (£72 billion). "Facebook went public when ultimately they had created enough liquidity for their employees," he said. "Our employees work hard and ultimately that stock that everybody worked for should go to them."

The LA-born billionaire, now aged 39, said he believes that a company should only IPO if it can remain un-bureaucratic. "If you can keep your employees from refreshing every 10 minutes to see what the stock price is, your company is going to be more geared towards the future and move faster," he said.

When asked how long Uber employees have to wait they can cash in on their stock, Kalanick initially refused to answer.

"How patient do they [Uber employees] have to be?" asked Diekmann. "1 year? 2 year? 3 years? 4 years?"

Kalanick replied: "I don’t know. Like I said…"

Diekmann pushed back, asking "roughly" how long it will be.

Kalanick conceded: "It’s going to be somewhere between one year and 10."

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Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick says the company is profitable in its developed markets even beyond the US, but those profits are being immediately reinvested in winning the war in China. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, Kalanick said the company is making money in North America, Australia, and its EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region. "Profitable" in this case means Uber is taking into account all general and administrative costs, but excludes interest and tax.

However, whatever "profits" Uber is generating is going right back into the unprofitable markets, notably, Asia. 

"We have hundreds of cities that are profitable globally,"Kalanick told the FT. "That allows us to invest in new places, and to sustainably invest in a very expensive place like China."

Currently, Uber is stuck in second place in China, competing against an opponent that just finished a $7.3 billion fundraising round that included a $1 billion investment from Apple. While Uber is operating in 60 cities in China, Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi) is in more than 400. Of those, the Chinese company claims it's profitable in half. 

Still, Uber is spending heavily, having recently raised a $2 billion credit line and brought in $3.5 billion from an investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Much of that money will go into China. 

"We are number two in China, which means that we still have a ways to go,"Kalanick said. "But we are putting everything on the field."

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