Uber CEO and cofounder Travis Kalanick went through a lot of ups and downs as a tech entrepreneur before launching Uber in 2009. 

According to Kalanick, rolling with the punches is part of the job if you want to be a startup founder. 

But one of the most important job requirements is knowing how to find the entrepreneur's "playground," according to Kalanick.

In a talk at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University on Thursday, Kalanick described the zone between conventional wisdom and reality as a playground that the best entrepreneurs seek out and thrive in. 

Here's how Kalanick put it:

"I like to say the role of the entrepreneur is to understand the difference between perception and reality. Perception is conventional wisdom, it’s what everybody thinks is right, or is the answer. And reality, sometimes it’s the same, but often it’s very different.

I like to say the distance between perception and reality is the innovator’s playground. But if you are going to play in that playground and you’re going to tell the world that they’re wrong by doing something over here, it means you have to get you used to everybody thinking you’re kind of crazy and you have to get used to everybody saying this is not possible or this is not right, or it’s just not going to work.

And you have to stick to your guns. and if you are correctly seeing the difference between perception and reality it will eventually work."

 You can watch the full video of the talk here.

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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick already runs one of the world's most valuable companies. Why not have his dog try its hand at being president of another?

In a Facebook post, Kalanick campaigned for his dog, Yobu, to be the "President" of Wag, an on-demand startup known as the "Uber for dog-walking".

Yobu is a dogocrat with a dogmatic approach to politics, according to the pun-loving Kalanick. The dog's platform revolves around renaming hot dogs to "hot cats" and open addiction centers for pups addicted to peanut butter. 

Even with Kalanick's pull, Yobu's only in third place on the leaderboard, so heading up a startup may not totally run in the family.

SEE ALSO: Uber’s hundreds of freewheeling outposts fueled its crazy growth ... and caused some headaches

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There's a difference between doing your diligence before a legal proceeding and conducting secret research on your opponent — and Uber may have crossed that line. 

A new report from The Verge's Russell Brandom and Andrew Hawkins at The Verge details a secretive effort that Uber allegedly employed to dig up info on a lawyer and a plaintiff that had sued the company. The piece details Uber's relationship with Ergo, a research firm "staffed by veterans from the CIA and the National Security Council" that the ride-hailing service has reportedly hired four other times in the past.

Last year, a labor lawyer named Andrew Schmidt filed a suit against CEO Travis Kalanick alleging that Kalanick had violated anti-trust laws by coordinating surge pricing. 

According to The Verge, things got weird shortly after Schmidt filed the suit. Here's what happened:

"According to a court declaration made by Schmidt and his colleagues, someone had called one of Schmidt’s lawyer friends in Colorado to ask some strange questions, claiming it was for a project 'profiling up-and-coming labor lawyers in the US.' What was the nature of his relationship with the plaintiff? Who was the driving force behind the lawsuit? Calls were also allegedly made to acquaintances of Schmidt’s client, Spencer Meyer, with a similar proposal to profile 'up-and-coming researchers in environmental conservation.'"

Contacting potential parties in such a manner would be very bad form and potentially very problematic. While opposition research is almost always done before a trial like this, it typically involves public records searches, not evasive phone calls to those directly involved in the case. According to The Verge, the judge hearing the case rule in June that Schmidt presented enough evidence to provide a "reasonable perception of fraud," giving Schmidt's team the right to review emails between Uber and Ergo.

Uber was not immediately avialable for comment.

There are plenty of other interesting details from the story, not to mention some juicy emails between senior-level Uber employees and Ergo. Read the full story on The Verge.

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Uber believes its executives are under siege.

In a brief Uber filed related to an impending lawsuit, the company details the threats its executives face on a regular basis — how "Uber operates in a high threat environment and is a 'business that attracts a lot of volatility.'"

Uber notes that its entry into particular markets has sometimes been met with "hostile and even violent reactions," referring to anti-Uber protests that have occurred in some countries — and the company's operations apparently attracts some threatening characters, too.

From the filing:

"The security risks surrounding Uber's high-profile executives are of particular concern. [Chief Security Officer Joseph] Sullivan's team handles daily threats from people 'show[ing] up in our lobbies, accost[ing] our executives, flam[ing] them on Twitter, sen[ding] them death threats, show[ing] up outside their homes, throwing eggs at their homes, [and] threaten[ing] to file lawsuits for ... strange reasons.'"

That last part might be in reference to the lawsuit, which Uber says is suspect since it omits Uber as a defendant and names only Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Uber says it believed there could be a safety risk to Kalanick and asked a research firm called Ergo, staffed by many former CIA veterans, to do some background research on the plaintiff in the suit.

Ergo's investigation on Uber's behalf of the plaintiff and his lawyer has not been well received by the judge overseeing the case.

SEE ALSO: New Yorkers can now get an unlimited Uber Pool commuter card

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Uber has completed its 2 billionth trip. 

The ride-hailing startup announced on Monday that it hit the milestone on June 18th, six months after reaching 1 billion rides.

And it wasn't just one Uber ride that could claim the milestone.

At 4:16:48 a.m. GMT, a total of 147 trips tied for being Uber's 2 billionth. The trips happened simultaneously in 16 countries on five continents, and all 147 drivers will receive $450 (which Uber says is synonymous with the number of cities it currently operates in). Each rider will also receive $450 in free Uber rides. 

When Uber hit its first milestone, 1 billion rides, in December 2015, it came roughly six years after its founding. It took only six months to double its total trips.

SEE ALSO: This startup is taking on Airbnb and Hotel Tonight by letting you find a place to crash at the last minute

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Ride-hailing service Uber has decided to invest $500 million into an ambitious global mapping project to wean itself off dependence on Google Maps and pave the way for driverless cars, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The San Francisco-based company is ramping up spending in new technologies such as mapping and driverless cars following new investments into the company earlier this year.

A representative for Uber could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Uber is throwing in the towel in China.

After a gruelling ground war, the California-based ride-hailing company is officially selling its Chinese unit to its rival in the country, Didi Chuxing.

Uber has suffered through extreme regulatory scrutiny, driver assaults, controversy over background checks and of digging up dirt on critics, and more. But this is something else. China is the world's most populous country, with a market consistently touted by Uber as a source of opportunity.

Uber's withdrawal is the greatest setback in the company's seven-year history — and a rude awakening for many in the venture-capital-funded startup ecosystem.

First, the facts

The details of the Didi Chuxing deal, which was first reported by Bloomberg, are as follows:

• Uber is selling its Uber China unit to Didi Chuxing.
• Uber's app will continue to exist in China (for now) while the two teams are folded together.
• The combined company will be worth $35 billion.
• Per a press release, "Uber will receive 5.89% of the combined company with preferred equity interest which is equal to a 17.7% economic interest in Didi Chuxing."
• Didi Chuxing will also invest $1 billion in Uber, at a $68 billion valuation.

Venture capital isn't everything

Uber faced a litany of problems as it battled its Chinese homegrown rival, including crackdowns by the Chinese authorities as well as censorship in WeChat and allegations of driver fraud.

China was a puzzle that Uber just couldn't crack, no matter how much cash it threw at it. The $68 billion company, the most valuable private tech startup in the world, was burning a whopping $1 billion in China a year as it fought Didi. While it is apparently profitable in some developed markets, it is deep in the red in China.

This failure comes despite Uber's previous touting of China as a land of milk and honey. "To put it frankly,"CEO Travis Kalanick wrote in a leaked letter to investors in 2015, "China represents one of the largest untapped opportunities for Uber, potentially larger than the US."

The company boasted of meteoric growth in the country: Nine months after launch, Uber enjoyed 479 times as many trips in Chengdu as it saw in New York after the same length of time, it said.

But metrics aren't everything. The most explosive growth in the world won't do a company any good if it can't turn a profit and build a viable business around its core product.

Uber's failure in China is a lesson that much of Silicon Valley and the tech industry would do well to heed. Many in the venture-capital business are happy to pump tens of millions into wildly unprofitable businesses off the back of hockey-stick growth graphs and vague promises of future returns.

It's a strategy that can work; just look at Facebook. But it's no guaranteed recipe for success, no matter how many billions you throw at it — as Uber has learned.

Counterintuitively, the Didi Chuxing deal may actually help Uber in the long term, as offloading its unprofitable Chinese segment should make it easier for the company to finally go public.

Ultimately, the deal is a repudiation of the notion that those with enough venture capital behind them can do anything.

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NOW WATCH: Uber China is merging with an Apple-backed competitor

Five years ago, a company called UberCab made a splash in San Francisco by letting you hail a car with your smartphone. Since then, the company, now known as Uber, has spread like wildfire through the globe. Uber currently operates in 58 countries and is valued at over $60 billion.

But the road hasn't been easy.

While its valuation has continued to climb and it has attracted more and more investors, Uber has also fought rivals and regulators as it has transformed from a black-car service into a sprawling logistics company gunning for a future of self-driving cars. It has confronted threats from the taxi industry and even its own drivers. 

It has also waged war against Didi Chuxing, its rival in gaining ride-hailing dominance in China. After a prolonged and exorbitantly costly battle, however, Uber China is now surrendering to Didi in a $35 billion megamerger.

As Uber's biggest battle yet comes to a close, we look back at how the company got to where it is today. See the insane and successful journey of Uber and its CEO, Travis Kalanick, as it has moved from an idea to a worldwide phenomenon. 

June 1998: Scour, a peer-to-peer search-engine startup that Kalanick had dropped out of UCLA to join, snags its first investment from former Disney president Michael Ovitz and Ron Burkle of Yucaipa companies.

Source.

October 2000: Scour files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after being sued by several entertainment companies for around $250 billion.

Source.

April 2007: Kalanick sells RedSwoosh, a company he'd founded in 2001, to Akamai for $23 million and becomes a millionaire. He says he started RedSwoosh as a “revenge business” to turn the 33 litigants who sued Scour into customers.

Source.

Travis Kalanick has to get Uber's bet on self-driving cars right.

"It starts with understanding that the world is going to go self-driving and autonomous," he told Business Insider in an interview.

"So if that's happening, what would happen if we weren't a part of that future? If we weren't part of the autonomy thing? Then the future passes us by basically, in a very expeditious and efficient way," he said.

On Thursday, Uber took a step into that future when it announced that Pittsburgh riders will be able to take free rides later this month in the self-driving cars that it's been developing.

Riders will request a car as usual, but the one that shows up may just drive itself — at this point with two highly-trained engineers in the front seats documenting its every move and ready to take the wheel if need be.

It's not just a bet on passenger cars, but a belief that self-driving technology will change everything. This summer, Uber bought Otto, a self-driving truck startup, so it can get into the trucking business as well.

These are big, bold, and aggressive moves characteristic of the Uber that has already changed how millions get around in cities across the globe. But they also show the growing existential threat that Kalanick feels if his company doesn't wake up to the impending revolution in transportation.

And he's not willing to cede any ground to giants with hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank, like Apple or Google.

"If we are not tied for first, then the person who is in first, or the entity that's in first, then rolls out a ride-sharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Uber's, then Uber is no longer a thing," Kalanick said.

Business Insider spoke to Kalanick about what an Uber that relies on self-driving cars looks like — and what will happen to all of those drivers who tote people around if this is its future.

The following Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

Biz Carson: You called the development of autonomous vehicles existential to the company, and you've also called buying Otto another existential move. So what is so existential about it and where is that threat really coming from?

Kalanick: I think it starts with understanding that the world is going to go self-driving and autonomous. Because, well, a million fewer people are going to die a year. Traffic in all cities will be gone. Significantly reduced pollution and trillions of hours will be given back to people — quality of life goes way up. Once you go, "All right, there's a lot of upsides there" and you have folks like the folks in Mountain View, [California,] a few different companies working hard on this problem, this thing is going to happen.

So if that's happening, what would happen if we weren't a part of that future? If we weren't part of the autonomy thing? Then the future passes us by, basically, in a very expeditious and efficient way.

Carson: How soon will self-driving cars realistically be a significant portion of Uber's fleet?

Kalanick: That is the trillion-dollar question, and I wish I had an answer for you on that one, but I don't. What I know is that I can't be wrong. Right? I have to make sure that I'm ready when it's ready or that I'm making it ready. So, I have to be tied for first at the least.

What I know is that I can't be wrong.

Carson: Do you think you're in that position right now?

Kalanick: No, I don't. I think we're catching up. Look at some of the folks and how long they've been working on it. Lots of respect for an area that they've pioneered, and we've got to do some catch-up. And that's OK, but it means we gotta wake up early and we're going to bed late.

Carson: What's holding self-driving cars back right now other than technology?

Kalanick: Isn't that the thing? [Laughs] I could give you self-driving nirvana if it's in the desert, there's no oncoming traffic and there are no pedestrians. I can do it right now. The problem is I don't think I could take you anywhere that you wanted to go. [Laughs] So, that's just the state of technology.

Remember, Uber is a global business. We don't think just in terms of [the] US. There's a ton of places around the world that will clear the path to make sure that safer roads, that are more humane, that give time back to the people, that have less congestion and are less polluting — they'll make that happen tomorrow if the tech is right. So it's all about the tech. I could geek out with you on the tech and what needs to be done, but in order to make this a reality, there's literally things that haven't been invented yet.

That's what makes this problem special and interesting and challenging. It's not just an engineering challenge that's deterministic, and I know what I have to build. We are figuring out as we go what has to be built because, even when you have the world's experts on this challenge, there are things that even if you're Google, or even if you're anybody, Apple, all the guys that are working on it, there are things that haven't been invented yet. And that's part of the fun.

Carson: You mentioned Google and Apple. With so many of these companies working on it, why do you think Uber will have an advantage? Why do you think Uber will be tied for first if not in first place?

Kalanick: Well, it's not about whether I think it is — it's that it has to be. So, if we are not tied for first, then the person who is in first, or the entity that's in first, then rolls out a ride-sharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Uber's, then Uber is no longer a thing.

Carson: What is your timeline for this existential threat? Are you looking at "Next year, if Uber is not in this, we're dead," or is this 10 years down the road?

Kalanick: I wish I had the exact timeline. If you had the exact timeline, then it would mean everything was deterministic, that you knew exactly what needed to be built, and you could sort of logically figure it out. That is not the case. We just don't know all the things. There are still things to be invented. But this is a years thing, not a decade thing. But how many? Shoot, I don't know, but I'm going to be hustling to get it out there.

Carson: How do you keep Uber's driver partners excited about working for Uber when today's announcement is that you're one step closer to replacing them? I believe your engineering director said you're trying to wean riders off having drivers.

Kalanick: The first part is that the timescale is pretty long. We've got income opportunities today and we got ways of serving the city today. That's part 1.

Part 2 is that if you're talking about a city like San Francisco or the Bay Area generally, we have, like, 30,000 active drivers. We are going to go from 30,000 to, let's say, hypothetically, a million cars, right? But when you go to a million cars, you're still going to need a human-driven parallel, or hybrid. And the reason why is because there are just places that autonomous cars are just not going to be able to go or conditions they're not going to be able to handle. And even though it is going to be a smaller percentage of the whole, I can imagine 50,000 to 100,000 drivers, human drivers, alongside a million-car network.

I can imagine 50,000 to 100,000 drivers, human drivers, alongside a million-car network.

So I don't think the number of human drivers will go down anytime soon.

In fact, I think, in an autonomous world, it goes up. In absolute figures. Of course, in percentage, it's down. But then you also think, what about the tens of thousands of jobs that are necessary to maintain that fleet?

Carson: Will Uber be in charge of maintaining? You have always said you will not be the ones manufacturing these cars.

Kalanick: Yeah, we are definitely not building the cars, and I don't know who is going to own the fleet, but somebody is going to have to maintain it.

Carson: So you see this in some ways as job creation or ... ?

Kalanick: Yeah, I believe it is. And at the same time, remember, technology moves forward, we are talking about a million lives a year being saved. You know there was once a time you made a phone call and there was a person that, the operator, had to do switching, right? Or there were literally hundreds of thousands of people employed to build telephone booths. And then cellphones came and it is a beautiful thing, but then that created a whole new industry and all new kinds of jobs.

And look at Uber. Uber exists because of mobile telephones. And what did we do with that? Well, there are millions of people that make an income every day because of it. And that happened in six years. It couldn't have been predicted. So what's next? So in that way, I guess maybe I am a technology optimist, but I have a lot of good data on my side.

Carson: By buying Otto, does that mean that Uber is going to be getting into this trucking and transportation of goods industry? How big of a part will it be in Uber's future?

Kalanick: Part 1 is, yes, we are getting in the trucking business.

We are getting in the trucking business.

Part 2 is that it is a multitrillion-dollar business globally as well. I have always talked about the consumer ground-transport business being a multitrillion-dollar business. Now there's this other one called trucking. It is a challenging, interesting, nuanced business, and it is going to be intense getting into it, but that's exciting to me. We'll just have to see how it grows over time, and it is a bit early. We are still in sort of the R&D phase, if that makes sense.

Carson: So with the acquisition of Otto, you're expanding your self-driving research beyond Pittsburgh and will have more offices around the Bay Area. Why stay in Pittsburgh for the tests? You already have a little trouble with the bridges there. Do you have plans to expand those tests outside of Pittsburgh?

Kalanick: Well, first I've got to get those bridges right, Biz. If I don't get them right, I've got a real problem.

Our main jam right now is Pittsburgh. I literally have hundreds of scientists and engineers. You want them to be close to the action, period. Yes, now we've got a new West Coast thing, too — San Francisco as well as Palo Alto. And that's important because my whole thing on this is ... we need to be working with all the great minds, and San Francisco ain't enough, like you've gotta be in Palo Alto because these folks don't want to be on the 101 [the congested highway that links Silicon Valley to San Francisco]. We're gonna get those bridges right, I promise, but you also want your engineers and your scientists close to the action, and that's why Pittsburgh is where we start.

Carson: And where will you go in the future? Are you looking at conquering the easy deserts and then residential roads? Or is it city by city?

Kalanick: It'll be city by city, but I promise you we will go to all of them.

SEE ALSO: There's one key reason Uber's self-driving cars need to master Pittsburgh

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NOW WATCH: Uber will be offering free rides in self-driving cars later this month

Travis Kalanick says that Uber needs to move fast on self-driving cars or face an "existential threat" from foes like Google.

But the CEO's attitude and ambition may sound an awful lot like a looming existential threat for another group: the thousands of people who drive for the ride-hailing startup.

After all, Uber's engineering director told Bloomberg that "the goal is to wean us off having drivers in the cars."

But Kalanick denied in an interview with Business Insider that adding autonomous vehicles to the network will eliminate the need for humans.

Instead, while the percentage of human drivers giving trips may go down, the absolute number of humans may actually go up, he argues:

"If you're talking about a city like San Francisco or the Bay Area generally, we have, like, 30,000 active drivers. We are going to go from 30,000 to, let's say, hypothetically, a million cars, right? But when you go to a million cars, you're still going to need a human-driven parallel, or hybrid. And the reason why is because there are just places that autonomous cars are just not going to be able to go or conditions they're not going to be able to handle. And even though it is going to be a smaller percentage of the whole, I can imagine 50,000 to 100,000 drivers, human drivers, alongside a million-car network.

"So I don't think the number of human drivers will go down anytime soon. In fact, I think in an autonomous world, it goes up. In absolute figures. Of course, in percentage it's down."

Further, Kalanick argues, the rise of autonomous cars will open new jobs like maintaining the car fleets, jobs that don't exist today because there has never been a need. Part of advancing technology has always meant that some professions become extinct in the process, he argues:

"You know, there was once a time you made a phone call and there was a person that, the operator, had to do switching, right? Or there were literally hundreds of thousands of people employed to build telephone booths. And then cellphones came and it is a beautiful thing, but then that created a whole new industry and all new kinds of jobs."

It's a transition that Uber is tackling in a bold and aggressive fashion, and Kalanick isn't afraid to mince words about what it will mean in the future.

Read Business Insider's full interview to find out why Uber's CEO says that this is the one experiment that the company can't afford to get wrong.

SEE ALSO: Travis Kalanick on Uber's bet on self-driving cars: 'I can't be wrong'

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NOW WATCH: Uber will be offering free rides in self-driving cars later this month

Lyft President John Zimmer blasted reports that the ride-hailing company is shopping itself around, disputing a series of recent news stories saying that Lyft had failed to find a buyer after talking to six different companies.

"Lyft is not seeking a buyer," Zimmer told Business Insider.

"Getting approached and then having it characterized as us wanting to sell the business and failing to do so is a large mischaracterization," he said. "If the company is approached, it doesn't mean the company is looking."

Zimmer did not explicitly deny that acquisition discussions with other companies may have occurred, and he refused to provide any details about the reported talks, which The New York Times and Bloomberg said included Amazon, GM, and Uber among others.

But he insisted that the reports had grossly mischaracterized the situation and that they "crossed a line," forcing the company to break its typical silence on M&A rumors.

Multiple offers

The No. 2 player in the fast-growing ride-hailing business, Lyft is locked in a costly and bitter battle for market share with Uber, which has vastly exceeded Lyft's fundraising by billions of dollars.

Rumors that Lyft had been up for sale started in June when The Wall Street Journal reported that the company had hired Qatalyst Partners, a Silicon Valley firm with a reputation for orchestrating sales like the LinkedIn-Microsoft deal. Companies typically hire bankers to find buyers for a business, or in the case of an unsolicited offer, to compare the offer to the price others might be willing to pay.

Lyft declined to comment on Qatalyst, but Zimmer stressed to Business Insider that the company has never been actively looking for a buyer. It's already had acquisition offers throughout its history as a company, and Zimmer says that the company is obligated to review them.

"That's happened multiple times throughout our business. It's actually more of a normal course of business than has been portrayed, and of course we have to review anything that's of legitimate interest," Zimmer said.

The rumors of takeover attempts reached a peak on Friday after a New York Times article suggested that it had made approaches and had talks with six different companies, including Amazon, Uber, and Google, yet still failed to find a buyer.

A Bloomberg article on Friday also said that Uber would not pay more than $2 billion to buy the company, well below the rumored $9 billion price tag that Recode reported and below its current $5.5 billion valuation.

The New York Times told Business Insider that it stands by its story. Bloomberg declined to comment.

'Enough is enough'

Lyft has previously declined to comment on all M&A rumors, but Zimmer now says that "enough is enough." He's pointing the finger at Uber as the company using "unsavory tactics" to spread the negative or misleading reports.

"We have to be careful with this type of thing for confidentiality reasons until Friday, when we feel like the line was crossed in that it was characterized as us trying to and failing to sell the business," Zimmer said. "And as Friday happened, with both that characterization and the Bloomberg report, we said enough is enough. We need to let people know that we're not looking for a buyer, so that's not a legitimate part of the story. I think it shows a bit of overstepping on Uber's part with the Bloomberg story that fully demonstrates who is behind this."

Zimmer would not go into detail about how he believed Uber had spread the false reports, but a report from The Verge on Sunday quoted an anonymous source as saying that Lyft was furious that Uber's CEO had discussed his views on Lyft's valuation with investors.

Uber was not immediately available for comment.

While Lyft might be happy to lay blame on the negative reports, it isn't quite ready to be transparent on what did happen and declined to comment on all of Business Insider's questions regarding which companies had talked with Lyft and at what price any offers were made, citing confidentiality agreements.

Specifics aside, Zimmer's larger argument is that the whole process has been misconstrued and misrepresented from the beginning. He said that he never had a plan to sell the company this summer, nor did he reach out proactively to do so.

Zimmer said that he's happy with Lyft's trajectory, citing a record July and being on track to hit $2 billion in gross merchandise volume, or total value of rides.

"We're focused on being an independent business and having the largest impact on car ownership as we possibly can," Zimmer said. "I don't think [independence] is a requirement, but I believe right now it's the best path."

SEE ALSO: Here's the moment when I realized how miraculous self-driving technology really is

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NOW WATCH: These self-driving trucks may be the key to Uber’s future

Uber had been untouchable. The $69 billion ride-hailing company was like an invasive species, planting itself in cities throughout the world and forever changing how people get around.

During the past six weeks though, Uber's dominance has started to show cracks. The company ceded the fight in China after blowing through billions of dollars. It lost $1.2 billion in six months — almost as much Amazon lost in its worst year ever. And its investors continue to apply pressure for it to go public and deliver a return on their investment.

The hasty exit from China and the staggering losses look like worrisome signs for a company for which the fundamental appeal to investors is to become the world's next generation of taxis. But Uber's real promise may be quite different, and the company appears to be betting that scaling back its ambitions in one domain is the tough but necessary sacrifice to go after a bigger prize.

Uber's black eye

Uber's tough August began when it gave up the fight in China. Make no mistake: This had always been an uphill battle against its rival Didi Chuxing, but it was one Kalanick seemed determine to fight.

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

While China made up some of Uber's largest markets, the company ultimately couldn't support the mounting losses. Its rival had finished a $7.3 billion fund-raising round that included a $1 billion investment from Apple. And while Uber was operating in 60 cities in China, Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi) was in more than 400.

Kalanick realized it was a market he had to let go.

"As an entrepreneur, I've learned that being successful is about listening to your head as well as following your heart," Kalanick wrote in the announcement. "Uber and Didi Chuxing are investing billions of dollars in China and both companies have yet to turn a profit there. Getting to profitability is the only way to build a sustainable business that can best serve Chinese riders, drivers and cities over the long term."

Investors could be relieved that Uber is out of the money-losing situation, but the move produced a hit to the company's future valuation potential. Companies pitch themselves based on their total addressable market, or how big they could possibly grow. By ceding China, Uber is lowering the ceiling on its growth and shrinking its ride-hailing market size.

But that's where the story of Uber's future is changing. It may have lowered its potential in one market, but it's opened up another one entirely.

The Uber for trucking is just Uber

In early August, just two weeks after it was announced that it was leaving China, Uber lifted the curtain on its other project: self-driving cars.

Uber's big research project is showing progress at an opportune time and launching in Pittsburgh. China may have failed, but look — Uber is solving what it calls an existential threat to its business.

The announcement served another important purpose: It fixes Uber's market problem by opening up another one entirely.

Uber revealed it had spent $100 million to get into the trucking business with its purchase of Otto, a startup that makes kits to turn traditional trucks into autonomous vehicles.

When I asked Uber CEO Travis Kalanick whether he was getting into the trucking business, his answer was a solid yes.

"Part one is, yes, we are getting in the trucking business," Kalanick told Business Insider. "Part two is that it is a multitrillion-dollar business globally as well. I have always talked about the consumer ground-transport business being a multitrillion-dollar business. Now there's this other one called trucking. It is a challenging, interesting, nuanced business, and it is going to be intense getting into it, but that's exciting to me. We'll just have to see how it grows over time, and it is a bit early. We are still in sort of the R&D phase, if that makes sense.

The emphasis is mine to show how deftly Kalanick doubled his company's business potential. Uber isn't just a ride-hailing company anymore. Kalanick is now talking about the opportunity to build a business that spans two multitrillion-dollar markets. The loss of China would be negligible if Uber can conquer trucking too.

Starting at the bottom

While it's a rosy vision of the future, one investor Business Insider spoke with said it felt like a diversion tactic — a distraction for a bigger problem for the company was facing.

Bloomberg's Eric Newcomer broke the news last week that Uber's recent losses have been both staggering and growing. In the first six months of 2016, the company lost more than $1.27 billion. Its once profitable US business also lost money in the second quarter, and Uber blamed it on subsidies for Uber drivers. (That's one reason it's probably the company is probably forward to an era of self-driving cars).

And as Newcomer points out in Bloomberg, there's no comparison for how much money Uber has lost. Amazon's worst annual loss ever, in 2000, totaled only $1.4 billion — and Uber reached that number in nearly six months. Uber's 2015 losses crossed the $2 billion mark.

But as Kalanick himself said in his concession post to Didi, he has to follow his head and heart and leave a market so both companies can achieve profitability. Investors can expect those losses to drop next quarter now that Uber is out of China. It's no longer a spend-at-all-cost mantra for Kalanick.

Uber's move into self-driving cars (and trucks) will be costly and risky too. It's not only an unproven R&D project, but it's also an existential bet that Kalanick has already said he can't get wrong. China may have been a black eye to the company, but Kalanick is looking to a future bigger than conquering ride-hailing in every market.

He failed at conquering China, but that's a loss he can afford. The Uber for the future is a logistics platform, from human passengers to packages, delivered by self-driving cars and trucks. Kalanick knows he has to route Uber's money into these problems — and not continue the fight in China.

"It starts with understanding that the world is going to go self-driving and autonomous," he told Business Insider. "So if that's happening, what would happen if we weren't a part of that future? If we weren't part of the autonomy thing? Then the future passes us by basically, in a very expeditious and efficient way."

Uber is starting its next act without finishing the first one. But for a company with its ambitions, and a $69 billion valuation, there might not be any other way.

SEE ALSO: Travis Kalanick on Uber's bet on self-driving cars: 'I can't be wrong'

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NOW WATCH: These self-driving trucks may be the key to Uber’s future

Uber Technologies said on Wednesday that "the world's first self-driving Ubers are now on the road."

The ride-hailing giant has put four vehicles into service equipped with its prototype self-driving system (with backup drivers on board) giving rides to Uber customers in Pittsburgh.

It's a milestone in the industry wide race to fully autonomous vehicles, and it raises two questions: First, when will Uber arch-rival Lyft launch its own self-driving pilot program with partner General Motors?

And second, is this program a message to potential Uber investors about its long-awaited IPO?

What Uber said about its self-driving pilot program

In a blog post signed by CEO Travis Kalanick and Uber's vice president of self-driving technology, Anthony Levandowski, the company said it would invite its "most loyal Pittsburgh customers" to request a self-driving Uber when one of the vehicles is available. 

That probably won't be often, at least at first. For now, there are only four self-driving vehicles available to provide rides, though Uber says there are more on the way. Each of the vehicles will have two Uber employees sitting in front to monitor the car's systems -- and to take over driving in situations the technology isn't yet ready to handle. 

Uber noted in its blog post that its recent acquisition of Otto, a Silicon Valley start-up that had been working on driverless-truck technology, had helped bolster its self-driving engineering efforts. (Levandowski was the founder of Otto.)

What it means for Uber: A proof point on the way to an ambitious vision

It's a step closer to realizing Kalanick's vision of an entirely automated ride-hailing service. That vision probably won't be realized for several more years (at least), but having actual self-driving Ubers on the road, even under significant limitations, is a huge milestone for the company. 

It's significant for another reason: As Uber's program expands, more people will be able to get a taste of what it's like to ride in a self-driving car. As more people experience the technology, interest and demand for it will likely rise. 

What it means for Lyft: Second place, but will it matter?

It means that Lyft got beat. But Uber's victory may not mean much in the long run, because the first self-driving Lyft vehicles probably aren't far behind. 

Back in May, Lyft executives told The Wall Street Journal that the company would begin its own pilot self-driving program in an unnamed American city "within a year."

That program is expected to use electric Chevrolet Bolts equipped with the latest version of GM's self-driving technology, which is believed to have made significant advances since GM's acquisition of self-driving start-up Cruise Automation.

It's possible GM isn't quite ready to put its technology to the test with real Lyft passengers. It's also possible the partners are simply waiting for Chevy Bolts: GM's first long-range electric car won't be in full production for another couple of months. 

Still, GM has hinted that some of the first production Bolts are destined for ride-hailing and car-sharing duties. It's possible Lyft's own pilot program will be up and running before long.

The upshot: Another step toward Uber's long-awaited IPO?

Investors have eagerly awaited a chance to buy shares of Uber on the open market. In recent months, we've seen some signs that Uber is gearing up for its long-awaited offering -- most significantly that it unloaded its money-torching China business. 

This self-driving pilot program might be another sign. It may be Kalanick's way of showing potential investors that Uber's self-driving research program isn't just talk, but rather something that can and will lead to a major shift in its business. It's just a tiny pilot program for now, but you don't have to squint too hard to see the future from here. 

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NOW WATCH: The world’s largest pyramid is not in Egypt

I went to college nine hours away from home — easily doable in a day's drive, but tedious nonetheless.

On one trip through the cornfields of Indiana, I remember turning to my friend wondering why we hadn't figured out cruise control for steering wheels. I had already been cruising at a steady 70 m.p.h. for hours with my feet on the floor. Why did I have to touch the steering wheel to keep it in the lines too?

Less than six years later, the answer is that I don't have to touch the steering wheel anymore. Self-driving cars are here, and they're arriving faster than many predicted. 

The pace at which a self-driving car went from myth to reality has caused all sorts of problems, from a talent shortage in the field to a sudden arms race in trying to build the best self-driving car on the market. Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick called it"existential" for the company to develop its own driverless car technology. 

Yet, there's still a large distinction — and years of development — between the self-driving cars hitting the streets today and the driverless cars that we dream of in the future. Most "driverless" cars today still have a driver in the front seat. Teaching a car how to drive itself (even with a driver on hand) is just the important first step.

Dreams of driverless

It's hard not to be seduced by the images of driverless cars. 

Mercedes-Benz' concept car shows four seats all turned to face each other. Bentley's driverless dream comes with a holographic butler — a future staple for the high-end autonomous car. The Rolls-Royce has a two person couch with a giant TV where the driver normally sits.

Even Larry Page is rumored to be working on a flying car so we all finally get one step closer to"The Jetsons" future we've envisioned.

However, what's not acknowledged is just how hard it is to get cars to that point. When I asked Uber's Kalanick just what's holding truly driverless cars back, he laughed because there's just so much — and a lot of it just that the technology hasn't even been developed. A self-driving car shouldn't freak out at a four-way intersection or turn off every time it goes over a bridge.

To get in a self-driving car today, it feels like having cruise control, but for the whole car. The autopilot keeps the car's speed steady, it stays evenly inside the lines, and maintains the proper following distance. The only way to experience a self-driving car is to either own a Tesla or live in Pittsburgh and magically hail a self-driving Uber. 

After taking a ride in Otto's self-driving truck, I explained the experience to my 92-year-old grandmother as being in a plane: You have a licensed driver who does take off and landing, or in this case, getting onto the interstate, but then once it's clear, you just set it to autopilot.

While having "self-driving cars" in the hands in the public is a huge milestone, it's just the beginning in the path to full autonomy. 

Truly driverless cars remain years away — but still closer than you think. Ford, for example, plans to roll out its first fully autonomous cars for ride-sharing by 2021. Google is aiming for 2020, and Tesla is planning to make its vehicles part of car-sharing network once its cars are fully autonomous. 

The impacts of that will be widely felt. Merrill Lynch predicted in a 2015 report that driverless taxis like Ubers will make up 43% of new car sales by 2040. The Boston Consulting Group also wrote in a 2015 report that driverless taxi sales are bound to incline. The BCG predicts that 23% of global new car sales will come from driverless taxis by 2040, which will result in a decline in vehicle ownership in cities.

Before we get to driverless though, we need to perfect self-driving. To do that, that means putting real self-driving cars to the roads in a test. That's why they are here and happening now. Driverless will come next.

SEE ALSO: Uber is winning the driverless race, even though it isn't using its own cars — here's why

SEE ALSO: Here's the moment when I realized how miraculous self-driving technology really is

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NOW WATCH: We got a ride in a self-driving Uber — here's what it was like

Uber CEO and cofounder Travis Kalanick has amassed a huge net worth thanks to the success of the ride-hailing company, now valued at $69 billion.

But Kalanick says he's not living the high life just yet. In fact, he says he has yet to take anything off the table by cashing out shares.

"A lot of people don't know, I've never sold a single Uber share," Kalanick told the crowd at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit on Wednesday.

He noted that he is still paying the mortgage on his house.  

China decision

Kalanick shared some stats about the ride-hailing company, which ranks as one of the most richly valued private tech companies and is considered a top IPO candidate by Wall Street.

Uber now has 40 million monthly active paying riders around the world, and that it pays its drivers between $1.5 billion and $2 billion each month, according to Kalanick.

Uber's meteoric rise since its founding in 2009 has faced a challenge in China, a huge potential market from which Uber recently pulled back.

Kalanick acknowledged the difficulty of learning business in China, where the government is actively involved in business. "You have to be humble," he said, and almost learn how to be Chinese, or "you'll get your ass handed to you."

But he defended Uber's deal with Chinese rival Didi, in which the company merged its Chinese operations with Didi in exchange for a 20% stake in the company.

"We invested $2 billion, and it's very clear it's worth at least 7, maybe even 10...that's a good return in 2 years' time," Kalanick said.

Some of the conversation focused on Uber's new push into self-driving cars, and it sounds as if Uber is still figuring out how they'll operate. For instance, in response to a question about how a rider would take the wheel in case of a navigation system failure, Kalanick said "Who says there'll be a wheel?" Similarly, he hinted that Uber isn't planning to own and operate the fleet of self-driving cars, but would probably lease or sell them to drivers, as it leases regular cars to drivers today.

Kalanick also said that he no longer has a working car — his car's in the garage with a broken alternator — and an expired driver's license.  

SEE ALSO: AOL founder Steve Case says Silicon Valley's dominance is coming to an end

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NOW WATCH: Google just unveiled the Pixel — its first smartphone

Uber has launched a new project to bring flying cars to commuters by 2026. 

The company published a white paper today outlining its plans for Uber Elevate, a network of on-demand electric aircraft. Known as VTOL aircraft — short for Vertical Take-Off and Landing — the aircraft would be used to shorten commute times in busy cities, turning a two-hour drive into a 15-minute trip. 

According to a piece out from Wired on the new plans, Uber doesn't plan to build the aircraft themselves. The ride-hailing company will bring together private companies and the government to deal with the larger issues of making this project a reality, Wired reports. 

The vehicles would be able to travel at about 150 mph for up to 100 miles and carry multiple people, including a pilot, according to Wired. While the first vehicles will be ready by 2021, the expected roll-out date is 2026.

The military already uses VTOL technology for its own aircraft. The planes rise in the air like helicopters but are still capable of flying at high speeds. Here's what it looks like when one of aircraft takes off, courtesy of Lockheed Martin:

Uber says the project will have "significant cost advantages" over other modes of solving transportation problems, like building new roads, bridges, or tunnels. The company suggests parking garages and helipads could be repurposed to be used as "vertipods" and "vertistops." Uber says that since the planes don't need to follow set routes, it would help avoid congestion and improve commute times. Eventually, the planes will be self-flying. 

While these types of vertical take-off aircraft might sound similar to helicopters, Uber argues that the planes would have key advantages over helicopters: since they'll be electric, the planes would have zero emissions, and they'll be significantly less noisy than helicopters. Uber also believes the planes will one day be less expensive to use than owning a car. 

Uber isn't the only tech company looking into the technology for commercial use. Alphabet CEO Larry Page reportedly invests in a company called Zee.Aero, which also wants to build a "flying car" that can take off and land vertically without a runway. One of Zee.Aero's prototype planes was spotted at an airport earlier this week. Airbus also plans to fly a full-size prototype before the end of 2017. 

SEE ALSO: The military is building a plane that can fly vertically like a helicopter and doesn't need a pilot

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NOW WATCH: How the ‘perfect body’ for men has changed over the last 150 years

If you haven't been paying careful attention, you might have missed that Tesla has been eclipsed by Uber as the most interesting company in the world.

Don't get me wrong: Tesla is still very, very interesting.

But Uber has captured the startup Zeitgeist in the same way that Tesla did a decade ago and ridden that wave to a $60 billion-plus valuation, while Tesla has to content itself with a mere $30 billion market cap.

Electric cars are just so 2010. In 2016, ride-sharing is the New New Thing, and everyone in the transportation business is trying to figure out if Uber can combine ride-hailing with the New New Things — self-driving cars — and establish a mind-warping paradigm shift.

This is why Uber's debut of an experimental self-driving fleet of cars in Pittsburgh was such a big deal. If Uber can scale that idea, it would have the potential to monopolize on how billions of people worldwide get from point A to point B for next hundred years. Travis Kalanick's startup would rapidly advance beyond being just a tech'd-up taxi service.

There would suddenly be far fewer justifications for owning a vehicle.

A Muskian mood swing

Tesla CEO Elon Musk formerly was not all that hot on the whole de-ownership concept for two reasons.

First, it didn't make intellectual sense to him — he saw people sharing their living spaces through Airbnb, but like a lot of people in the car business, he didn't think that widespread car-sharing was going to displace the conventional ownership model.

Second, Tesla is deeply invested in the ownership model. It needs customers to be willing to go into debt to finance its expensive electric vehicles. Even a cheaper mass-market EV such as the Model 3 will require a car loan or some type of lease — customers simply aren't going to have $35,000 in cash lying around.

But Musk is nothing if not adaptable, and he knows that Tesla's decade of mindshare dominance could be coming to an end. Tesla has 500,000 vehicles to build in 2018, and Musk understands that it's not possible to shift away from the premise that Tesla would produce EVs and then sell them — the business model wouldn't tolerate it.

I think he's probably been losing a bit of sleep over Uber's ascent and its recent, rather stunning self-driving rollout. So he and his team have had to come up with a way to diversify Tesla into some sort of quasi-de-ownership business to avoid being steamrolled.

In this context it's worth noting that Uber is unencumbered by Tesla's commitment to EVs — Uber vehicles could be powered by anything. So Kalanick has flexibility where Musk doesn't.

The Tesla Network

The solution for Tesla is economic, and it's called the Tesla Network.

After Tesla reported third-quarter earnings and its first profit in three years this week, Musk was asked during the company's earnings call about the Network, which is what the company will likely call a car-sharing network for owners.

Here's the exchange between Musk and Dougherty analyst Charlie Anderson (emphasis added):

Anderson:"Is it something that will generate income for Tesla? Does it help develop future products, etc., at a reasonable gross margin? Or is it something that you'll use more for market share gain, help people offset the price of the car long term?"

Musk:"I think it's a bit of both, really. This would be something that would be a significant offset on the cost of ownership of a car and then a revenue generator for Tesla as well. Obviously, the majority of the economics would go to the owner of the car. Sometimes it's been characterized as Tesla versus Uber or Lyft or something like that. It's not Tesla versus Uber; it's the people versus Uber."

That last bit has been, I think, erroneously characterized as fighting words — a verbal salvo fired from the cannons of that stout old battleship the USS Elon Musk across the pirate bow of the upstart privateer Travis Kalanick.

That's a misinterpretation of Musk's thinking, if you ask me.

What Musk was really getting at was the lost value that almost all car owners endure because their vehicles sit idle most of the time. If you buy a $100,000 Tesla Model S, you make payments on the car but might use it for only an hour or two per day. All it does it lose you money.

The Tesla Network would enable you to use Tesla's forthcoming advanced Autopilot features to permit someone else to "rent" your car while you're aren't driving it. An unproductive — and depreciating — asset could become a productive one.

You would have to deal with additional wear and tear, not to mention the sanitary habits of borrowers — and, of course, a lot of people who spend a hundred grand on a high-tech luxury car are going to have no interest in letting someone borrow it. But you'd be a leg up on how Uber wants you to operate, without even an idle asset to monetize.

A necessary compromise

That's what I believe Musk meant by his "the people versus Uber" comment. (I reached out to Tesla for clarification, but it's busy right now, so I'll update this post if and when I hear back.) The people are Tesla customers who could own a car that they could use on the Tesla Network — Tesla would make them economic players in a way that using Uber wouldn't.

It's obvious that Musk has been grappling with a way to change his mind on ride-sharing/ride-hailing/de-ownership as the market shifts around him. The Tesla Network sounds like a reasonable way to get in on the new action without ruining Tesla's bread and butter, now and for the future: selling cars, and lots of them.

Because the solution is a compromise, I would hesitate to label it brilliant. But as our most recent Nobel laureate in literature once put it, the times, they are a-changin'.

And Musk is no enemy of change.

SEE ALSO: The Nissan 370Z Nismo Tech is the definition of predictable excellence in a sports car

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NOW WATCH: A 13-year-old kid explains why Tesla is the best car

Uber's goal has always been to make it easy to push a button and get a ride. 

That was simple in 2010 when it first launched with only a black car service. Six years later, Uber offers users rides with UberPool, UberX, UberBlack, UberSUV, UberXL, and UberAccess — and that's not even naming all of the kinds of rides it offers. 

The wealth of choices has become a burden in the current version of Uber's app, especially for new users who don't know the difference between the various types of rides.

"Honestly if you’re using this, you can’t even tell what is Select, what is Access. Is Access a VIP service? Well actually what it is, is a wheel chair disability service," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told reporters during a briefing at Uber headquarters this week. "We needed a new system to deal with the growing set of features that were sort of piling up on the older design."

On Wednesday, the ride-hailing company is unveiling a totally revamped version of its app that not only moves it closer to just pushing a button to get a ride, but one that also lays the groundwork for what could unlock a big new revenue stream for the company as it moves closer to a much-anticipated public stock offering.

Unlocking destinations

The new Uber app opens with a simple question: Where to?

Much like Facebook or Twitter start status updates with a question, Uber's prompt makes a user input their destination first and foremost because everything in the app now entirely revolves around it. 

Once it knows your destination, the app lays out how much it will cost with each ride option — UberX, UberPool, etc — and the difference in arrival times. 

Uber is also doing a lot more guess work upfront in predicting where you want to go based on how you've used the app before. If you're hailing a ride in the morning to go to work, Uber might suggest your office address first if it's picked up a pattern of use.

The new app is also going to be the first to integrate with a phone's calendar (with a user's permission) to show the address of the user's next meeting without having to copy paste it into the destination field.

Even better, if you're trying to meet up with a group of friends one evening, the app can search your contacts for the name of one friend in the group (again with permission), figure out the group's location temporarily and direct the Uber driver to meet up with them wherever they are — no need to send text messages to your friends inquiring about their current whereabouts.

"So many apps we use, I don’t know if it’s like Snapchat or Facebook or different messenger products or Google etc., they’re in the business of actually taking a little slice of time away from you and selling that time and selling that attention," Kalanick said. "Uber has a more unique business model in that our job is to give time back. We want to take the most valuable resource that we have and give it back to people."

Uber's new 'in-flight entertainment'

While a speedier and easier to understand app should help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, Uber is also overhauling its app with entirely new services — thanks to the destination info it now gets upfront from riders. 

Instead of staring at a map on a phone the whole ride, Uber passengers will now have what the company calls an Uber Feed, information that's tailored to fit an individual's ride, on their app.

For example, if someone is en route to a restaurant, Uber has partnered with Yelp to display recommendations for some of the best dishes in the app. If a rider is headed to a train station, then the transit schedule will pop up and tell them how soon the next departure is. 

It's meant to be fun even if the person is running late. There's an exclusive Snapchat filter riders can unlock with information about their ETA so they can tell their friends in a more entertaining way that they're running late. 

Uber is also building UberEATS into the feed so a user on the way home can see what restaurants are available to deliver and exactly how long it will take them to deliver your food. These aren't just generic calculations of 45-50 minutes though. Since Uber knows how long a passenger will be in the car, it will show in the app exactly how long after they get home the food will arrive.

"If you're really lucky, you can time it so that you and your burrito arrive at your doorstep at the exact same time," Yamashita said. 

While simultaneously arriving at the same time as dinner is a fun and useful feature, having a destination and knowing an individual's time in the car unlocks what could be a potential revenue stream for the company: advertising. 

While Uber has denied that it's getting into the ads business, it's not a stretch to imagine that this new Uber feed could one day have coupons for the restaurant near where a customer is headed to or a discount code for the museum that a tourist is about to visit. Since Uber also knows how long a passenger will be in the car, it could also show its captive audience movie trailers if they're headed to a theater. 

By having information about both the passenger, their destination, and a determined set of minutes, Uber could finally be the company that wins location-based advertising — something Foursquare tried to do by offering coupons for check-ins but never quite turned into a sustainable business. 

For now though, there are no plans to show advertising, and the partnerships Uber has struck are meant to be information added for its riders, not extra dollars in its pocket. It's easy to see though how Uber could turn on another revenue stream in the future should it need to boost its business ahead of going public. 

"We ask you for your destination because we want you to get there as fast as possible, but we want to do more than just get you to your destination," Yamashita said. "We want to make sure that the trip as well as your arrival is special as well."

The new version of the app will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks.

SEE ALSO: As Silicon Valley vilifies Peter Thiel for his support of Trump, one group of techies is defending him

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NOW WATCH: We got a ride in a self-driving Uber — here's what it was like

Uber is bringing in Liane Hornsey, a longtime VP at Google and current operating partner at SoftBank, to be its new Chief HR Officer.

The move gives Uber a seasoned executive with public company experience to help manage the $66 billion ride-hailing service's rapidly swelling ranks and to guide it through the various challenges facing startups as they evolve into giant businesses.

Travis Kalanick announced the hiring in an email to Uber employees on Friday, calling her "one of the most sought-after 'people people' in the world," according to a source inside the ride-hailing company.

Uber confirmed Hornsey's hire to Business Insider, but declined further comment. SoftBank and Hornsey didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The opening at Uber, one of the fastest-growing companies in tech, became available in July when its former head of HR Renee Atwood left to join Twitter. Atwood had been at the company from when it was 605 employees to more than 5,000. 

Hornsey, though, brings in experience of running human resources at a large, public company — something Uber will need as it matures into a company with IPO potential.

Hornsey's LinkedIn shows she had spent nine years at Google as its Vice President of Global People Operations before she moved to being a VP on the sales side, reporting to Nikesh Arora. 

She followed Arora to SoftBank International in September 2015 to be its Chief Administrative Officer and operating partner, helping other startups with their HR needs. Arora left his position in June 2016, and now Hornsey's departure follows nearly six months after. Hornsey will start at Uber in January.

SEE ALSO: Uber’s bankers wouldn't give private investors revenue or income, calling it a useless ‘obsession with incremental information’

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Uber employees have access to customer trip information, and they're using it to spy on ex-girlfriends and celebrities like Beyoncé, a former employee claims.

A new piece out from Reveal's Will Evans details Uber's history with security and privacy. The story cites the experience of Ward Spangenberg, Uber's former forensic investigator who was fired from the company last February. Spangenberg is suing Uber, alleging wrongful termination, defamation, and age discrimination.

In a stunning October court declaration, Spangenberg alleges that Uber employees freely accessed trip information about celebrities and politicians and helped one another spy on ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends by tracking where and when they traveled. Spangenberg, who worked at Uber for 11 months, said the company's lack of security violated consumer-privacy and data-protection regulations.

Reveal spoke with five former Uber employees who also said employees could easily track customers — they estimated the number of employees with such access was in the thousands.

'You could get away with it forever'

Earlier this year, Uber signed an "assurance of discontinuance"vowing to keep its users' personal information private after the New York attorney general began investigating the company's use of a tool called "God View." The tool provided Uber an aerial view of all of the cars in a city and contained the personal information of the riders in them.

As part of the settlement, Uber said it had "removed all personally identifiable information of riders from its system that provides an aerial view of cars active in a city, has limited employee access to personally identifiable information of riders, and has begun auditing employee access to personally identifiable information in general."

Reveal reports that Uber also changed the name of that tool to "Heaven View."

But the former employees Reveal spoke with suggested not much had changed since January and the new policies were never enforced. While employees who are caught tracking customer data without permission are fired, Spangenberg told Reveal that "if you knew what you were doing, you could get away with it forever."

Uber disputes the claims and maintains that it has strict policies in place to protect customer information.

"Uber continues to increase our security investments and many of these efforts, like our multi-factor authentication checks and bug bounty program, have been widely reported," an Uber representative wrote in a statement emailed to Business Insider. "We have hundreds of security and privacy experts working around the clock to protect our data. This includes enforcing strict policies and technical controls to limit access to user data to authorized employees solely for purposes of their job responsibilities, and all potential violations are quickly and thoroughly investigated."

Uber says employees don't receive across-the-board access to customer data and there are several controls in place to ensure that employees only access that data for work purposes. That data access is logged and frequently audited, the company says.

Reveal delves further into the case and Uber's privacy and security issues over the past few years, so head over to Reveal's site for more.

SEE ALSO: Uber settles investigation into 'God View' tool

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NOW WATCH: Uber is redesigning their app for the first time since 2012 — here's what is changing