Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the company in 2017, still stands to make billions in the company’s initial public offering, expected in May. The ride-hailing giant dropped its S-1 this afternoon, confirming plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “UBER.” The company did not disclose the valuation it’s seeking but is said to be planning to sell around $10 billion in stock. The filing highlights Uber’s key stockholders, including Kalanick, who owns 8.6 percent of the company’s pre-IPO shares valued at roughly $9 billion, assuming an initial market cap of $100 billion. Uber has raised nearly $20 billion in a combination of debt and equity funding, making it the most well-capitalized pre-IPO business ever. Its IPO will make history as the eighth largest debut in U.S. history, Axios reports. According to the filing, the SoftBank Vision Fund owns 16.3 percent of pre-IPO shares. Its remaining largest shareholders include Benchmark (11 percent), Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s startup studio Expa (6 percent), Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (5.3 percent) and Alphabet (5.2 percent). Uber’s early stakeholders, though not mentioned in the filing, will undoubtedly make a lot of money on the IPO, too. That includes Menlo Ventures, Lowercase Capital and First Round Capital, as well as a bunch of individual investors.<doc-sep>Ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s stake in the ride-hailing giant he co-founded a decade ago, which went public Friday, is now worth more than $5 billion. The company set its IPO price at $45 a share Thursday, at the low end of its target range, after a dismal showing of by its biggest rival, Lyft, on public markets so far. Uber co-founders Kalanick, Garrett Camp and Ryan Graves were on hand at the New York Stock Exchange as CEO Dara Khosrowshahi rang the opening bell to kick off the day’s trading. Uber opened below at $42, below its IPO price. When asked how by CNBC how he felt Friday morning, Camp — who came up with the idea for Uber — said simply, “I’m glad it worked out.” Kalanick, who was forced to step down as chief executive of Uber two years ago, remains on the San Francisco company’s board. He has an 8.6 percent stake in Uber. Graves and Camp also remain on the board and have sizable stakes in the company. Kalanick was ousted in June 2017 after a series of Uber-related scandals. In February of that year, former company engineer Susan Fowler published an essay accusing Uber of doing nothing in response to her allegation of sexual harassment. That was followed by other news reports and public accusations of harassment, racism, sexism and homophobia at the company. Uber also reportedly was using a tool to evade law enforcement, and a leaked email showed Kalanick addressing sex between employees and warning workers of a “puke charge” during a company trip. Amid all the company’s culture-related scandals, Google spinoff Waymo accused Uber of stealing its self-driving vehicle trade secrets. The two companies settled in 2018 for about $245 million in Uber equity, so Waymo also stands to benefit from Uber’s IPO. In early June, after months of bad press, Uber fired 20 employees for various reasons. Kalanick stepped down at the request of the board a couple of weeks later. Related Articles Uber IPO falls flat in worst first-day showing of tech unicorns this year Uber drivers strike, protest ahead of company’s IPO Uber prices shares for IPO, which could value it at up to $84 billion Kalanick is now CEO of City Storage Systems, a Los Angeles-based holding company that repurposes distressed real estate properties. Its holdings include CloudKitchens, which provides kitchen-rental services for restaurants and food brands — and is a partner of UberEats, Khosrowshahi tweeted in March. Here’s how other Uber players with the biggest stakes in the company made out, based on the company’s IPO pricing:<doc-sep>Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, May 10, and I’m writing from Los Angeles. Come mid-morning, Travis Kalanick will officially have more money than you or I could spend in a lifetime. The dethroned Uber CEO was already a billionaire, but when the company he co-founded goes public on the New York Stock Exchange this morning, he is expected to walk away with roughly $5 billion. For context, that’s more than the GDPs of a few dozen countries, and enough money to provide Medicaid for approximately 1.4 million Americans. But the famously short-fused co-founder won’t have one thing he wants: a spot on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange as the opening bell is rung. Advertisement Kalanick’s being barred from that iconic, bell-ringing balcony has been the topic of frenzied speculation in the media, but we should have seen it coming. When Kalanick’s successor, current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, was interviewing for the job, Khosrowshahi showed Uber’s board a PowerPoint presentation that reportedly included a slide with the words “There can be only one CEO at a time.” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in September 2018. (Richard Drew / AP) (See also: “Whatever happened to ousted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick?” in the L.A. Times) It definitely seems there can only be one Uber CEO at a time on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange. Per a New York Times report, Kalanick will likely be in the building, but relegated to the comparatively plebeian trading floor. Quite a fall from grace for a man whose hard-charging vision rewrote the future of transportation as we know it. For a long time, Kalanick’s narrative arc at Uber appeared to only soar upward, even as scandals piled in his wake. He fundamentally altered mobility in American cities and, for or better or worse, helped pioneer a gig economy where anyone with a smartphone could monetize the station wagon in their garage and be an entrepreneur in their downtime, albeit with no guarantee of ever earning a living wage. Kalanick was the kind of alpha bro empire-builder who’d been coding since before he had chest hair and who might unironically quote “Braveheart” to a reporter in reference to his own ascent. As a San Fernando Valley teen, he hawked Cutco knife sets door to door in his suburban neighborhood and later, while hustling at a failed pre-Uber venture, famously slept in a rented Toyota Sienna and bathed in casino bathrooms to attend the big-deal annual Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. He feared neither municipal governments nor taxi boards, and could seemingly bend the world to his will. Forget the “asking for forgiveness, not permission” model: Pillaging and flooding the market defined his playbook. He slashed-and-burned his way through local regulations, court injunctions, cease-and-desist orders and all manner of PR disasters. But eventually all those scandals caught up to him, and Kalanick was forced to resign in June 2017. Advertisement (See also: “The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought” in Bloomberg Businessweek) Since Khosrowshahi (the guy who will probably be ringing that all-important bell) was hired in September 2017, Uber has been working overtime to distance itself from Kalanick. Take the IPO prospectus, which was released last month ahead of the filing and includes the line “It’s a new day at Uber.” For Uber, effectively illustrating that new day “means indirectly indicting the era of Travis Kalanick,” according to Business Insider. The 300-page document mentions Kalanick’s name 13 times, but he’s primarily there to serve “as a punching bag,” according to that Business Insider analysis. No one, it seems, is made entirely of Teflon. Not even the empire builders. Advertisement And now, here’s what’s happening across California: TOP STORIES Gov. Gavin Newsom sent California lawmakers a revised budget Thursday that shows he wants to double spending on homelessness, to $1 billion. Los Angeles Times South L.A. was promised a Target. Millions of dollars later, it has a vacant lot. This investigation looks at developer promises, political donations and how a shopping center aimed at revitalizing Crenshaw Boulevard became the project from hell. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Get the Essential California newsletter » L.A. STORIES Mystery still surrounds the more than a thousand guns seized from a sprawling Bel-Air mansion, but a new twist has emerged: the home, which authorities describe as “a hoarder’s paradise,” belongs to Cynthia Beck, a woman who has three daughters with J. Paul Getty’s son Gordon Getty. Los Angeles Times (See also: “Gordon Getty’s second family was an open secret,” a 1999 story from the L.A. Times) Advertisement A tray of hot chicken tenders at Hotties Nashville Hot Chicken in Chino Hills. (Silvia Razgova / Los Angeles Times) Nashville hot chicken is taking over Los Angeles. Jenn Harris explores the history of L.A.’s hot chicken craze. Los Angeles Times Laker fans are planning to hold a protest outside Staples Center on Friday to voice their frustration with the team’s front office. Bleacher Report Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. Advertisement IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER Homeland Security officials are making it tougher for people seeking asylum to get over the first hurdle in the lengthy process of gaining U.S. protection, according to a recently obtained memo. Los Angeles Times POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT In the race for 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg spent the last few days in Los Angeles, squabbling over Hollywood’s top donors. Deadline Advertisement CRIME AND COURTS An annual fundraiser festival for a tiny charter school in a Northern California town was cancelled after online conspiracy theorists latched onto an unrelated tweet from James Comey. The conspiracy theorists became convinced that Comey’s tweet (which, in actuality, was just the former FBI director’s version of the popular “Five Jobs I’ve Had” meme) was a coded reference to a terror attack planned for the annual day of kids’ games, music and food in the Sierra foothills. Sacramento Bee Michael Jackson’s final days will be probed in a courtroom next week, when a lawsuit brought seven years ago by the late singer’s mysterious ex-manager finally goes to trial. The Hollywood Reporter THE ENVIRONMENT Advertisement California is moving to ban chlorpyrifos, a widely-used agricultural pesticide that’s said to be harmful to the farmers who spray it and children who eat foods that contain it. San Francisco Chronicle CALIFORNIA CULTURE When the “Twitter tax break” took effect eight years ago, it was intended to draw tech companies to San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood and lead to revitalization. This series looks at the evolution of the street, the effect on real estate, and the benefits that flowed — or didn’t — to the city and its people. San Francisco Chronicle A haunting narrative look at two families’ experiences with the Chabad of Poway shooting. Desert Sun Advertisement Plus: Rabbi Raziel Cohen, aka the “Tactical Rabbi,” is part of a growing cottage industry of religious security experts in Southern California. Los Angeles Times Today’s Old Oakland was originally built up as the town’s downtown after the coming of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870s. Here’s a story about the long and winding history of Old Oakland, and a young architect who embarked on a more than decade-long effort to prevent the buildings from being destroyed. KQED A weekend guide to the murals and mules of Bishop. Los Angeles Times Richard Nixon’s former Western White House in San Clemente could be yours for $57.5 million. Los Angeles Times Advertisement CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles: partly sunny, 69. San Diego: partly sunny, 67. San Francisco: partly sunny, 66. San Jose: partly sunny, 75. Sacramento: sunny, 86. More weather is here. AND FINALLY San Francisco has only one drawback. ’Tis hard to leave. Rudyard Kipling Advertisement If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.<doc-sep>
Travis Kalanick built Uber in his own image. Under his leadership, the company smashed into markets, flouting local transportation rules, circumventing law enforcement and clashing with regulators as it grew into the world’s biggest ride-hailing business. His brash style was seen as the reason for Uber’s rise and his own undoing in 2017 when, after a series of scandals, Kalanick was forced to resign under pressure from investors. Since Kalanick was pushed out, Uber has been working hard to tidy its reputation and appear more subdued and well-behaved. New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has worked hard to move beyond Kalanick’s legacy, doing away with his predecessor’s 14 company tenets, replacing principles such as “super pumped” and “always be hustlin’” with credos such as “we do the right thing” and “we persevere.” But as Uber prepares for its much-anticipated initial public offering, Kalanick isn’t out of the picture by any stretch. He still sits on Uber’s board and holds an 8.6% stake in the company, accounting for about 117.5 million shares, according to the IPO filing. If the company debuts as expected with shares priced somewhere between $44 and $50, his holdings would amount to more than $5 billion. Kalanick plans to be at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday when the company begins trading on public markets, but the co-founder won’t be on the balcony when Khosrowshahi rings the opening bell — he’ll be on the floor. Kalanick wanted to be on the balcony with his father in tow when the bell was rung, according to the New York Times, but Khosrowshahi rejected his request. Khosrowshahi and others in the company reportedly considered Kalanick a liability and wanted to keep him at arm’s length. The company said the plan was always for drivers and early employees to stand with Khosrowshahi on the podium, according to The Times. Both Uber and a spokesperson for Kalanick declined to comment, citing regulatory rules prohibiting promotional efforts ahead of an IPO. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kalanick dropped out of UCLA in 1998 to work full time on his start-up called Scour, which allowed people to virtually share music and media files. (The company was sued and eventually filed for bankruptcy.) Kalanick founded Uber with his friend Garrett Camp and Ryan Graves (who got his job by tweeting at Kalanick) in San Francisco in 2009. At the time it was called UberCabs, but the company dropped “Cabs” from its name after receiving a cease-and-desist order from city authorities in 2010. “We just wanted to push a button and get a ride,” he said at a Business Insider conference in 2013. “And we wanted to get a classy ride. We wanted to be baller in San Francisco. That’s all it was about.” After his departure from Uber, Kalanick set up an investment fund and purchased for $150 million a controlling stake in the real estate company City Storage Systems, a move that made him the firm’s chief executive. Kalanick has worked quietly on one of its holdings, CloudKitchens, a Los Angeles-based venture that primarily focuses on kitchen rental services — like WeWork but for kitchen space. CloudKitchens has been ramping up: It already works with brands in Los Angeles such as Sweetgreen and Canter’s Deli, and plans to open shop in San Francisco and Chicago, Bloomberg reports. In March 2018, when Kalanick tweeted about his investment fund, he said its overarching theme would be “large-scale job creation, with investments in real estate, e-commerce, and emerging innovation in China and India.” The South China Morning Post reported in February that Kalanick also plans to bring CloudKitchens to China. CloudKitchens and Uber could compete, should Uber Eats make further inroads in the “virtual restaurant” business. But Khosrowshahi last year tweeted congratulations to Kalanick, calling CloudKitchens a “super-interesting partner of @UberEats.”