Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, has emerged from an eight-year stealth period to launch a new robotics company named Atoms. This venture is set to operate in the food, mining, and transportation industries, with Kalanick integrating his existing ghost kitchen company, CloudKitchens, into Atoms. The company's strategy revolves around developing a "wheelbase for robots," a standardized mobility platform that can be adapted for various industrial tasks, rather than focusing on humanoid robots. Kalanick emphasized the efficiency of specialized robots for industrial-scale operations.
Atoms' expansion into mining and autonomous transport is underscored by its impending acquisition of Pronto, an autonomous vehicle startup founded by Kalanick's former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick revealed he is already Pronto's largest investor. This move indicates a renewed focus on self-driving technology, with Kalanick reportedly aiming for a more aggressive rollout than competitors like Waymo, and he previously expressed regret over Uber abandoning its own self-driving car development.
The company has been operating under the radar for eight years, with thousands of employees not allowed to disclose their affiliation on professional networking sites. Kalanick stated that this stealth approach fostered a culture of dedicated builders who prioritized innovation over public recognition. While CloudKitchens gained some public visibility, the broader robotics ambitions and the parent entity, City Storage Systems, remained largely secret, which Kalanick attributes to the need for a long development runway in a capital-intensive hardware sector.
