Travis Kalanick doesn’t have a stellar reputation.
The co-founder of Uber has been criticized for ignoring sexual harassment allegations and treating his employees like soulless widgets.
I don’t how accurate these allegations are, although in my experience, I’ve never met a CEO worth more than $4 billion that didn’t have some serious “asshole” baggage. But I”m not here to attack Kalanick.
If karma is real, he’ll get his.
Although for the record, I think karma is a load of shit. If there was any truth to karma, Jeff Sessions would be in a maximum security prison, bunked up with a black dude who’s doing 10 years after getting caught with a dime bag.
In any event, while I’m no fan of folks who turn blind eyes to sexual harassment, I can’t deny that Kalanick’s latest venture sounds pretty sweet.
A Social Good
According to Bloomberg, Travis Kalanick is buying a controlling stake in a real estate company called City Storage Systems, which redevelops distressed retail, parking and industrial real estate.
I’m a big fan of this kind of work as it offers a social good as well as an economic one.
Being from Baltimore, I’ve seen first-hand what abandoned real estate can do to communities.
So kudos to Kalanick for ponying up $150 million to get some of this action, and installing himself as CEO, which will likely bring some big money to the table.
Kalanick tweeted the following message about his latest venture …
Say what you want about Kalanick, but the dude’s pretty smart, and he knows how to build a successful company. Maintaining a successful company may have been his downfall at Uber, but I suspect that any mistakes he made at the ride-sharing giant will not likely be repeated at City Storage Systems.
I, for one, am rooting for City Storage Systems.
There’s a lot of distressed real estate assets that could successfully be rehabilitated. According to Kalanick, more than $10 trillion worth. That’s one hell of an opportunity to do well by doing good.
