Travis Kalanick Gets a New Role

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Travis Kalanick's dramatic fall from Uber has a potential happy ending. Kalanick has joined the board of health company startup Kareo, run by Dan Rodrigues. Kalanick was an angel investor in Kareo, and he and Rodrigues founded a music company in the late 1990s.

Rodrigues announced the appointment in an email to Kareo employees:

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I’m very excited to have Travis join our board. He is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation. He has not only scaled a high-growth company, but transformed an entire industry. Travis and I have a long-standing relationship that goes back more than 20 years. We were classmates at UCLA and co-founders at Scour, a peer-to- peer search engine company in the late 90’s. Travis made an early-stage investment in Kareo in 2009. He has been an enthusiastic believer in our vision since our inception and he is excited to work with us more directly to bring innovation to healthcare and help us reach our goals for market leadership.

This is Kalanick's first venture after being ousted from Uber and is encouraging for leaders who have experienced failure. He has been quiet on Twitter since January but tweeted the good news and highlighted his relationship with Rodrigues.

 

Discussion:

  • What other examples do you know of fallen leaders getting a second chance? Will we see this for Harvey Weinstein?
  • Assess the email to Kareo employees. What does the CEO want to accomplish? How well does the message meet these objectives?
  • How much do you think the friendship between Kalanick and Rodrigues factors into his board assignment? Why would Rodrigues emphasize their relationship in his email?