The Rise and Fall of Travis Kalanick... And His Return With Atoms

Ejaaz: Just last week, one of the most controversial founders in tech history broke eight years of silence. Ejaaz: His name is Travis Kalanick, and he is the person who built Uber into a $70 billion company. Ejaaz: He got forced out in probably the most traumatic ousting since Steve Jobs, Ejaaz: and then totally vanished. Ejaaz: He was gone for eight years when he was secretly building this company in stealth Ejaaz: that was just unveiled this week called Atoms.

Ejaaz: He's already acquired a self-driving startup founded by the engineer who went Ejaaz: to prison for stealing Google's autonomous vehicle secrets. And Uber, Ejaaz: the company that kicked him out, is reportedly funding this whole thing. Ejaaz: So there's a lot of crazy chaos, interesting parts to this story. Ejaaz: One of the most interesting is the fact that thousands of employees were forbidden Ejaaz: to put their company name that they were working in on LinkedIn.

Ejaaz: There's a $15 billion valuation already reached in the dark. Ejaaz: They've raised $1.1 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Ejaaz: But no one actually knows what this company does until last week. Ejaaz: This is a crazy story about one of the most notable founders in Silicon Valley. Ejaaz: I think it's important to take a step back and really understand who this character Ejaaz: is at the core of this new company that's really important to the future.

Josh: Travis is one of those few founders where his backstory is actually...

Josh: Equally as exciting as the story that we're breaking on this episode today about his new company. Josh: This guy's lived and died by the sword multiple times and then was resurrected. Josh: He actually founded two startups before Uber that surged dramatically and then failed. Josh: I think the first company was called Scour. It was like a peer-to-peer network Josh: where you can have kind of file sharing systems.

Josh: So think of like Napster, but for like any kind of file system, Josh: kind of like LimeWire-esque, I guess. Josh: And he quickly got sued by a bunch of regulators for a quarter of a trillion dollars. Josh: Now, back then in 1998, that is a heck of a lot of money. $215 billion. Ejaaz: Today, that's a heck of a lot of money. Josh: Today, that's, I don't know, with all the AI CapEx stuff, maybe it's not.

Josh: Maybe my mind's been warped. But that is a lot of money for four 22-year-olds to be sued with. Josh: So he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. Josh: But he came back with the vengeance with his second company called Red Swoosh, Josh: which was pretty much a similar type of company, but aimed at a more professional market. Josh: Same thing kind of happened with them. They got sued, but they managed to get through it.

Josh: And then Google poached all of his engineers. It was just him, a one-man company. Josh: And so he was about to fall for bankruptcy before, get this, Josh: Mark Cuban makes an entrance, gets into an argument with Travis Kalanick online. Josh: He's so impressed by Travis's response that he gives him $1.8 million. Josh: Travis moves to Thailand and he lives there for a year and a half, Josh: cuts down costs and runs this company, ends up selling it and makes $2 million and moves to SF.

Ejaaz: Which is pretty good for someone in their early 20s. And this was the start Ejaaz: of a pretty unbelievable story. Ejaaz: I mean, in between this time and 2009, when he started Uber, he was also working. Ejaaz: There's a few funny stories that I like about Travis, one of which that I'd Ejaaz: like to tell briefly is the one with the Wii Tennis story, just to kind of understand Ejaaz: who this guy is. A famous investor named Chris Saka.

Ejaaz: And Chris Saka back in the day, Ejaaz: I mean, still is, but one of the most legendary investors in the world. Ejaaz: He was a seed round investor in Uber and he was hosting Travis for the weekend. Ejaaz: And Travis was woke up in the morning and was playing Wii Tennis with his dad. Ejaaz: Just for fun. His dad liked playing Wii Tennis. Ejaaz: That's when Wii was very popular. He was kind of kicking his dad's ass.

Ejaaz: He was getting a few points, but he was doing pretty well and he was playing Ejaaz: with his opposite hand and he wasn't really paying attention. Ejaaz: And then he switches over to his dominant hand and he starts playing seriously. Ejaaz: His dad doesn't score a point. Ejaaz: He moves over to the scoreboard and it turns out that Travis is number two in the world at Wii Tennis.

Ejaaz: And it's a testament to the type of founder that this person is, Ejaaz: that we're going to uncover throughout this episode, is just hyper fixated on Ejaaz: winning and success and being the absolute best at what he does. Ejaaz: And this reflected itself in Uber, which is where I think a lot of people can Ejaaz: pick up the story where they're familiar with. Ejaaz: In 2009, he founded Uber, which went to go on to become the biggest ride sharing Ejaaz: application in the world.

Ejaaz: And not only that, but created an entire sector of technology today that is ride sharing. Ejaaz: This simply did not exist prior to Uber's existence. Josh: And he kind of found or came across the idea for Uber as an accident after he Josh: sold his company read swoosh for and made two million dollars he moved to sf Josh: And he kind of started like the original incubator, which was just his apartment.

Josh: And he had founders like come through all the time. And one such guy he went Josh: to Paris with to go to a conference and they couldn't hail a black cap. Josh: So he ended up kind of like creating this idea around an app that can call a Josh: black car for you, not necessarily a cab driver. And that's what ended up becoming Uber. Josh: But where he kind of like really doubled down on with the company and as the

Josh: story goes was on like the regulatory arbitrage. So he just kept on hounding Josh: state regulators to allow them to legalize Uber because it was completely legal to start off with. Josh: And that's really how Uber became a massive boat. It's just a crazy, Josh: crazy story. But then... Josh: It ended up in him being ousted. Ejaaz: Yeah, so there's a few steps just before the ousting, one of which is an important Ejaaz: character in the store, which is Google.

Ejaaz: Google Ventures invested a quarter of a billion dollars in 2013 into Uber at Ejaaz: a three and a half billion dollar valuation, which at the time was a pretty big deal. Ejaaz: Briefly afterwards, around 2015, this is when Google was creating their self-driving project. Ejaaz: Travis was aware of this because of their connection, and this self-driving Ejaaz: project eventually is what became Waymo. Ejaaz: And Waymo was viewed as an existential threat. If cars can drive themselves.

Ejaaz: Uber doesn't need drivers, but neither does anyone else. Ejaaz: So whoever owns the autonomy owes us the future of transportation. Ejaaz: So this was an existential crisis they were having. Ejaaz: Travis goes ahead and he creates Uber's self-driving division in 2015. Ejaaz: This is where he recruits Anthony Lewandowski, who we mentioned earlier, Ejaaz: away from Google's self-driving program. Lewandowski was a founding member of what became Waymo.

Ejaaz: And with him, what he didn't know at the time was many documents that were actually Ejaaz: stolen from Google and Waymo and eventually wound up putting him in jail. Ejaaz: So this created a lot of chaos. Ejaaz: This was, I guess, the beginning of the chaos that really started around February Ejaaz: of 2017, where there was a blog post published that was detailing some not so Ejaaz: favorable activities in the workplace.

Ejaaz: There was a Waymo lawsuit where Waymo sued Uber, alleging that Lewandowski downloaded Ejaaz: 14,000 proprietary files, which turned out was loosely true. Ejaaz: And these were There's secret files about trade secrets from Waymo's autonomous vehicle history. Ejaaz: And then there is a series of videos that come out, one of which was dash cam Ejaaz: footage from Travis inside of an Uber driver being not so nice to the Uber driver.

Ejaaz: And there's just this really unfortunate cascading series of events that eventually Ejaaz: unfolds, like you mentioned, Ejaz. Ejaaz: He got kicked out of Uber. Josh: Yeah, so this headline says Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigns following months Josh: of chaos, the events that you just referenced.

Josh: But I don't think resigns is the right word here. In June of 2017, Josh: whilst Travis was interviewing someone to become a deputy head at Uber, Josh: two partners from Benchmark Capital, which were early and big investors in Uber, Josh: turned up at his hotel room, walked in, and hands him a draft resignation letter for him to sign. Josh: And they cite reasons of, we can't deal with the drama that you're creating, Josh: the fraud that is all over the media.

Josh: We need you to step down or it's going to ruin the success of the business. Josh: Now, they keep hounding him. And about a month later, they sue Kalanick for Josh: fraud. And it ends up becoming this whole thing which forces him to resign. Josh: And the most brutal part about this is it comes right after his mother died in a boating accident. Ejaaz: It's pretty messed up. He almost lost his dad in that same accident, Ejaaz: too. It was a really traumatic time for him.

Ejaaz: And he attended this board meeting two days after her funeral Ejaaz: and it's a six-hour board meeting it's this like horrific series Ejaaz: of events and you can't help but think that like bill Ejaaz: girley and the benchmark team were really just leveraging this really nasty Ejaaz: opportunity to impose their will on the company and then the day after uh travis Ejaaz: resigns bill girley he quit the uber board um so it was this really kind of

Ejaaz: messy thing it destroyed travis this at this point this was the absolute love of his life. Ejaaz: He had spent his life as a founder, finally found some unbelievable levels of Ejaaz: success, and then at the darkest moment of his life got kicked out of the most Ejaaz: important thing in his life. Ejaaz: So it's this really difficult, tough time.

Ejaaz: And Travis kind of goes dark for about nine months time where no one really hears from him. Ejaaz: And nine months later, he comes back very quietly in stealth and begins to work Ejaaz: on this company called Cloud Kitchens, or also known as City Storage Systems, Ejaaz: this weird unknown stealth company that was backed. Ejaaz: By the $2.5 billion that he had actually sold when he left Uber.

Ejaaz: He sold all of his stock, he cashed out, and now he has this treasure trove Ejaaz: of money that he could use to build the next thing. Ejaaz: The idea is that he takes this controlling share of this company named City Ejaaz: Storage Systems for $150 million. Ejaaz: He becomes CEO. They own Cloud Kitchens, and Cloud Kitchens is a company that buys real estate. Ejaaz: They build commercial ghost kitchens and then rents them to restaurant for delivery-only operations.

Ejaaz: So chances are, if you live in a major city and you've taken delivery from Chick-fil-A, Ejaaz: Taco Bell, a lot of these larger brands, they have come out of a cloud kitchen. Ejaaz: And the idea of a cloud kitchen is to automate the food delivery process. Ejaaz: So if you've ever used Uber Eats, you're familiar with Travis's engagement with Ejaaz: food delivery where Uber Eats is the food delivery version of Uber. Ejaaz: You take food from one place, you move it to another.

Ejaaz: Cloud Kitchens is the automated version of that. You basically try your hardest Ejaaz: to remove the people, the cost of labor from that loop, and you decrease the Ejaaz: cost of these goods to get as close to the pure cost as possible by automating everything. Ejaaz: So these cloud kitchens are totally automated. They have a lot of robots. Ejaaz: They have a lot of automation. Ejaaz: You order a bowl, the robot builds its bowl, and it ships it off to you.

Ejaaz: And it's a really effective, really efficient way of delivering food.

Ejaaz: And this was the first step in this redemption arc. But again, Ejaaz: this was all silent. He's building in stealth mode. Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's a recurring theme. With Travis, his entire goal with Uber Josh: and with this company, Cloud Kitchens, is he's trying to automate moving of Josh: atoms of things, which suggests what his new company is called.

Josh: He didn't tell anyone about this. I think his original investment was acquisition Josh: of a controlling stake in city storage systems was about 150 mil, Josh: didn't make any headlines. No one knew what the hell it was. Josh: And the concept itself, Cloud Kitchens, isn't something that you can kind of like visit publicly. Josh: Josh, actually, you told me a story where you tried to visit their site in Brooklyn, right?

Ejaaz: Yeah, I'm obsessed with Travis, like disgustingly so. I think he's one of the Ejaaz: best entrepreneurs of our time by far. Ejaaz: And I suspect a lot more people will realize this over the coming years as he Ejaaz: builds this new company, which we're almost getting to. Ejaaz: We're almost there at the new company. But part of this fascination is wanting Ejaaz: to get close to him and just wanting to see what that was like.

Ejaaz: So I was curious what it would look like to work at a company that Travis runs. Ejaaz: There is no way to actually apply to these places. They're outbound only because Ejaaz: they're totally in stealth. Ejaaz: So I'll stop by one of the kitchens to check it out. And of course, Ejaaz: it's a ghost kitchen. I mean, there's really, there's no one there. There's no markings. Josh: There's no branding.

Ejaaz: Just a bunch of robots hanging out, right? I mean, there are people, Ejaaz: but it is a very inconspicuous building. Ejaaz: There's not much going on. It's fascinating because as an outsider looking in, Ejaaz: there's really no signs that anything special is happening here. Ejaaz: Meanwhile, they've deployed over 2,000 kitchen locations across America, Ejaaz: and they're accounting for, I believe, 18% of all U.S. food delivery.

Ejaaz: And this was in 2024. So I'm assuming that number is going higher and higher and higher.

Ejaaz: And they've quietly built this like really impressive empire as it relates purely Ejaaz: to food. This is just one pillar of the new company. Josh: So let's get into the actual story about the company Atoms. Josh: So collectively, since he left Uber, Travis has been in stealth for about eight years now. Josh: And he's employed thousands and thousands of employees, presumably to work on Josh: this cloud kitchen thing, but no one really knows what he's doing.

Josh: They can't officially list their title or the company that they work for on Josh: their LinkedIn. So it's complete stealth mode for eight years. Josh: Now think about anyone else that can potentially hold that. Like he's getting everyone to sign NDAs. Josh: Like no one can really keep something hidden that large for that long, Josh: but Travis did end up doing it. Josh: Until Friday of last week where he announced his new company called Atoms.

Josh: And the vision is kind of simple or rather follows on from his founding of Uber and Cloud Kitchens. Josh: He wants to do what he did with Uber. He wants to do what he did with food to Josh: every single part of physical delivery that exists in the world today. Josh: And he's gonna focus on three specific verticals. He's gonna focus on the mining industry. Josh: He's gonna focus on the food industry. That's with Cloud Kitchens,

Josh: what he's rebranded it to Food Atoms. and he's going to do it with automotive transport. Josh: And the company follows a framework of three specific steps to figure out which Josh: industry and how to approach this. Josh: One, he wants to understand the current state of the physical world. Josh: So he's looking at food delivery, he's looking at the mining industry, Josh: he's looking at automotive transport delivery, and he's like, Josh: okay, this is how it functions right now.

Josh: These are where the problems are going to be. And so this is what it might potentially turn into. Josh: So that brings us to step two, where he predicts what the future state of the Josh: physical world will look like. Josh: And then finally, step three, control the future state of that physical world.

Josh: So creating a new app or a new product like Uber to transform transportation Josh: of humans or creating cloud kitchens to transform cooking of food and transportation Josh: and delivery of that food. Josh: And so how he plans to enable this is the coolest part for me, Josh: which is AI-powered robots, but not the humanoid type robots that you and I Josh: have spoken about on the show many times, Josh. Josh: Rather robots that are specifically designed to perform these acts, right?

Ejaaz: Yeah. If you've ever been to LA and you've seen these like four wheeled robots Ejaaz: kind of riding around the sidewalk delivering food, that's kind of the vibe. It's wheel platforms. Ejaaz: And I think the way you could think about Atoms and the reason why it's named Ejaaz: Atoms is similar to the progress that we've seen in bits.

Ejaaz: So I think one of the things that we talk about a lot is we've had so much progress Ejaaz: in the world of bits over the past few decades, meaning that all the software Ejaaz: has gotten much better. All of the chips have gotten much better. Ejaaz: Everything in our digital world has improved, while the external physical world Ejaaz: has not really gone a long way.

Ejaaz: The goal of this company, the intention of this company, is to do what we just Ejaaz: did for computers to the real physical world using the same framework. Ejaaz: So if you think of this world of bits infrastructure, we have the chips, Ejaaz: which is the intelligence. We have the storage, which is how you store the intelligence. Ejaaz: Then we have the network, which is how you transfer that intelligence across the world.

Ejaaz: What they're doing with atoms is the same three-level stack Ejaaz: you have the cpu you have the intelligence which Ejaaz: is these cloud kitchens which is these automation systems that are actually Ejaaz: deployed in the physical world you have the storage which is the real estate Ejaaz: one of the huge parts of this company is real estate they're owning a lot of Ejaaz: buildings they're building a lot of kitchens they own a lot of places to distribute

Ejaaz: this compute and then the network is this autonomous part of the business it's.

Ejaaz: Kind of what he envisioned for uber where you have truly fully autonomous Ejaaz: movement of these goods and services using these Ejaaz: robots so he explicitly said they're not building humanoids they're Ejaaz: not in the business of disrupting tesla with full self-driving or Ejaaz: their humanoid robots they're building supplemental things for their Ejaaz: world of atoms for delivering groceries Ejaaz: delivering food delivering objects and being

Ejaaz: the full stack and revolutionizing the world in the way that Ejaaz: we did with bits but with atoms and it's a really grand plan Ejaaz: and he's rolled it out in a few places so far i mean Ejaaz: they have the mining they have the cloud kitchens and then they have otter which Ejaaz: is the third part of the business so there's a lot going on here but it's around Ejaaz: that one core thesis that atoms are the thing that really matters as we move

Ejaaz: forward from this like i guess artificial intelligence artificial general intelligence age one. Josh: Thing that stood out for me is his approach to the design of robots i Like I Josh: was fixated on why he was so anti-humanoid. Josh: It kind of makes sense, right? The world is designed for humans. Josh: So you would create human-shaped robots. That's what Tesla is doing. Josh: That's what a bunch of robotic startups in the UK and China are doing. Josh: So why wouldn't he do the same?

Josh: And he used, I watched his interview on TVPN and there's a story where he goes, Josh: I watched the Robot Olympics in China last year or a few months ago. Josh: And he was like, I was so impressed by all these robots dancing and running Josh: and winning these races. But what I couldn't help think was, Josh: This robot would be so much faster if it just had four wheels. Josh: And it just raced that way.

Josh: And it made sense that this was his entire approach from first principles to Josh: moving atoms from one place to the next, whether it's food, Josh: whether it's mining and moving machinery from spot A to spot B, Josh: or whether that's doing the same for automotive transports, be it trucks, Josh: cars, delivering, whatever, right? Josh: What was interesting was I was curious, like, why did he do mining specifically.

Josh: And looking into it, it just seems like an incredibly human-dependent, Josh: bulky machinery-operated industry that is ripe for consumption by AI robotics. Josh: And I don't think many startups are focused on this. The same could potentially be said for food as well. Josh: The way he framed it was cloud kitchens was R&D for food automation or transport Josh: automation, disguised as a cookout, as a kitchen that would just make food for you.

Josh: So he's been doing R&D for eight years. Josh: And now he's expanding to these three very prominent sectors that no one else Josh: has really been focused on. Josh: I don't think even Tesla is like focused on like stuff like mining and stuff Josh: like that. So it's really ripe for like consumption. Josh: And I think that Travis is the perfect guy to do this because of what he pulled off at Uber.

Ejaaz: It's important to really understand these three pillars because Travis is not Ejaaz: someone who reasons by analogy. Ejaaz: He has really, he thinks very deeply about what meaningfully matters and what Ejaaz: will actually impact the world going forward. Ejaaz: And mining is such a huge one because when you think about AI, Ejaaz: the world that we spend so much time I'm thinking about the common constraint Ejaaz: outside of energy is just these materials. Like we don't have enough memory.

Ejaaz: We don't have enough raw materials. Ejaaz: We don't have enough for batteries and to create enough storage for this energy. Ejaaz: And mining is such a huge part of that. Ejaaz: And mining is this incredibly laborious process with a lot of labor rules and Ejaaz: laws. And it's not a very glamorous thing. Ejaaz: But if you automate a lot of this mining process like he intends to, Ejaaz: well, then suddenly a lot more areas open up for mining.

Ejaaz: There's a lot more efficiency to be had. it's just a huge part of Ejaaz: how they plan to win. And you mentioned Tesla. I mean, he explicitly addressed Tesla, Ejaaz: I think, on the All In podcast earlier this week about how impressive Tesla Ejaaz: is and how much respect they have for it and how he's kind of in a way basing Ejaaz: his ideas off of the Tesla stack because he believes that Tesla is very much the Google of this era.

Ejaaz: Meaning if you were to create a startup in the early 2000s, the first question Ejaaz: you get is, why isn't Google going to kill you? Ejaaz: Tesla is basically that for physical AI. They own the whole manufacturing stack. Ejaaz: They own full production from sand in to vehicle out and even intelligence out Ejaaz: through full self-driving. Ejaaz: And Travis argued that not enough people are taking this seriously and not enough Ejaaz: people are trying to be complementary to that.

Ejaaz: You don't have to fight this force. You could actually just be a contributor Ejaaz: to the success and win as a result. Josh: Yeah, if I were to like zoom out and distill what he's trying to do with this Josh: company, what Claude Code did to automating software engineering, Josh: what ChatGPT did to replacing a bunch of high schoolers is able to write like Josh: PhD level essays, science, Josh: automating mathematics, he's doing for the physical world.

Josh: So if you think of like mining as a technological stack, he is doing the sensors, Josh: he is doing the compute on top of that, he's operating the machinery, Josh: which is powered by the AI models that sit on top of this. Josh: So if you could automate all of that, then you can think about automated factories Josh: that sit on top of that. And then the produce that comes on top of that also being automated.

Josh: And so if you could scale that, not necessarily at the speed of software, Josh: automated by AI, that's something pretty cool that we haven't seen in the world Josh: today because we're constrained by humans, by our biological brains, Josh: by making errors, by needing to sleep and a bunch of other things like that. Josh: The other thing that like fascinates me about this is Travis is very much building Josh: like a vertically integrated play here, right?

Josh: Like if I think about it, he's doing the sensors, he's got the compute, Josh: he's got the AI models, and then he's like manipulating these atoms by physically Josh: delivering them using robots, which then accelerates manufacturing. Josh: He's owning the real estate. There's a bunch of energy production around that. Josh: He's involved in all parts of that.

Josh: That reminds me of a bunch of other companies that we've spoken about on the Josh: show, like NVIDIA is doing that from Silicon all the way to AI agents that they Josh: announced with NemoClaw this week. Josh: Tesla is doing, or rather SpaceX, SpaceX and Tesla, they're all the same company.

Josh: They're going to merge anyway, is doing that from everything from energy production Josh: to space transportation, to harnessing the energy from the sun itself, Josh: to training AI and distributing it on social media on X. Josh: Travis is doing the same with physical AI automation. And I think that it's a very ambitious task. Josh: But if he's able to pull that off, this is going to be a world changing company.

Josh: And Travis is one of the few founders with the track record to be able to pull that off. Ejaaz: You mentioned Tesla rolling in SpaceX and Tesla into the same company. Ejaaz: I have a question about whether Uber will be doing the same because there's Ejaaz: reports that Adams is receiving major backing from Uber. Ejaaz: Travis has reportedly told people that he wants to be more aggressive in rolling

Ejaaz: out self-driving technology than Waymo. So it makes sense that the company that he built, Ejaaz: he might actually be able to have the chance to play a meaningful role in. Ejaaz: And to that, I want to refer to Polymarket, because there's a Polymarket for Ejaaz: whether or not Uber will ask Travis to come back to the company. Ejaaz: And I have to ask the question, because when you think about Steve Jobs in the Ejaaz: past, Steve, I think he got kicked out of Apple in 1988.

Ejaaz: And it was only in 1997, I believe it was. Ejaaz: The years could be slightly off, but 1997, when the company that he built was Ejaaz: purchased, by Apple next. Ejaaz: He came back to Apple. Apple was struggling at the time, and he rebuilt them Ejaaz: into the Apple that we know and love today after a huge hiatus.

Ejaaz: Now, Travis has only been away for eight years now, so he's doing, Ejaaz: he's kind of speedrunning the Steve Jobs arc, and there is a world in which Ejaaz: he might come back to Uber. Ejaaz: Now, Polymerca says this is improbable at 14%. It's not looking very likely. Ejaaz: In fact, it was a 40% chance earlier Ejaaz: in the month, I guess prior to the announcement of this new company.

Ejaaz: It seems like whatever they saw with this new company announcement it dropped Ejaaz: from 46% to 14% so perhaps it's not going to happen although man how cool would that be the.

Josh: King is back yeah no someone knows something I mean that that that decline is Josh: like super steep and like almost instantaneous it like dumped 20% in like an hour or so that's crazy Ejaaz: Yeah pretty brutal well thank you to Polymarket for sponsoring that Ejaaz: segment of the pod and I think that leaves us with a comeback arc not complete Ejaaz: there's still a lot of work left to be done but this at least sets the stage

Ejaaz: for what's next which is this new foundational company built on doing what we Ejaaz: just did to bits to the world of atoms and naming it after that by one of the

Ejaaz: best entrepreneurs to do it. Josh: And that's the end of the episode thank you so much for listening a bit of a Josh: different flavor of the episode today we were passionate about telling the story Josh: of travis because it makes sense to explain why he's going after this big company Josh: versus just explaining the company itself. Josh: Let us know if you enjoyed this format of an episode. Also, a ton of new subscribers.

Josh: We officially hit, as we're recording this episode, 40,000 subscribers, Josh: which is crazy because nine months ago we had, what was it, 10,000, Josh: Josh? Maybe even less than that. Josh: Pretty crazy growth from then, and we welcome all of you. Josh: A bunch of you have also subscribed to our newsletters. If you haven't, please do. Josh: We drop articles and pieces, highlights of the week, twice a week.

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