What drives Uber CEO's ingenuity?
Uber is one of the world's most disruptive companies. The ride-sharing service this month celebrates its seventh anniversary. Since 2009, its growth has exploded. Uber has over one million active drivers globally. The company is valued at upwards of $60 billion. Co-founder Travis Kalanick is now focused on the road ahead. Charlie Rose spoke to him in a wide-ranging conversation, and explored what drives his ingenuity.
"You have developed a ... profile of a young man in a hurry, with all the rough elbows that suggests," Rose said.
"You know, I think it's -- how should I put it? We look at all of the cities and the hundreds and millions or billions of people that live in cities around the world. And we know that the transportation systems there are just not -- they're not serving everybody's needs," Kalanick said. "I mean, even here in New York, with a great mass transit system, there's still two-and-a-half million cars going over those bridges every day. And so, we just believe we can help the city do better."
He said the most successful entrepreneurs are not waiting for success or progress.
"We are generally a little bit forward leaning when it comes to trying to make progress happen," Kalanick said.
For Kalanick, it's about "problem-solving and loving to solve problems."
"So if you are passionate about solving problems, and sometimes I just like to describe this as like -- imagine a really great math professor with no problems to solve," he said. "That's kind of how I feel about my work. And so, it's not about a man in a hurry. It's more about really interesting problems in the world and how you lean into them and solve things that people maybe thought weren't even possible to solve. And that's fun."