--- title: Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing:... description: Travis Kalanick, fresh off raising $1.7 billion for his robotics company Atoms, revisits his history with venture capitalists on David Senra's podcast,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’ | daily.dev og:description: Travis Kalanick, fresh off raising $1.7 billion for his robotics company Atoms, revisits his history with venture capitalists on David Senra's podcast,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/YuIc9RCIh.png og:image:alt: Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’ og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’ **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Travis Kalanick, fresh off raising $1.7 billion for his robotics company Atoms, revisits his history with venture capitalists on David Senra's podcast, claiming only about 10% of VCs meet a 'do no harm' bar and just 1% are genuinely helpful. He remains critical of Benchmark following his ouster from Uber but stops short of telling founders to avoid VC money, instead advising a well-honed pitch and warning against a 'victim mentality.' He also reflects on how his hard-charging management style, shaped by his earlier startup Red Swoosh, contributed to his exit. The podcast episode also prompted entrepreneur Mark Pincus to share his own grievances with Accel, while Andreessen Horowitz amplified the story, notable given co-founder Marc Andreessen's public friction with Benchmark's Bill Gurley. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What percentage of VCs does Travis Kalanick say are actually helpful to founders? Travis Kalanick estimates only 1% of venture capitalists are genuinely helpful to founders. He says a merely high bar for a VC is to 'do no harm,' yet only about 10% clear even that bar. He compares founders to a company's chess master and VCs to chess enthusiasts who check in occasionally without being deeply involved. _Founders weighing VC relationships can follow ongoing startup and funding commentary on daily.dev._ ### Why did Travis Kalanick get pushed out of Uber? Kalanick was pushed out of Uber in 2017 following a boardroom battle with key investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark. He now says he broke no rules but ran too close to ethical and behavioral lines given Uber's scale, and that his hard-charging management style, shaped by the grueling early years of his previous startup Red Swoosh, became a liability as the company grew to a $70 billion valuation. _Anyone tracking founder-investor conflicts and leadership lessons can find more stories like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Travis Kalanick launches a new company called Atoms focused on robotics](https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-launches-a-new-company-called-atoms-focused-on-robotics-bue82uzfg) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#venture-capital](https://daily.dev/tags/venture-capital), [#uber](https://daily.dev/tags/uber) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih"},"datePublished":"2026-08-19T21:53:15.065Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T06:02:29.140Z","description":"Travis Kalanick, fresh off raising $1.7 billion for his robotics company Atoms, revisits his history with venture capitalists on David Senra's podcast,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/afcf90035f8babb53d5237cbad3b7ae0?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/afcf90035f8babb53d5237cbad3b7ae0?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"venture-capital,uber","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Travis Kalanick kicks off another round of VC bashing: ‘1% are helpful’"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/travis-kalanick-kicks-off-another-round-of-vc-bashing-1-are-helpful--yuic9rcih#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What percentage of VCs does Travis Kalanick say are actually helpful to founders?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Travis Kalanick estimates only 1% of venture capitalists are genuinely helpful to founders. 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