At the ripe young age of 32, back in 2009, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick apparently launched a Wordpress blog called Swooshing, and for some reason he's never taken it down. The name is a reference to Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer file sharing outfit that Kalanick and a partner sold to Akamai Technologies for $18.7 million in 2007. A friend pointed me to the blog, which doesn't contain anything too incendiary but is kind of a funny window into the tech dudebro mindset of a pre-Uber Kalanick who had already, at that point, invested in a dozen startups (including the nascent UberCab, as he notes on his About page).
While I can not confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is all the work of Kalanick and not some clever imposter who back-stamped a bunch of blog posts, it certainly sounds like him. "Yo, this is the Swooshing blog," he writes. "Travis Kalanick runs the show here, and posts every once in awhile about ideas, startups, government corruption and whatever’s on his mind."
There are only ten entries in total, written perhaps when Kalanick had some time on his hands in between gigs, beginning in March 2009 (the kickoff entry is titled "Startup Seed Raising Skilzzz") and ending abruptly in July 2010 with an entry all about an alleged female Russian spy who had infiltrated Silicon Valley in which he discusses all the mutual friends they had on Facebook.
In between we get some delightful tidbits like his tips on traveling in Africa. To wit:
No matter what Wikipedia says, the fist bump DID NOT originate in the United States. EVERYBODY in West Africa does the fist bump, from casual gatherings to business functions. ...Every day in Dakar, at about 5pm the rush hour starts, and it doesn’t end until about 8pm. But this is not your typical car-induced traffic jam. Dakar sits along the coast and has its own Pacific Coast Highway. The difference w/ this traffic jam is that during rush hour there are more people along the side of that highway than cars in some stretches. This 20 mile long crowd isn’t leisurely walking home from work. They aren’t even briskly walking to do their daily grocery shopping. No, this group looks like they just jumped out of a Nike ad in their workout gear and their insanely toned ripped bodies and are all getting in their daily jog in 90-100 degree heat...I’m not sure if researchers include Dakar in their surveys of fittest cities in the world, but I am 100% positive Dakar wins against all comers.
...Why doesn’t anybody talk about Africa surf? It’s all there. For the kitesurfers and windsurfers, there are steady wind havens all over the place.
...Now for those of you that don’t know, a boo-boo is the traditional African dress for men. It’s the ideal African tourist high-margin product... Get really animated when you get your first price and tell them that they’re crazy and wave your arms, etc. Next, yell out a low-ball price (at least 1/5 of their ask), and start walking away. At this point you should have at least 20 people chasing you down the street.
Kalanick was also, weirdly, offering free lodging ("couchsurfing") for entrepreneurs coming to town for TechCrunch in 2009, at his SF home, which he called The JamPad.
It is a place where entrepreneurs regularly come to hang out, to rap on ideas, to jam with other entrepreneurs, to play Wii Tennis and Gears of War, and to have fantastic healthy gourmet meals made by the JamPad’s in-house chef. Normal open hours for the JamPad are from 10AM to 2AM. We also do BBQ’s, grill seshes, art & wine events, networked Armagetron competitions, coding seshes, you name it.
According to a testimonial about the JamPad from friend and Box CEO Aaron Levie, "Travis’s full range of sleeping and hygienic amenities offer a winning combo for any sleep-deprived, smelly, starving, delusional, stressed, or money-less guest. If you happen to fit into four or more of those categories, you’ll likely be treated to a gourmet breakfast and be waited on by his Live-in Harvard Ph.D girlfriend."
And, in a bit of irony, here are Kalanick's ca. 2010 thoughts on maintaining one's reputation on an internet that was already "becoming too noisy for the crisp signal that we’re actually looking to get from it."
Surely, on today’s Internet, we’re all potential victims of some “wingnut” saying something horrible about us, or some random picture of some indiscretion making it to the Internet and ruining our careers. The problem is that any and all information that ever existed is making it to the Net. Compounding the problem is the existence of the real-time web, its exploding communities of people sharing all of their thoughts and uploading content at will. What we’re quickly finding is that in some regards the Internet acts as a cesspool of information where lies and libel can ruin people’s reputation.
Oh, such innocent times.
Enjoy more of his musings while they remain live and readable, though there's always the Wayback Machine for after they get taken down.
Previously: Uber Board Member Arianna Huffington Says Travis Kalanick Isn't Going Anywhere, OK?
