Travis Kalanick sees benefits of being in stealth mode for 8 years. ‘You build a culture of people that want to build and do not need to be famous’

Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick unveiled a robotics company for the food, mining and transport industries after being in stealth mode for eight years.

The new company is called Atoms and sprang from his real estate company, City Storage Systems, which owns ghost-kitchen operator CloudKitchens.

“The whole idea was can you get a meal that’s prepared and delivered to you so efficiently that it starts to approach the cost of going to the grocery store,” Kalanick said on the TBPN show on Friday. “Because if you do, you do to the kitchen what Uber did to the car.”

He also said that he’s on the verge of acquiring Pronto, a self-driving startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was created by former Uber colleague and Trump official Anthony Levandowski. The Information first reported the deal and said the company also has backing from Uber.

Kalanick was ousted as Uber CEO in 2017 via a shareholder revolt amid allegations that he ignored reports of sexual harassment at the company.

Google also sued Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to autonomous driving. Levandowski was convicted but avoided prison after getting a pardon from President Donald Trump.