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It's not about where you start, it's about why you start and how you build a culture that lets imagination flourish into new places over time.

Kalanick argues that the specific product you begin with matters far less than the passion behind it and the management capacity to expand into adjacent industries over time, comparing this to how Amazon started with books and expanded into AWS. ✦ AI generated

Travis Kalanick · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-22 · original ↗

starts at this moment · 62:59

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Why was it important that you started at food in terms of what's generalizable?

it's not as much about where you start. It's about making sure you're passionate about where you start. And then where you go, you have no idea. … It's not about where you start. It's about why you start and how you build a culture that allows you to keep going into new places over time and lets your imagination when it's right flourish.

verbatim transcript · starts at 62:59

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62:59you can like find something, make it work, just grind it out, make it work, will it into working. Your imagination can keep going. So, for me, it wasn't it's not as much about where you start. It's about making sure you're passionate about where you start. And then where you go, you have no idea. And this is very much, I go back to the Bezos style, which is

63:26like your imagination will just keep coming up with new cool ideas. >> And so it's not about where you start. It's about why you start >> and how you build a culture that allows you to keep going into new places over time and lets your imagination when it's right flourish. >> Yeah, that's what I was. It's it's not an idea, it's an idea maze. And the more

63:48you learn about the idea and all the things and you you don't know any like the thing that is so hard to understand coming from the outside is you know so little when you start like when he I mean he didn't even tell me he started he he didn't know [ __ ] >> 1% of the [ __ ] problems he was going to run into with cloud kitchens.

64:07>> Yeah for sure >> because you've got to really [snorts] >> get into what tech guy knows anything about real estate. >> Yeah. >> 0.0. >> Yeah. So you you it's all the whole thing is a learning process and then it's the best entrepreneurs can take those learnings and then apply multiply the applications and that's you know it's just a very very rare thing uh like like look the fact that

64:32Elon has taken SpaceX to Starlink to data centers in space it's just like nobody would Start there >> or think about this. Uh >> the the first Roadster. >> Yeah. >> Is now Optimus. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Talk about >> Yes. Yes. >> Letting the imagination flourish is a beautiful thing. >> Yeah. Understanding what the core core principles are. >> Yeah. >> And applying them. So with that said, paint us more paint

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