UBER CEO CAUGHT TAKING 30% OF SON’S ALLOWANCE
The Silicontrarian is made at Crew
We’ve built apps used by over 10M people.
Notorious playboy and transportation heartthrob Travis Kalanick set off a firestorm this weekend after a leaked video emerged of the Uber CEO sneaking quarters and dimes from the piggybank of his six-year old son, Bickle.
Bickle, a first-grade student at Palo Alto Elementary, makes $20 a week doing chores for his father. His chore-list includes picking up his toys, fetching the morning paper, and scrubbing the floors of every room inside of Kalanick’s 31-room mansion.
The video, obtained by TMZ, shows a man (who is clearly Kalanick) entering his son’s room, flipping his piggybank upside down, and shaking out his $6 weekly cut.
Kalanick, who takes a certain percentage of fares from every Uber ride, was simply teaching his son a valuable lesson about capitalism. However, San Francisco labour activists did not see it that way.
“How can we expect the average San Franciscan to make a livable wage, when even the children of multi-billionaire CEOs are being swindled under the cover of darkness?” asked talia jane — a former Yelp employee whose open letter to management made headlines last week for its scathing depiction of income inequality in Silicon Valley.
In a Sunday morning press release, Kalanick was quick to fire back:
“The outrage is misplaced. This is just capitalism at work. The cut I take from my filial contractors isn’t motivated by greed — it allows me to employ other children in my neighbourhood.”
“Plus, I’m only taking 30% for the first six months. As long as Bickle continues doing his chores, we’ll bump it down to 25%… and if he maintains his five-star rating, we might even push it down to 20.”
