Travis Kalanick was the cofounder of Uber, the company that changed the transportation industry forever. The interesting thing is, though, he was already a millionaire before he started Uber.

Founded in 2009, Travis and Garrett Camp (the idea guy) made Uber a super successful company. It became one of the most innovative companies of the early 2010s. But unfortunately, in 2017, Kalanick was kicked out of Uber. A few months later, his mother died. The dude was going through a rough time. On one hand, he was kicked out of the company he poured his soul and mind into for almost a decade. On the other hand, his loving and caring mother died.

But despite that, Kalanick didn’t stop. He went on to start a new company called Cloud Kitchens, which is now renamed to Atoms. His current company is worth over $15 billion. The crazy part? Until now, he’s been building Atoms in stealth mode. This means no media coverage. No social reach. No public feedback. No online drama. Nothing.

Impressive, actually.

I think Travis is a cool guy. He’s doing to food with Atoms what he did to transportation with Uber. More precisely and actually, his goal is to transform the physical world with robotics and machines. A fully autonomous world.

What’s more fascinating to me is the way he is pushing himself. He is almost approaching his 50s. If you don’t know, he is literally 49 years old as I’m writing this, and it seems like (with the recent announcement) he won’t stop anytime soon. Indeed, he couldn’t have retired way, way earlier. But he didn’t because he says he finds joy and fulfillment in building things.

This is the American spirit, baby.