TEXAS — Travis Kalanick launched a new startup, Atoms, more than eight years after resigning as Uber's CEO. Kalanick resigned as Uber's CEO in 2017 following investor pressure. Travis Kalanick left California for Texas prior to January.

Atoms aims to build a “wheelbase for robots.” The company operated in stealth mode for years, and employees could not list the company on their LinkedIn profiles.

Kalanick gave his stealth startup the name City Storage Systems to keep it intentionally generic. Kalanick said he imagined candidates asking, “So, do you guys just have these boxes sitting in parking lots?” in response to the company’s generic name.

Kalanick has described an interview exercise used at Uber in its early days. In 2010, when hiring his first driver operations employee, Kalanick asked the candidate to alphabetize names on 200 cards under a timed test. He also said that his early Uber interviews included a game in which candidates alphabetized 200 cards.

Kalanick said the sorting test showed whether candidates could sort efficiently not just in software but also in their brains. He said, “Sorting is a big freaking deal in computer science.”

Kalanick also described his views on hiring and team-building. He said, “Whether you're young or old, executive or junior, who can solve problems is number one.” He said he looks for good employees with no judgment on what it is he said needs to get done.

When discussing building a team to run operations, Kalanick said, “Old people aren't the answer.”

Kalanick said interviews should simulate what it is like working together, so that day one is already like week two. He said that building a “high EQ” company culture in stealth means going the extra mile to recruit and the extra mile in sales.

He said, “You build a culture of people that want to build and do not need to be famous when they do it, which basically means emotional intelligence.” He also said every recruiter was “outbound,” and said he believes the company has some of the best recruiters in the world because of it.