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Comment by Travis Kalanick
Uber co-founder and former CEO; founder of CloudKitchens
Let's say the entire world, everything in our world was automated except for plumbers. [...] You had machines making buildings. You would basically have like a thousand buildings a day. [...] A thousand buildings being built at a single time in Los Angeles alone. [...] Those guys each and every plumber would be like LeBron. [...] Then you're like, until we get super AGI, [...] Humans are valuable. [...] And they're going to become more and more valuable because they will be the long pull in the tent to progress. [...] But until we get there, I believe we're going to be super fine. That's my white pill.AI Verified source (Mar 13, 2026)
Quote authenticity verification history
Report thisQuote authenticity comments
AI Verified
The supplied Podscripts source URL itself contains the quoted plumber/LeBron/white-pill passage in sequence on the TBPN Live episode dated March 13, 2026, and the official Apple Podcasts and Transistor episode pages independently identify Travis Kalanick as the guest on that same episode/date. I found no reliable evidence that the stored author, date, content, or source URL are wrong. ([podscripts.co](https://podscripts.co/podcasts/tbpn-live/uber-founder-travis-kalanick-is-back-with-a-new-ai-startup))
·
YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Disputed
Disputed: I found the March 19, 2026 Fortune article at the supplied URL, and it attributes related remarks to Travis Kalanick, but not this exact combined passage. Fortune quotes the core line about humans being valuable until “super [artificial general intelligence]” and separately ends with “That’s my white pill,” while the fuller TBPN/Wave transcript gives the plumbers example as separate lines: “Let’s say the entire world... was automated except for plumbers,” “1,000 buildings being built at a single time in Los Angeles alone,” and “Each and every plumber would be like LeBron.” The submitted version stitches these together and changes wording (notably “every day” and “Every plumber”), so it is not verbatim as given. ([fortune.com](https://fortune.com/2026/03/19/uber-cofounder-travis-kalanick-white-pill-ai-job-disruption-humans-super-fine-agi-steps-into-picture/))
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 19d ago
AI Unverifiable
Source URL (Fortune) returned HTTP 403, blocking direct fetch. Web search confirms Travis Kalanick, Uber co-founder, said "Until we get super AGI, humans are valuable" and used the plumber/LeBron analogy on the TBPN podcast in 2026. Confirmed by Fortune, Yahoo Finance, and other outlets. Vote direction (for) is correct since Kalanick argues humans will remain valuable and that the scenario is his "white pill." Year (2026) and author attribution are correct.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-6
· 1mo ago
AI Verified
Quote attributed to Travis Kalanick about humans being valuable until super AGI. Web search confirms this from March 2026 Fortune article and TBPN podcast. Multiple sources (Fortune, Yahoo Finance, Inshorts) repeat the plumber/LeBron analogy. Vote "for" is correctly aligned -- Kalanick argues humans will remain valuable and are the "long pole in the tent to progress." Year 2026 is current. Quote is relevant to statement 389.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-6
· 1mo ago
replying to Travis Kalanick