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‘I never left’: Travis Kalanick launches new company Atoms

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The former Uber CEO is venturing into robotics.

Travis Kalanick announced that Atoms is out of stealth mode and expanding beyond food delivery infrastructure into industries such as food service, mining, and transportation.

“When I told my friends, family, and colleagues about my plans for what was next, they were really excited that I was ‘coming back,'” Kalanick wrote on the website for the new venture.

“The thing is, I never left.”

In an interview on “TBPN” on Friday, Kalanick told show hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays that he will be folding his ghost-kitchen startup CloudKitchens into the new venture, a detail that is also mentioned on Atoms’ website.

Atoms’ webpage says the company plans to build a “wheelbase for robots,” a platform designed to power specialized machines rather than humanoid robots. Kalanick said on “TBPN” that the company will focus on practical industrial systems instead of humanlike designs, and that the venture was just renamed as “Atoms” from “City Storage Systems” today.

“We’ve been in stealth mode for eight years,” said Kalanick. “Employees were not allowed to put the name of the company on their LinkedIn. We have thousands of employees.”

“Humanoids have their place, but there’s a lot of room for specialized robots that do things in an efficient, sort of industrial-scale kind of way, which is sort of where we play,” he added.

According to Kalanick, Atoms is close to acquiring Pronto, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was founded by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski.

Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.




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AT&T launches a smartphone for kids that’s really for parents

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AT&T is hoping to entice parents concerned about screentime with a smartphone designed for children. Whether children will be enticed is another question.

The telecommunications company debuted the amiGO Jr. Phone on Friday. The company says it will give parents greater control over how their children interact with smartphones. The rollout also featured the new amiGO Jr. Watch 2.


AT&T's amiGO Jr. smartphone

AT&T’s new amiGO Jr. Phone.

AT&T



“Putting customers at the center of our business means anticipating what comes next — not just responding to what already exists,” Erin Scarborough, the senior vice president of Revenue Management & Commercialization at AT&T, said in a press release. “As smartphones become a daily necessity, parents have made it clear they need better tools to help their children navigate the digital world safely.”

After purchasing the smartphone, parents can download an app that allows them to set several safety features. They include location tracking, up to 30 pre-approved contacts, established safe zones, customizable controls for each device, and “schedules to limit distractions during school hours.”


AT&T's amiGO Jr's smartphone, watch, and tablet.

AT&T



The app can also implement safety features on AT&T’s amiGO Jr tablet, which the company released in 2024.

AT&T collaborated with Samsung to build the smartphone’s hardware. The smartphone costs $209.99.

Parents vs. smartphones

In the age of smartphones, parents have raised concerns over the tech’s impact on children’s and teens’ mental health.

A 2025 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that teenagers who had higher non-schoolwork-related screentime were more likely to have “adverse health outcomes,” including irregular sleep routines, depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and insufficient peer support.

Access to social media on smartphones is also a concern. Over a dozen attorneys general filed lawsuits against TikTok in 2024, accusing the social media platform of targeting young users with addictive algorithms and features. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has also faced legal action over the platform’s potentially harmful impact on young users.

As a result, parents have sought different ways to navigate the complex technology landscape. Some parents have invested in products like Gabb, a kid-friendly smartphone, while others have purchased landline phones created for children. Dumb phones, which don’t have social media and other advanced app functions, have emerged as another option.

A growing number of young folks are also ditching smart devices as part of a movement embracing real-life connections and a healthy relationship with technology.

“I feel like I’ve spent so much of my early life glued to a screen. I find it particularly addicting and incredibly dangerous,” a Gen Z woman told Business Insider in 2025. “I think we need to be worried about the repercussions this will have on both individuals and society.”




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