Uber ban: Use of Aadhaar in police verification can make transportation secure, says Vinod Khosla

BENGALURU: Legendary Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla said the ban on Uber is a “wrong thing” to do. “It was a short sighted and knee-jerk response,” said Khosla, who hastened to add his Khosla Ventures has no investment in the taxi-aggregator.

“The right thing to do is to use it as an opportunity to solve this problem of security,” he said on Friday. Khosla suggested using the Aadhaar platform along with traditional methods like police verification to make transportation more secure in the country. The problem is not limited to taxi companies but is spread across the society, he said.

The Uber problem will be reduced but never eliminated because we are dealing with human beings, said Khosla, referring to the alleged rape of a woman passenger by a Uber cab driver in Delhi. Following the incident, several states banned Uber and other mobile taxi aggregators.

Khosla, who met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Friday, said the state government’s technology roadmap is exciting and reflects its willingness to adopt technologies. He ruled out the possibility of creating a separate fund to invest in Indian startups.

“We will continue to work with Khosla Labs in India,” he said. Khosla Labs was set up in India in 2012. Its chief executive is Srikanth Nadhamuni, the former head of technology at the Unique Identification Authority of India, the agency responsible for the Aadhaar programme.

In January, Khosla Labs and Unitus Seed Fund will conduct a hackathon on using the Aadhaar platform to solve problems. The two will incubate and fund 4-6 startups, said Nadhamuni. In November, Unitus Seed Fund raised $8 million from a clutch of investors including Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla.

Speaking on regulatory hurdles faced by new economy companies like Uber and Olacabs in India, he said: “Anytime technology makes a big difference in something, there are people who don’t like it. There is a natural tendency to oppose anything new.”

Ecommerce is a good opportunity in India but Khosla won’t be investing in in the segment here because of circumstances unique to Khosla Ventures, he said. Khosla said he wants to focus on “hard problems”, like artificial intelligence and machine learning.