Nikhil Goel

Co-Founder, Uber Elevate

Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, known as America’s “Rocket City”, Nikhil became enamored with all things technology from an early age. His first job was at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he worked on the Ares I rocket, and his second was helping develop missile systems for the US Army with a major defense contractor. But he always dreamt of helping to create the future of Star Trek and the Jetsons.

At Uber, Nikhil co-founded the company’s Elevate division, authoring the world’s first whitepaper on aerial ridesharing. He worked with NASA and Uber executives to establish the vision for Uber Air — a global network of all-electric, urban air taxis that could zip people and packages from one neighborhood to the other in minutes on-demand and, in the process, help transform cities into smarter, better, more efficient places to live. 

After helping lead a spinout of the Elevate business to Joby Aviation, Nikhil left Uber to invest and advise in new mobility innovators, as well as found a new consumer company. The company raised a large seed round from top investors in December 2020 and is now building actively towards launch in 2021.

Early in his career, Nikhil served as a management consultant for travel and consumer technology companies at McKinsey & Company, and he held Product roles at YouTube, Xbox, and Microsoft Office before founding two online marketplace startups. Nikhil holds a degree in Computer Engineering and Economics from Vanderbilt University and has previously been named a United States Presidential Scholar and Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee in Consumer Technology.