Months after being forced to step down as leader of the ride-hailing company he founded, Uber's Travis Kalanick will officially become a billionaire in a massive stock sale.

Japan's SoftBank is buying an interest in Uber from existing shareholders as well as new Uber shares in an US$8 Billion deal.  Kalanick stands to rake in $1.4 Billion in the exchange, which gives the Tokyo-based institution two seats on Uber's board.  The deal turns Kalanick's theoretical wealth-on-paper into real hard cash.

Kalanick resigned as chief executive under pressure from Uber shareholders.  The company's rapid growth under Kalanick came alongside deceiving local regulators, ignoring rampant gender bias, allegedly obtaining trade secrets from rival Google, covering up a major hack, spying on journalists, and obtaining and distributing the medical records of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver to possibly use against her in legal proceedings.

It was almost a year ago that an obscure blog post set Uber on course for a complete realignment of its management.  Software engineer Susan Fowler detailed a litany of instances during her time at the firm, including documenting how company executives and human resources officers had failed to punish her manager after she reported his unwanted sexual advances.  That opened the flood gates of sexual harassment complaints, which forced the company to hire outside investigators to examine its culture.  By June 2017, executives were getting sacked left and right and eventually the axe found its way to Kalanick's desk.  Of course, a US$1.4 Billion consolation prize might make that go down a little easier.

Travis Kalanick/Twitter