I mean, you know, going back, I think, what, back when I was like 16, 17, I mean, I remember the X-Prize was like an inspiration. Which X-Prize

was it?

Yeah, this was actually the tricorder there too. That was, yeah, there was like an OG. I think there's still some like OG video of me from like 10 years ago. I was like trying to be like a team lead for the tricorder. But yeah, no, there's amazing stuff that you guys have. And then, you know, obviously, later on, I ended up building

Luminar. What does Luminar do?

Yeah, so Luminar, we create these, you know, laser, you know, sensing systems, a LiDAR, and AI software for major automakers to be able to enable next generation safety systems and autonomous driving capabilities on production cars. So, you know, whole idea is basically, you know, there's a lot of companies that have been trying to, you know, replace drivers with, like, fully driverless vehicles, robo-taxis, anything. The whole goal we've had is enhance drivers, increase the capabilities, and ultimately be able to create the uncrashable car, so to say, by enabling when the car centers, if you're going to get into a collision scenario, take over the braking system, take over the steering wheel, get you out of that. And that's enabled by this breakthrough LiDAR technology that we created and the software that automakers have really started adopting en masse. Now,

LiDAR, I think I remember it's like laser imaging radar type of, is that what it roughly means? Yeah,

yeah. Basically, it's using these custom lasers we build to measure the exact distance to different objects out in the field of view.

I remember when the first Google Autonomous car came out, it had a Velodyne LiDAR on the roof that was a spinning thing. It cost about $150,000 and weighed like a coffee can size. What does one of your LiDARs cost now or look like now? No,

no, it's a great question because, you know, it's funny. I mean, I'm sure you guys have all seen, like, the autonomous test cars and other things that are out there. And this is a huge problem from a cost and economic standpoint. You know, they've historically been, like, these huge roof racks full of sensor and a supercomputer in the trunk that's required to run the thing. So the whole point of what we're doing is creating, you know, something from the ground up, from the chip level up, that could have significantly improved performance and get the cost down from $100,000 down to under $1,000. And that's exactly what we did. So basically, we've transformed that from those Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket-looking things to a seamlessly integrated sensor on production cars. And now that's getting to go out in amazing brands like ever ranging from Volvo to Mercedes to beyond. So yeah.

And congrats to both of you for your extraordinary success on these. I want to talk about an underlying theme that I spoke to you both of you about here, which is when you're, when you're going for a moonshot, whether it's building Luminar or building your multiple companies, Mark and, uh, Telosa, which is your vision of a city of the future, you, you've got to be hit with a lot of skepticism. Like, you're crazy for a 20-year or for somebody who's, you know, not had restaurant experience. And so can you talk one second, and name this theme after our conversation, Mark, embracing risk and resilience in moonshot ventures. I think that's probably one of the most important elements we can talk about here. How do you think about

that? I mean, first, I think it starts with having an A of K. I think I've been in e-commerce a long time. I sort of know too much. It's hard to have that clean blank slate to rethink a completely new vision. You kind of know too much and your brain gets programmed to think a certain way. And so when people bring me e-commerce ideas, I have a really hard time. I can point out why it's not going to work and see it very clearly. It's hard to have that clean slate to rethink without any information. And I think that's one of the things entrepreneurs do really well is when you don't know, and it's true, didn't know anything about the restaurant industry specifically, but can rethink from a clean slate, like what might a step change look like? And then really think about that vision and then do all the things to work backwards from that vision and then start knocking down all the barriers along the way. But you have to have that naivete to sort of rethink. I don't know if... yeah absolutely same same thing i

mean you weren't in the automotive industry you weren't in the restaurant business and i mean but the reality is most disruptions and industries occur from people who are not in the industry yeah in fact i know very few companies that have gone from one generation of technology to lead the next generation of technology. I don't think like anybody. And so how, what's your advice for entrepreneurs to embrace that kind of, I mean, when people tell them you're crazy, you have no background. How did you develop sufficient confidence in yourself? By the way, we did see this as well with Elon, had no rocket business, no car business before.

Yeah, I'm just starting with something simple like diapers, for example. So when I started diapers.com, the thinking was, you know, I had a baby at the time and you couldn't get diapers delivered to your door at normal prices. If you went online to Amazon, whatever, they were like $10 more a box. And I just thought that was strange. Like it makes like parents are busy. I want to have diapers delivered. Um, and so when I started asking people and said, yeah, I want to start an e-commerce company where we deliver diapers overnight to people at Walmart prices. That was sort of the original like vision and people in the industry said, that's not going to work. That's crazy. It's too heavy. It's too expensive to ship. It's already a loss leader in Walmart. Now it's going to be a bigger loss leader. The math doesn't work. And so everyone just kind of ruled it out. Procter& Gamble and Kimberly-Clark, the diaper manufacturers, wouldn't sell us diapers for years because they kept saying it's never going to work. So we don't want to be caught up in this and selling you that. But to answer your question, you ask all the people in the industry questions and you keep questioning and see if they've got an answer to the sort of original thesis. And the thesis was, yes, it's a loss leader and it's going to be a bigger loss leader, but you also have many more products online to monetize the loss over. And when you start hitting people and say, yeah, I know it's a loss, but there's a reason why it's a loss for Walmart. It drives traffic and they buy everything else. So what if we use it as a loss, a bigger loss, albeit to sell them everything online? There's millions of products we can sell them online. For

anyone who's there to buy diapers, they're likely needing the other things as well. Yeah.

And buy everything. And now, you know, it's pretty commonplace now that online people will sell diapers at a huge loss because it's a great way to attract and retain new parents, which are big spenders online and all the math works out. But you're asking people the question, why? Why doesn't this work? Why doesn't that make sense? And if you're not getting good answers back, if you're like, hmm, I'm not convinced. You didn't convince me why this thesis doesn't work. Then you know you've got something. So it's good to have

your- You have to stand by your conviction and not fool yourself as well. Austin, I know you're first investor. Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, it's an amazing journey. What's funny and what's even true in the early stages of what we had to do is that it's that same kind of situation where when you try to disrupt something. How old were you when you started Luminar? You know, it was what, like 16, you know, turning 17 at the time. So, you know. And your

vision was what? What did you say when you like, did you have a PowerPoint deck? More like a lab. More of a lab. Yeah. You know, than a PowerPoint deck. Hardware talks bullshit walk. Yeah,

exactly. Exactly it's much easier to create the powerpoint than it is to do it so yeah but um but yeah no it's the same exact kind of situation there too where you know you have uh you have all the naysayers you have the folks who like you know they're saying there's no way you're going to do this much less like as a 16 17 year old like trying to create some new lidar system to beat out the Googles and Apples and every major automaker to developing a technology. So you have to bet on yourself. Obviously, you have to be very well-researched and really know what you're talking about and have the conviction to do it. But it's the same kind of situation. And you encounter those same kind of cycles all throughout the journey. That's not something that's even just necessarily unique. It's just in very different forms, right?

And so, are you constantly just like rechecking your premises and heading out with greater conviction and finding evidence to support yourself? Yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's where, you know, we deal with the same kind of stuff today there. And I think in this case, like for example, for the broader, you know, autonomous vehicle industry, it's sort of gone through this whole transition, you know, in that broader, like in this case now, it's the, you know, the Gartner cycle, you know, you could call it. you have the peak of inflated expectations. It's probably at the bottom of the trough of disillusionment phase and now like onto the enlightenment phase. And that's, you know, probably rightfully justified because, you know, most of the stuff in the broader autonomous vehicle industry of these promise of all these self-driving cars, you know, taking over cities, you know, doing everything didn't quite, quite materialize,

right? Do you remember our conversation with Elon? Yes,

yes.

We're at a friend's birthday party, and Elon's there, and Austin is there. And I pull Elon over, I say, I pulled Austin over, I said, okay, Elon, meet Austin, Austin, meet Elon, Austin makes LiDAR. And Elon's like, nope. If a human driver can see with visual eyes only, then autonomous cars only need visual eyes. He's very convinced.

Yeah, yeah.