Guest: RJ Scaringe, CEO and Founder of Rivian
“I’m very comfortable with things not being in their end state,” says Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe. The company’s challenging mission — to help make 100% of the world’s cars electric — will take a long time, and a lot of willingness to build the metaphorical plane in midair.
As Rivian has grown from one person to seven to 17,000, though, RJ admits that there’s a lot more pressure to not screw up. “There’s all these conflicting emotions I had ... is this the right product?” he recalls. “Is it the right strategy? Am I capable of doing this? But at the end of the day, I try really hard not to let that be overly distracting.”
Chapters:
- (01:58) - Starting from scratch
- (05:35) - Auto tech innovation
- (08:03) - The supply chain
- (09:52) - Rivian’s deal with Volkswagen
- (14:28) - Outsourcing
- (16:10) - Capable EVs
- (19:06) - Brand and customer satisfaction
- (21:05) - That nagging feeling
- (27:26) - Raising capital
- (31:31) - RJ’s father
- (32:35) - The dark side of cars
- (34:43) - Tesla’s influence
- (37:13) - Financial challenges
- (42:38) - Entrepreneurial mindset
- (44:59) - Hard decisions
- (46:46) - Don’t screw this up
- (49:56) - 25,000 decisions a day
- (52:16) - Daily routines
- (54:57) - Who Rivian is hiring
- (55:34) - What “grit” means to RJ
Mentioned in this episode: Porsche, Alex Honnold, Amazon AWS, Mercedes, Elon Musk, Lotus, U.S. News and World Report, MotorTrend, J.D. Power, Ford, Blue Origin, SpaceX, MIT, Jeff Bezos, and the Tesla Roadster.
Links:
Connect with RJ
Connect with Joubin
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
