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20VC: Why Self-Driving Is Still Under-Hyped in The Medium To Long Term, What Will The Ownership Mechanism Be Both In Physical Assets & Data and How To Assemble A World Class Exec Team As A Young Founder with Alex Rodrigues, Founder & CEO @ Embark

Jul 5, 2019

In this engaging discussion, Alex Rodrigues, the Founder and CEO of Embark, shares his journey from winning a World Robotics Championship to leading in self-driving truck technology. He argues that self-driving is still under-hyped, citing insights gained from top public market investors. Alex explores the potential for self-driving vehicles as public utilities and discusses future ownership models for data and assets. He also provides valuable tips on assembling a top-notch executive team, emphasizing the significance of mentorship and team morale for young founders.

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ANECDOTE

From Waterloo to Embark

Alex Rodrigues transitioned from the University of Waterloo to founding Embark, a self-driving truck company.
His robotics background, including winning a World Robotics Championship in middle school, prepared him.

ANECDOTE

FIRST Robotics Experience

FIRST Robotics provided Alex Rodrigues with more relevant experience for Embark than university.
Running a FIRST team taught him valuable skills in team management, budgeting, and engineering.

ADVICE

Encouraging STEM Engagement

Encourage children interested in STEM to participate in programs like FIRST Robotics.
These programs offer hands-on learning, competition, and mentorship from experienced engineers.

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Alex Rodrigues is the Founder & CEO @ Embark, the world's leading developer of self-driving trucks. Embark operates the longest automated freight route in the world. To date, Alex has raised over $47m in funding for Embark from some of my favourites in the form of Pat Grady @ Sequoia, Matt Ocko @ Data Collective, SV Angel and Y Combinator, just to name a few. As for Alex, it started early with his winning a World Robotics Championship while he was in Middle School (the championship was for adults). Post that incredible achievement he dropped out of Waterloo, became a Thiel Fellow, worked as a software engineer @ Nuance Communications, before joining Khan Academy as a software engineer and also teaching robotics @ Khan Lab School.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Alex made his way from winning World Robotics Championships while he was in Middle School to founding the leader developer of autonomous trucks in Embark?

2.) Why does Alex believe in the medium to long term, self-driving is still under-hyped? What is the market analysis to support this? How did his meetings with the world's best public markets investors impact his thinking here? How does Alex think about adoption timelines for self-driving? How do investors think about this when investing?

3.) Does Alex believe that when it comes to self-driving vehicles, they will largely be a public utility? What ownership mechanism does Alex expect to see? What are the pros and cons associated with each? How does Alex think about ownership of the data generated through self-driving? How do we balance privacy and public safety?

4.) With such large milestones and proof points in self-driving, how does Alex think about effective goal setting? What are the core KPIs to be driving for? How can they be broken into more meaningful and achievable wins for the team to get around? What is the core challenge to morale maintenance when the challenge is so long term?

5.) Where does Alex see the commonalities in the biggest mistakes that young founders make? What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known at the start? What have been Alex's biggest lessons on hiring the world's best in their respective fields? What have been Alex's biggest takeaways when it comes to successful board management?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Alex’s Fave Book: High Output Management

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