Qasar Younis, co-founder of Applied Intuition, shares how they achieved a $6 billion valuation and a partnership with Porsche by applying Silicon Valley's startup practices to the automotive industry. They discuss the importance of culture, recruitment strategies, open-source technology, Tesla's impact on the industry, and the role of VCs in startup growth.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Startup-Focused Hiring at Google
Qasar used a unique recruiting method at Google, only hiring people with startup ambitions.
This filtered out those who aimed for long corporate careers and attracted startup-focused talent.
insights INSIGHT
Automotive Industry's Software Shift
Automotive embraces software transformation much like other industrial sectors.
The car industry, representing 3% of global GDP, is shifting to software and AI for new growth.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Tesla's Industry Disruption
Tesla's influence transformed how the automotive industry views electric and autonomous vehicles.
The Model S and Full Self-Driving tech made software-centric cars mainstream and consumer-first.
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Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig built Applied Intuition differently from most other startups. At a time of profligate spending at the peak of the tech bubble, they kept expenses low — and the company cash-flow positive for several years now. When every other company was moving toward remote work or a hybrid setup, they doubled down on the in-person, five-days-per-week office (while continuing a no-shoes philosophy). And when it comes to culture, they don’t just post their corporate values on a wall, but encode them right into the very software that runs the company.
The results? Applied reached a new milestone valuation earlier this year of $6 billion as well as announced a strategic partnership with automaker Porsche. It’s a moment of success years and even decades in the making, with both Qasar and Peter growing up amidst the milieu of America’s auto capital Detroit. Yet, it wasn’t just friends and family working in the auto industry that led them to invent the future of the car, but also a willingness to learn from Silicon Valley’s most thoughtful startup growth practices.
Alongside host Danny Crichton and Lux general partner Bilal Zuberi, we weave a conversation about automotive and autonomy while we discuss the key decisions that founders must make when building a startup. We talk about the pressure of capitalism on company execution, using software to manage a growing organization, why Google exported so much talent in the early 2010s, how to protect engineering productivity with a customer-centric culture, how to construct a useful board of directors, and finally, why markets just “whomp” any other factor of success for entrepreneurs.