The Exchanges

Q Listen, I love the milestone-based approach, but I do have to ask, because as I said, I spoke to both Pat and Matt before the show, and they said about your earlier years, and so when we chatted before, you said to me that First Robotics was perhaps more useful preparation for Embark than university. So why was that, Alex, and what did you learn from First Robotics?

A Yeah, I stand by that a hundred percent. I think First Robotics was by far the most useful preparation for running Embark, and to understand why, I guess, You can understand particularly what my experience in FIRST was, which is even a little bit unique. So I initially just was a, was a part of a team, really enjoyed it. For those who don't know, FIRST is a program that runs competitive robotics competitions for students in high school and below, but these teams are usually run by adults. So they have a bunch of adult mentors. One of the top teams here in California is mentored by a bunch of the NASA engineers, and then they have these engineers running the teams and kids who come in and do the, do the bulk I got into it starting in grade seven, but my experience was also fairly unique because the first few years I had a really excellent coach, but then at some point, because I'm from Calgary, Calgary, Canada, where there isn't a lot of first or wasn't at the time, we were kind of out on our own, and so I also had the experience of really running the team that eventually won the world championships, and then I actually founded a team completely from scratch that didn't actually have any adult mentors, and so at 15, I basically took on the role of all the adult mentors of the team, so I wasn't just building stuff, but I was also Scheduling the meetings and managing the budget an…

AI assessment note: “Scheduling the meetings and managing the budget and figuring out how to get this 30 person group”

Q Listen, I love the milestone-based approach, but I do have to ask, because as I said, I spoke to both Pat and Matt before the show, and they said about your earlier years, and so when we chatted before, you said to me that First Robotics was perhaps more useful preparation for Embark than university. So why was that, Alex, and what did you learn from First Robotics?

A Yeah, I stand by that a hundred percent. I think First Robotics was by far the most useful preparation for running Embark, and to understand why, I guess, You can understand particularly what my experience in FIRST was, which is even a little bit unique. So I initially just was a, was a part of a team, really enjoyed it. For those who don't know, FIRST is a program that runs competitive robotics competitions for students in high school and below, but these teams are usually run by adults. So they have a bunch of adult mentors. One of the top teams here in California is mentored by a bunch of the NASA engineers, and then they have these engineers running the teams and kids who come in and do the, do the bulk I got into it starting in grade seven, but my experience was also fairly unique because the first few years I had a really excellent coach, but then at some point, because I'm from Calgary, Calgary, Canada, where there isn't a lot of first or wasn't at the time, we were kind of out on our own, and so I also had the experience of really running the team that eventually won the world championships, and then I actually founded a team completely from scratch that didn't actually have any adult mentors, and so at 15, I basically took on the role of all the adult mentors of the team, so I wasn't just building stuff, but I was also Scheduling the meetings and managing the budget an…

AI assessment note: “at 15, I basically took on the role of all the adult mentors”

Q Can I dive in and ask, is that value creation or is it value transferal from the existing incumbents to the new generation of semi-autonomous? And then my question subsequently is like, how do we think about that transferal versus creation?

A Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of this is creation, right? If you look at the second and third methodologies that we're using there, we're talking about taking eight trillion dollars worth of time that people spend holding a steering wheel and giving that back to people. So this is new value that is being unlocked where the average American spends five to 10% of their waking life driving. And that's insane. And we're giving that back to people. And so I think, or we look at four trillion dollars of damage, right? 1.35 million people a year who die in car accidents. And we're giving those people back their lives, and so we're creating a lot of value with that. There's obviously going to be a value transfer component as well, but I actually think a lot of this is coming out of thin air in terms of we've created a technology that can unlock huge amounts of value that were previously locked up.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of this is creation, right?”

Q you said that because my subsequent question was, I obviously know the rockstar team that you've assembled. In terms of kind of the biggest hiring lessons from assembling a team of A-star talented execs, what have been the biggest learnings for you in terms of what works, and what advice would you give to those who are looking to scale that learning curve in really getting that premium A-grade talent?

A Yeah, I think it's certainly an especially interesting challenge going out and hiring people who are world-class, actually, Experts in their different areas, and as a result, are often 1520 years older than I am, and I think there's a few things that go into being able to do that successfully, right? One is being able to provide evidence through what we've built that we're a competent leadership team, and I think that's the very basis of being able to go out and hire people who are much more experienced than yourself, is being able to show them that, listen, I don't know as much as you do about your area, that's That's why I'm looking to bring you on as an expert. What I have been able to do is bring the right values and the right strategies to create a technology that is world-class. And so we always, for example, when people come and do onsites with Embark, they will always get the opportunity to actually ride in our self-driving truck. I think, to the best of my knowledge, we're the only company that does this. But we think it's a really key part of people come in, they want to know that what we're building is real, and so we just put them in the truck. And then the second thing is finding people Who have the right combination of amazing skill in a certain area, but also humility and willingness to continue learning in other areas. And actually, I think maybe I get a little …

AI assessment note: “One is being able to provide evidence through what we've built”

Q I have not seen the book or the TV show, so that is one that's still left on my armor to do. What would you most like to see change about tech in Silicon Valley, Alex?

A I don't know that this is Silicon Valley's fault, but if I was to point to one change that I think would make a huge impact, I would say immigration here in the Valley. And this is something I've experienced as a founder who's Canadian, but it's also something I experience every day in just Trying to bring people in, and all the time, we will meet people who are world-class, or really, really excellent, whether they're in Europe, or they're in India, or they're in China, or they're in South America, and we aren't even able to consider hiring them, or if we are able to, because they have the right degree, or they have the right things that make the government happy, we have this huge challenge of needing to spend months to get them on site. So I think if Silicon Valley was to be far more successful, the one biggest change would just be to allow the best of the world's talent. We'll desperately want Come here. So just come here and help build these amazing companies.

AI assessment note: “if I was to point to one change that I think would make a huge impact”

Q that is fascinating. So thank you for shaming me on that one, Alex. So if we project ourselves out to kind of that medium to long term, the big question for me is always around the ownership itself. It's the structures. Do you share my thinking that it'll largely be a public utility, and how do you think about those very different ownership mechanisms in the medium to long term?

A Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely right. This will take a bit of time, right? Again, medium to long term, we're talking about changing people's behaviors such that people aren't using private cars in the same way anymore, and I think that that's right, that the people who will own this will be fleets, and they'll be available sort of on the push of a button. Whatever kind of vehicle you want, right? Day to day, you use a one person vehicle when you're commuting, which will be a huge step up, for example, in our environmental impact as a species. But then when you want to go out to the backwoods, you can get a bigger vehicle and bring all your stuff and all your family. There's so much flexibility this enables and so much more efficiency that it enables that it just makes sense to have it be a service that's available at a push of a button instead of Each individual parking spot by the office.

AI assessment note: “the people who will own this will be fleets, and they'll be available”

Q that is fascinating. So thank you for shaming me on that one, Alex. So if we project ourselves out to kind of that medium to long term, the big question for me is always around the ownership itself. It's the structures. Do you share my thinking that it'll largely be a public utility, and how do you think about those very different ownership mechanisms in the medium to long term?

A Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely right. This will take a bit of time, right? Again, medium to long term, we're talking about changing people's behaviors such that people aren't using private cars in the same way anymore, and I think that that's right, that the people who will own this will be fleets, and they'll be available sort of on the push of a button. Whatever kind of vehicle you want, right? Day to day, you use a one person vehicle when you're commuting, which will be a huge step up, for example, in our environmental impact as a species. But then when you want to go out to the backwoods, you can get a bigger vehicle and bring all your stuff and all your family. There's so much flexibility this enables and so much more efficiency that it enables that it just makes sense to have it be a service that's available at a push of a button instead of Each individual parking spot by the office.

AI assessment note: “I think that that's right, that the people who will own this will be fleets”

Q Not at all, but I want to kick off today with a little bit about you. So tell me, how does one make their way from the University of Waterloo to founding a company that's arguably the global leader in semi-autonomous trucking in the form of Embark, and what was that aha moment?

A Yeah, I think the story there, first I have to acknowledge that I was very fortunate to I didn't have a long-term plan when I first got into robotics, like, oh, I'll spend a decade building robots, and then they'll become useful, and people will start doing self-driving. I just like doing robotics, and I've been working on it for a long time before there was any obvious use, to be frank. Things sort of fell into place where for close to a decade before we started Embark, I'd been building competitive robots, and not just building robots, but running teams of 20 to 40 people that were working on time-constrained, budget-constrained, outcome-oriented robotics projects. And obviously when you hear that, it sounds almost exactly what we ended up doing at Embark. And so when the opportunity to start working in self-driving came out, I already had a lot of background in place that frankly, I didn't come as a result of some great plan. It was just what I enjoyed doing. And then I think the step from actually being at Waterloo to running Embark sort of proceeded a bit at a time. So the first step is, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we went and built a self-driving vehicle? I think that we have enough knowledge from all this background to be able to do it. So go out and do that. The next piece, okay, built this vehicle. It was the first self-driving vehicle in the country. Maybe we should go…

AI assessment note: “the step from actually being at Waterloo to running Embark sort of proceeded a bit”

Q Of course. I guess my, my subsequent question is, having enjoyed the benefits of such an incredible program, how do you advise maybe parents to think about activities to engage the children as you were so engaged in those early days?

A Yeah, I think when I get the opportunity to chat with parents who are thinking about how to get their kids into STEM, I'm always, speak of first as being really head and shoulders above everything else, because I do think kids love learning by doing. I certainly know that I love learning by doing, and a lot of kids who are passionate about science and engineering really enjoy academic Actually building things and seeing the results of those things, and kids love competition. They enjoy not just building for the sake of it, but building with a very specific goal in mind, and I think there's really nothing like it in terms of having a program that you actually build a full-on robot over the course of a year, and it's largely being done by the students themselves when, and they're learning as they're doing this from all these professional, experienced engineers. So I think it's an amazing program. I think if it's something that your kid has an interest in, I very strongly recommend doing whatever it takes to make it possible for them to participate. Different people have different ways of learning, but for those who like to learn by doing, it's pretty amazing that there's a whole program out there that lets high schoolers do what is very high-end engineering work, and often maybe more interesting than what people do in their first few years out of school.

AI assessment note: “I very strongly recommend doing whatever it takes to make it possible for them to participate.”

Q I have not seen the book or the TV show, so that is one that's still left on my armor to do. What would you most like to see change about tech in Silicon Valley, Alex?

A I don't know that this is Silicon Valley's fault, but if I was to point to one change that I think would make a huge impact, I would say immigration here in the Valley. And this is something I've experienced as a founder who's Canadian, but it's also something I experience every day in just Trying to bring people in, and all the time, we will meet people who are world-class, or really, really excellent, whether they're in Europe, or they're in India, or they're in China, or they're in South America, and we aren't even able to consider hiring them, or if we are able to, because they have the right degree, or they have the right things that make the government happy, we have this huge challenge of needing to spend months to get them on site. So I think if Silicon Valley was to be far more successful, the one biggest change would just be to allow the best of the world's talent. We'll desperately want Come here. So just come here and help build these amazing companies.

AI assessment note: “I would say immigration here in the Valley.”

Q Not at all, but I want to kick off today with a little bit about you. So tell me, how does one make their way from the University of Waterloo to founding a company that's arguably the global leader in semi-autonomous trucking in the form of Embark, and what was that aha moment?

A Yeah, I think the story there, first I have to acknowledge that I was very fortunate to I didn't have a long-term plan when I first got into robotics, like, oh, I'll spend a decade building robots, and then they'll become useful, and people will start doing self-driving. I just like doing robotics, and I've been working on it for a long time before there was any obvious use, to be frank. Things sort of fell into place where for close to a decade before we started Embark, I'd been building competitive robots, and not just building robots, but running teams of 20 to 40 people that were working on time-constrained, budget-constrained, outcome-oriented robotics projects. And obviously when you hear that, it sounds almost exactly what we ended up doing at Embark. And so when the opportunity to start working in self-driving came out, I already had a lot of background in place that frankly, I didn't come as a result of some great plan. It was just what I enjoyed doing. And then I think the step from actually being at Waterloo to running Embark sort of proceeded a bit at a time. So the first step is, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we went and built a self-driving vehicle? I think that we have enough knowledge from all this background to be able to do it. So go out and do that. The next piece, okay, built this vehicle. It was the first self-driving vehicle in the country. Maybe we should go…

AI assessment note: “It was sort of one step at a time, taking advantage of that super lucky context”

Q Can I ask, with the proliferation of their usage, how do you think about The data that's generated and the ownership and permissions around the data itself generated through self-driving. Is it a balance of personal privacy and public safety? How do you think about that?

A I think that we're in a nice spot as an industry where self-driving generates a huge amount of value that's got nothing to do with spying on you. And so I think that you'll see a lot more privacy in this next wave of technical development because maybe in similar to how hardware businesses have an easier time where they're selling you a product and so They don't need to also get your data. I think that's what we'll see, right? Where people go is obviously Aspects that need to be identified, where, like, a near collision event happens, we want to be able to train the models to make everyone's cars safer, but I think that the overall bent will be towards private data ownership and a lot more privacy.

AI assessment note: “the overall bent will be towards private data ownership and a lot more privacy.”

Q kind of scaling bar to that meta, when we chatted before, you said about the challenges in terms of kind of Setting and achieving milestones and kind of really doing that in the frontier tech environment. So I guess my question to you is how do you think about effective goal setting in frontier tech where it's maybe not as easy, tangible, or visible as, say, an enterprise software company?

A Yeah, I think this is one of the things that's very unique and different and that we really had to figure out from first principles at Embark. And this is an area where all of my experience building robotics projects, which were not at the time frontier tech, were certainly frontier to everyone who was involved tech. Came in very useful. The key here, realizing that you don't know what you don't know, unlike in, in like when you're building a SaaS company, there is an expert that you can go to, to ask for the answer. And you can just say, how do they build these at Google? And okay, let's just copy that. Versus here, this is something that this is the first time humanity will have achieved this. We have to really think about this in a much more nuanced way if we're going to succeed, because we can't, we don't have something to copy. The way that we approach this Problem is by having two sort of parallel sets of goals at different scales, and then making sure that everyone is on the same page about what we're trying to do for that. So we have one big long-term goal that's very, very specific about having this many trucks in this location doing this thing that allows us to say, like, every single person at Embark, I would hope you could ask them, what is Embark trying to do? And they would give you the same answer. I think that's really key. Step one, just having that Same animat…

AI assessment note: “having two sort of parallel sets of goals at different scales”

Q Of course. I guess my, my subsequent question is, having enjoyed the benefits of such an incredible program, how do you advise maybe parents to think about activities to engage the children as you were so engaged in those early days?

A Yeah, I think when I get the opportunity to chat with parents who are thinking about how to get their kids into STEM, I'm always, speak of first as being really head and shoulders above everything else, because I do think kids love learning by doing. I certainly know that I love learning by doing, and a lot of kids who are passionate about science and engineering really enjoy academic Actually building things and seeing the results of those things, and kids love competition. They enjoy not just building for the sake of it, but building with a very specific goal in mind, and I think there's really nothing like it in terms of having a program that you actually build a full-on robot over the course of a year, and it's largely being done by the students themselves when, and they're learning as they're doing this from all these professional, experienced engineers. So I think it's an amazing program. I think if it's something that your kid has an interest in, I very strongly recommend doing whatever it takes to make it possible for them to participate. Different people have different ways of learning, but for those who like to learn by doing, it's pretty amazing that there's a whole program out there that lets high schoolers do what is very high-end engineering work, and often maybe more interesting than what people do in their first few years out of school.

AI assessment note: “speak of first as being really head and shoulders above everything else”

Q And all companies also have shit hit the fan moments, Alex. Tell me, how do you deal with yours?

A Yeah, I think it's easy to get wrapped up in the emotions of it, but I try to step outside myself and think, if this was a friend of mine who was having this problem, and they came to me and said, hey, here's the situation, what do you think? And sometimes I'll even go through that explicit process. What would I say to my friend? Okay, what would I respond? And it's much easier when you step outside if you're tied to the situation, to just know what's the right thing to do here. I'll try and step outside myself, think about what would I tell a friend who is in this situation and And then just go and do the right thing once you know what you think you should be doing.

AI assessment note: “I try to step outside myself and think, if this was a friend of mine”

Q Can I ask, with the proliferation of their usage, how do you think about The data that's generated and the ownership and permissions around the data itself generated through self-driving. Is it a balance of personal privacy and public safety? How do you think about that?

A I think that we're in a nice spot as an industry where self-driving generates a huge amount of value that's got nothing to do with spying on you. And so I think that you'll see a lot more privacy in this next wave of technical development because maybe in similar to how hardware businesses have an easier time where they're selling you a product and so They don't need to also get your data. I think that's what we'll see, right? Where people go is obviously Aspects that need to be identified, where, like, a near collision event happens, we want to be able to train the models to make everyone's cars safer, but I think that the overall bent will be towards private data ownership and a lot more privacy.

AI assessment note: “the overall bent will be towards private data ownership and a lot more privacy”

Q Pat and Matt, and the board and the investors have this incredible respect and belief in you, the founder, and you're a young founder, and so I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Where do you see the biggest commonalities in terms of the mistakes that young founders make? I'm sure you get asked for a lot of advice from young founders. Where do you see the biggest mistakes they make?

A I think that the actual thing in my mind is really a question of what are the mistakes that immature founders make, and so maybe it's a bit self-serving of me to reframe it this way, but I think that the mistakes that you see young founders make, and the mistakes that you can see potentially much more experienced founders make, often look the same insofar as they come from a place of not being Sure. And so what do I mean by that? I think the challenge for me is that there's a bunch of stuff that I don't know. In order to be able to be successful, you have to be constantly trying to learn, constantly trying to challenge your assumptions, and being able to flex and do new things. And I think that immaturity that can really prevent you from being able to learn and build up effectively is sometimes on the, as a young founder, it can be from naivete, obviously. There's a trope that young people sometimes are very idealistic and just believe things can happen and they know the right way. And obviously that exists for a reason. So that, that naivete can certainly lead you to not learning and not being open to new ideas. Of course, I think you can also have the inverse where you have someone who's been around for 25 years and they feel that because I've seen this all before, there's nothing left for me to learn. And so you can have sort of the same problem, but coming from a totally di…

AI assessment note: “I would say hiring and firing are probably the top.”

Q So unfair of me to go off schedule, but I have to ask, you said there about the awareness and realization that it may not be the smooth transition and smooth ride that it never is. What do you think are the most potential probabilistic barriers or challenges that will arise in this transition to the future we're discussing?

A Interesting. So I think that a lot of this is really In not necessarily what's happening on the ground, but what's happening in people's mindset. And so the big challenge is going to be that there will certainly be people who are worried and who are concerned and who have to change over a long time horizon. We'll see the way that this trucking industry is structured changing. What I don't think we'll actually see is individual truckers having Scale of the industry, and you understand the fact that the average trucker is 55 today, I think you'll see a lot of things able to line up where we're coming in and filling roles that are presently empty instead of roles that are presently full. That's a narrative that makes sense when you run the numbers, but it's not necessarily one that'll speak to every individual person. I think the big thing that I'm aware of is that we have to be sort of constantly on the lookout to make sure that what we're doing is thoughtful about how it's impacting existing truckers, and to make sure that we're actually educating Because everyone's default reaction is sort of what you asked, right? Like, how is this going to completely alter the existing industry? And we say, well, actually, the existing industry has a problem, and we're coming in with a solution.

AI assessment note: “the big challenge is going to be that there will certainly be people who are worried”

Q So unfair of me to go off schedule, but I have to ask, you said there about the awareness and realization that it may not be the smooth transition and smooth ride that it never is. What do you think are the most potential probabilistic barriers or challenges that will arise in this transition to the future we're discussing?

A Interesting. So I think that a lot of this is really In not necessarily what's happening on the ground, but what's happening in people's mindset. And so the big challenge is going to be that there will certainly be people who are worried and who are concerned and who have to change over a long time horizon. We'll see the way that this trucking industry is structured changing. What I don't think we'll actually see is individual truckers having Scale of the industry, and you understand the fact that the average trucker is 55 today, I think you'll see a lot of things able to line up where we're coming in and filling roles that are presently empty instead of roles that are presently full. That's a narrative that makes sense when you run the numbers, but it's not necessarily one that'll speak to every individual person. I think the big thing that I'm aware of is that we have to be sort of constantly on the lookout to make sure that what we're doing is thoughtful about how it's impacting existing truckers, and to make sure that we're actually educating Because everyone's default reaction is sort of what you asked, right? Like, how is this going to completely alter the existing industry? And we say, well, actually, the existing industry has a problem, and we're coming in with a solution.

AI assessment note: “the big challenge is going to be that there will certainly be people who are worried”

Q Pat and Matt, and the board and the investors have this incredible respect and belief in you, the founder, and you're a young founder, and so I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Where do you see the biggest commonalities in terms of the mistakes that young founders make? I'm sure you get asked for a lot of advice from young founders. Where do you see the biggest mistakes they make?

A I think that the actual thing in my mind is really a question of what are the mistakes that immature founders make, and so maybe it's a bit self-serving of me to reframe it this way, but I think that the mistakes that you see young founders make, and the mistakes that you can see potentially much more experienced founders make, often look the same insofar as they come from a place of not being Sure. And so what do I mean by that? I think the challenge for me is that there's a bunch of stuff that I don't know. In order to be able to be successful, you have to be constantly trying to learn, constantly trying to challenge your assumptions, and being able to flex and do new things. And I think that immaturity that can really prevent you from being able to learn and build up effectively is sometimes on the, as a young founder, it can be from naivete, obviously. There's a trope that young people sometimes are very idealistic and just believe things can happen and they know the right way. And obviously that exists for a reason. So that, that naivete can certainly lead you to not learning and not being open to new ideas. Of course, I think you can also have the inverse where you have someone who's been around for 25 years and they feel that because I've seen this all before, there's nothing left for me to learn. And so you can have sort of the same problem, but coming from a totally di…

AI assessment note: “hiring and firing are probably the top”

Q you really prepare yourself for Embark, and I want to start today really on the space behind Embark itself, because you said to me before I think in the medium to long term, self-driving is still under hype. So I guess kind of starting on that, why do you believe this, Alex, and what really leads that thinking on it being under hype still in the medium to long term?

A Yeah, so I think this is a super interesting conversation because there's been all sorts of disagreement in the short term about the details, right? You have people sort of going back and forth about is this going to be 24 months or is it going to be 48 months? People going back and forth about is this going to be cars first or trucks first? How are these things actually going to roll out? Which cities will first see self-driving? And I think those are all very interesting conversations, but I also think they somewhat lose the forest for the trees. There can be a lot of conversations about exactly what things will look like 24 months from now or 48 months from now, but I think some of the most intelligent, I've had the And some of the most intelligent public markets investors I've met have sort of taught me that what you need to be looking at when you're thinking about a company, there's all these, obviously they're used to all these jitters day to day in the stock price, but at the end of the day, it's about if you look out into the future, do you see a world where this is creating a lot of value? And at the end of the day, if the answer is yes, then a lot of the day to day jitters aren't too important. If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter what you're driving on the hype side. If you can't see a world where it's creating tons of value in the future, then what's the poin…

AI assessment note: “if you look out into the future, do you see a world where this is creating a lot of value?”

Q you really prepare yourself for Embark, and I want to start today really on the space behind Embark itself, because you said to me before I think in the medium to long term, self-driving is still under hype. So I guess kind of starting on that, why do you believe this, Alex, and what really leads that thinking on it being under hype still in the medium to long term?

A Yeah, so I think this is a super interesting conversation because there's been all sorts of disagreement in the short term about the details, right? You have people sort of going back and forth about is this going to be 24 months or is it going to be 48 months? People going back and forth about is this going to be cars first or trucks first? How are these things actually going to roll out? Which cities will first see self-driving? And I think those are all very interesting conversations, but I also think they somewhat lose the forest for the trees. There can be a lot of conversations about exactly what things will look like 24 months from now or 48 months from now, but I think some of the most intelligent, I've had the And some of the most intelligent public markets investors I've met have sort of taught me that what you need to be looking at when you're thinking about a company, there's all these, obviously they're used to all these jitters day to day in the stock price, but at the end of the day, it's about if you look out into the future, do you see a world where this is creating a lot of value? And at the end of the day, if the answer is yes, then a lot of the day to day jitters aren't too important. If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter what you're driving on the hype side. If you can't see a world where it's creating tons of value in the future, then what's the poin…

AI assessment note: “in the long term, is this going to create a lot of value?”

Q to ask, and it's a selfish one, but while I have the chance, I have to ask it. The real question for me lies around ownership. In terms of that medium to long term, do you share my thinking that actually semi-autonomous and autonomous will largely be a public utility? How do you think about ownership mechanisms in the medium to long term, taking that kind of public markets mindset?

A So actually, I just want to finish the end piece of this thought here, right, is, okay, we talked about how much value is created, but then to like tie that back and make the claim, oh, this is actually under height. On what basis do I say that? And I think the basis there is you say, venture investors are looking to make a 10 X return on a real home run win, right? And so if we're talking six trillion dollars of enterprise value in 10 to 15 years, even divide that by 10, you have six hundred billion dollars of value of the current investments that would allow you to still be making a 10 X return. And like cruise is worth nineteen billion. Uber ATG is valued at seven. Zoops is valued at two. And so it's like huge, huge amounts of money, but not actually close to the 600 that you could sort of support when you look at what the long term value will be. That's sort of the tie back. And how would you think about the present value? I'm going to say like the other sanity check that we can do that I always love to see people's faces when you ask them this. So I mentioned that the annual revenue of trucking in the world is 3.8 trillion. Do you want to hazard a guess for comparison what the annual value of worldwide advertising of all types, both digital and traditional is?

AI assessment note: “I just want to finish the end piece of this thought here”

Q to ask, and it's a selfish one, but while I have the chance, I have to ask it. The real question for me lies around ownership. In terms of that medium to long term, do you share my thinking that actually semi-autonomous and autonomous will largely be a public utility? How do you think about ownership mechanisms in the medium to long term, taking that kind of public markets mindset?

A So actually, I just want to finish the end piece of this thought here, right, is, okay, we talked about how much value is created, but then to like tie that back and make the claim, oh, this is actually under height. On what basis do I say that? And I think the basis there is you say, venture investors are looking to make a 10 X return on a real home run win, right? And so if we're talking six trillion dollars of enterprise value in 10 to 15 years, even divide that by 10, you have six hundred billion dollars of value of the current investments that would allow you to still be making a 10 X return. And like cruise is worth nineteen billion. Uber ATG is valued at seven. Zoops is valued at two. And so it's like huge, huge amounts of money, but not actually close to the 600 that you could sort of support when you look at what the long term value will be. That's sort of the tie back. And how would you think about the present value? I'm going to say like the other sanity check that we can do that I always love to see people's faces when you ask them this. So I mentioned that the annual revenue of trucking in the world is 3.8 trillion. Do you want to hazard a guess for comparison what the annual value of worldwide advertising of all types, both digital and traditional is?

AI assessment note: “So actually, I just want to finish the end piece of this thought here”