Markoff: Google acquired robotics startups to build an automated delivery network
John Markoff · a16z Podcast | Talking Humans and Machines with NYT’s John Markoff · Jan 2, 2019 · at 27:08
John Markoff, veteran New York Times technology writer, discusses the secret motivation behind Andy Rubin's robotics acquisition spree for Google.
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“When Andy Rubin was going around the valley and buying and around the world and buying up, you know, the world's best roboticist, he was sketching out a vision which I would describe as a Google competing with Amazon. And you know, and if you can kind of see the architecture of that competition, you know, what is it? The friend of my enemy is my friend. They want to set up a distribution infrastructure, which would allow them to compete without having to build the large warehouse, although they have warehouses all over the Valley already. So that's where the robot comes in. I mean, his vision was the Google car drives up to your house and the Google robot hops off the back bumper and runs the package up to your”
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