Podcast appearances and mentions of Chris Urmson

Chris Urmson has spent the last 20 years pushing the limits of autonomous driving—first at Carnegie Mellon's DARPA Grand Challenge team, then as co-founder of Google's self-driving car project, now Waymo.On this week's episode, the Aurora CEO retraces that journey—from building robot cars in the desert to leading a public company pioneering driverless trucking.He shares why autonomy was always a matter of when, not if, how he handled a high-profile departure from Waymo, and what it takes to build at the intersection of deep tech, safety, and infrastructure.Now eight years into Aurora, Urmson says the future he's been chasing is finally within reach.Guest: Chris Urmson, Co-Founder & CEO of AuroraChapters: 00:00 Trailer00:43 Introduction01:59 FSD: are we there? 14:31 The competition, a million dollar check from LA to LV22:50 Dream like an amateur, execute like a pro32:30 Operate with integrity42:49 The future is here, unevenly distributed49:36 Underestimated decisions, minimizing regrets1:03:55 Retaining value1:16:45 Integrating self-driving1:28:20 Lifer1:29:25 Who Aurora is hiring1:29:53 What “grit” means to Chris1:30:15 OutroMentioned in this episode: Waymo, Google, Rivian, Dmitri Dolgov, Uber, Tesla, The DARPA Grand Challenge, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, United States Department of Defense, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, FedEx, Werner Enterprises, Hirschbach, Schneider Electric, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Sebastian Thrun, Batman, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Anthony Levandowski, Donald Trump, Apple iPhone, Airbnb, Blackmore, Stripe, Titan, Ford, Volkswagen, RJ Scaringe, Peterbilt Motors Company, The Volvo Group, Continental AG, Dara KhosrowshahiLinks:Connect with Chris UrmsonXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

In this SPACInsider Podcast Replay, we go back to 2021, when we spoke with Chris Urmson, CEO and Chairman of autonomous truck technology firm Aurora (NASDAQ:AUR). At the time, Aurora was working to close its $10 billion business combination with Reinvent Technology Y. Chris laid out how the company planned to approach the commercialization of its self-driving heavy truck business model and what challenges still laid ahead for it and other developers of autonomous technology. Now, Aurora is preparing to debut its driverless trucks along the Dallas-to-Houston freight route later this month, with plans to extend on to El Paso and Phoenix, Arizona before year's end. Now that this debut is finally at hand, take a listen to what the road ahead for Aurora looked like four years ago and why it was kicking off that journey with a SPAC.  

Our guest in this episode is Sterling Anderson, a pioneer of self-driving vehicles. With a masters degree and a PhD from MIT, Sterling led the development and launch of the Tesla Model X, and then led the team that delivered Tesla Autopilot. In 2017 he co-founded Aurora, along with Chris Urmson, who was a founder and CTO of Google's self-driving car project, which is now Waymo, and also Drew Bagnell, who co-founded and led Uber's self-driving team.Aurora is concentrating on automating long-distance trucks, and expects to be the first company to deploy fully self-driving trucks in the US when it deploys big driverless trucks (16 tons and more) between Dallas and Houston in April 2025.Self-driving vehicles will be one of the most significant technologies of this decade, and we are delighted that one of the stars of the sector, Sterling, is joining us to share his perspectives.Selected follow-ups:The future of transportation is here - Aurora websiteLeadership Team - Aurora websitePrevious episodes also featuring self-driving vehicles:Ep 58: Whatever happened to self-driving cars, with Timothy LeeEp 26: Peter James, best-selling crime-writer and transhumanistMusic: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

Kara and Scott discuss Kamala Harris's big media blitz, and the podcast (aside from Pivot) that she should really appear on. Then, Elon Musk leapt into the air at Donald Trump's weekend rally in Pennsylvania, and a lot of people had thoughts. Plus, Google is finally facing some real competition when it comes to the $300 billion search advertising business. Our Friend of Pivot is Chris Urmson, founder and CEO of Aurora, a start-up focusing on autonomous trucking. Chris explains how Aurora is getting driverless trucks on the road, and why the technology could be good for the economy. Follow Chris at @chris_urmson Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Generative AI is making it possible to not only remove the human from the driver seat, but, in the world of trucking and freight, from the vehicle entirely.  This week on Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano speaks with Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora Innovation, a company that makes software for autonomous vehicles with a focus on the trucking industry. Chris shares his journey from participating in the self-driving vehicle DARPA Grand Challenge early in his career, to leading the autonomous vehicle program at Google. Michael also talks with Chris about why Aurora focuses on the trucking and freight industry, the challenge of designing AI systems for self-driving technology, and how technological advancements in radar and LiDAR have helped make autonomous vehicles possible . Chris discusses his insights about developing AI systems to mimic human driving, and how he sees the future of autonomous vehicles for both trucking and personal cars. Chris Urmson is the co-founder and CEO of Aurora Innovation. Before co-founding Aurora, Chris led the development of Google's autonomous vehicle project (later known as Waymo) from 2009 to 2016. As a graduate student, he also led the Carnegie Mellon University team for the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenge as the Director of Technology, winning second and third place in 2005, and first place in 2007. Chris received his BEng in Computer Engineering from the University of Manitoba, and his Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction (01:44) Chris Urmson's Early Work (04:43) Founding Aurora Innovation (06:25) Aurora's Focus on Freight and Trucking (09:32) The Challenges in Trucking (17:08) Advancements in Autonomous Vehicle Technology (25:01) Using AI to Enhance Safety in Autonomous Vehicles (27:06) Handling Complex Driving Scenarios (31:40) Addressing Maintenance and Fueling for an Autonomous Vehicle (36:36) Regulatory Considerations (45:47) Predictions for the Future of Autonomous Vehicles (48:57) Conclusion and Final Thoughts Stay in touch: www.lsvp.com X: https://twitter.com/lightspeedvp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightspeed-venture-partners/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightspeedventurepartners/ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: generativenow.co Email: generativenow@lsvp.com The content here does not constitute tax, legal, business or investment advice or an offer to provide such advice, should not be construed as advocating the purchase or sale of any security or investment or a recommendation of any company, and is not an offer, or solicitation of an offer, for the purchase or sale of any security or investment product. For more details please see lsvp.com/legal.

Our big interview with Aurora Innovations CEO Chris Urmson ($AUR). Also Cadence Design Systems ($CDNS) still suffering from Covid? Cisco Systems ($CSCO) gave us a tell about a challenging quarter, and Coinbase ($COIN) benefiting from rising interest rates and stablecoin, but for how long?. https://linktr.ee/drilldownpod Futurum's The Drill Down with Cory Johnson offers a weekly look at the business stories behind stocks on the move.  It's business news for business people. Every episode of  The Drill Down offers a pithy look at the week's most important business stories and takes a good hard look at four public companies in the news. The Drill Down is a production of The Futurum Group, a leading global technology advisory, media and research firm. Futurum's media platform spans across multiple OTT and VOD channels that have surpassed 9 million views and over 421 million digital and social media impressions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sterling Anderson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the founding of Aurora, the economics of the Aurora business model why the world's best product is a very profitable product. The conversation begins with Sterling discussing why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and himself came together to form Aurora in 2016. We saw a lot of players in the ecosystem at the time struggling to figure out the right path. A credible independent player in our view could change the game for them and unlock the potential of a powerful ecosystem from OEMs to carriers to private fleets to even Tier 1's and companies who provide some of the backend service. We felt like a credible autonomy player who played our position and enabled or unlocked the rest of the industry could deliver tremendous value here, and we did not see much of that at the time. – Sterling Anderson Being an independent company is one of the keys to Aurora's success as it has allowed them to build an industry wide solution that unlocks potential for both cars and trucks. The original product roadmap for the company which is still intact today was to look at trucking, ride-hailing and local goods delivery.Trucking was top of the list in terms of the first product that we wanted to go to market with. – Sterling Anderson In 2018, Aurora began laying the foundation for their autonomous trucking product when they integrated their autonomous driving stack into a Volvo truck and began testing on a track in partnership with Volvo. Trucking is the first product, ride-hailing will follow. – Sterling Anderson The Aurora business model for trucking today is transportation-as-a-service, as the business and technology matures, the model will evolve into a driver-as-a-service model. This is a model where we are licensing the self-driving system, inclusive of the hardware, the software and the data services required to operate it to our customers who are in turn purchasing either the truck from the OEM who provides it or purchasing a set of solutions. – Sterling Anderson Customers who sign up for the driver-as-a-service model will pay a utilization service fee (per mile fee). To keep the trucks up and running at optimal performance, Aurora trucks are designed for reliability and serviceability. This design approach allows Aurora to optimize the economics of their operations. In my view the world's best product is also a very profitable product. – Sterling Anderson As Aurora prepares for driver-out commercial operations in late 2024 with 20 trucks on the Dallas to Houston lanes, the autonomous trucks will be operated under the transportation-as-a-service model. In 2025/2026, the customers operating under the transportation-as-a-service model will begin to transition to a driver-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the assets. Wrapping up the conversation, Sterling shares his vision for the future of Aurora. Recorded on Friday, October 27, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:18 Why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and Sterling Anderson founded Aurora3:38 The Vision for Aurora8:07 Going Public with Volvo and PACCAR10:57 Local Goods Delivery and the Middle Mile12:34 Aurora Trucking Business Model24:52 Preparing for Commercial Driver-Out Operations27:48 A Focus on Profitability34:45 Terminal Operations40:43 Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day46:00 Aviation History--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles and logistics. The company has three businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor's Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy Podcast and The Road to Autonomy's This Week In The Index; and The Road to Autonomy Research and Consulting Services.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trucks transport almost every object, yet the industry has many pain points. Aurora's CEO Chris Urmson talks solutions.In the US alone, 80 per cent of freight is transported by trucks. Without them and their drivers, the world would literally grind to a halt. But trucking is not for the faint-hearted. It's a dangerous and strenuous job, leading to significant driver shortages. Meanwhile, demand for the movement of goods is only increasing.Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of autonomous trucking company Aurora, sits down with Scottish Mortgage manager Tom Slater to discuss how his company can solve the problem – by enabling trucks to drive themselves. Chris explains how installing autonomous software into trucks will make the industry safer and more efficient, and how the application of autonomous technology can transform transportation at large.Chris started his journey at Carnegie Mellon, moved on to Google's self-driving vehicle project Waymo, and then co-founded Aurora with brilliant minds from Uber and Tesla. Hear how he has built the company from the ground up, formed partnerships with some big names, and what's next on the road to autonomous trucks.Check the podcast description to ensure this content is suitable for you. Your capital is at risk. Presenter: Claire ShawAudio production agency: ListenProducer: Shannon Delwiche Executive producer: Suzy GrantProduction manager: Niamh KiddEditorial lead: Malcolm Borthwick Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bloomberg's Thomas Black joins this episode to talk about the progress being made in developing autonomous trucks—including the 18-wheelers that deliver goods across the US. Three companies are now testing them in Texas, and trucks without drivers could be rolling down US highways as early as next year. Plus, Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora, one of the companies  testing in Texas, discusses the road to developing driverless truck technology. Read more: Goodbye, California. Driverless Trucks Are Headed to Texas Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK  Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation has plans to commercialize autonomous trucks by the end of next year. So far, the company seems to be on that path in Texas. Here in California, where the company is partly headquartered and has long incubated much of its technology, it’s a different story. The company's home state may push back on its innovations with California State Assembly Bill 316, which would prohibit any self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds from hitting the road without a trained human operator behind the wheel. The legislation's got the support of labor unions including the Teamsters, who argue it will save jobs and keep California's roads safe. The bill could be headed to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk in the near future. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali made a visit to Aurora’s headquarters in the Bay Area and sat down with its CEO, Chris Urmson, and asked him how this bill could halt the company's advances here in the Golden State.

Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation has plans to commercialize autonomous trucks by the end of next year. So far, the company seems to be on that path in Texas. Here in California, where the company is partly headquartered and has long incubated much of its technology, it’s a different story. The company's home state may push back on its innovations with California State Assembly Bill 316, which would prohibit any self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds from hitting the road without a trained human operator behind the wheel. The legislation's got the support of labor unions including the Teamsters, who argue it will save jobs and keep California's roads safe. The bill could be headed to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk in the near future. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali made a visit to Aurora’s headquarters in the Bay Area and sat down with its CEO, Chris Urmson, and asked him how this bill could halt the company's advances here in the Golden State.

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Chris Urmson is one of the founding fathers of the autonomous vehicle industry. He participated in three DARPA self-driving vehicle challenges before joining the team that launched Google's self-driving car project, which later became Waymo. Eventually though, Chris saw an opportunity to scratch an entrepreneurial itch and bring his expertise to an industry that was ripe for it: trucking.This week on How I Built This Lab, Chris talks about launching and scaling Aurora, a company that is developing autonomous systems to safely drive semitrucks on America's freeways. Plus, Chris and Guy discuss the impact that this technology could have on the U.S. economy, as well as the millions of truck drivers working in the industry today. This episode was produced by Chis Maccini and edited by John Isabella, with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Katherine Silva. You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tesla's self-driving ambitions (and the company's recent recall) may dominate the conversation when it comes to autonomous driving, but they're not the only players in the space. This week, Kara's talking to CEOs whose driverless vehicles are being roadtested. First up: Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, which will launch its driverless truck service next year in Texas. They discuss safety, job displacement and the time that Kara tried to hit Urmson with his own driverless car. (Spoiler alert: It didn't work.) BTW, do you have any burning questions on career, love or life you'd like Kara or Nayeema's advice on? If so, call 1-888-KARA-PLZ and leave us a voice mail. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram. We're @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Autonomous trucking generates a lot of headlines. It isn't a viable business yet. And a shakeout of players continues. Chris Urmson, truly part of the old guard in autonomy and the co-founder and CEO of Aurora Innovation, offers his perspective.Follow the Truck Tech PodcastOther FreightWaves Shows

Lexman and his guest, Chris Urmson, discuss cryotron technology and the future of AI.

Lexman interviews Chris Urmson, creator of the artificial intelligence AIRA and head of the self-driving cars program at Google. They discuss vaginismus, headlocks, and cabletuation.

December 15, 2022 | Elon Musk sells $3.5B in Tesla stock; Aurora CEO Chris Urmson by Automotive News

To complete an audacious journey, you need to set short, achievable goals — or waypoints — to avoid getting wildly lost. But waypoints also need to be flexible because when you're knocked off track, you need to be able to realign your waypoints to get back on course. Aurora's Chris Urmson shares how he keeps returning to short, flexible waypoints on his daunting journey to make autonomous vehicles part of our everyday lives.Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dlirtXSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fully autonomous vehicles are closer to commonplace than you might expect, as cars and big rigs gain the ability to operate safely on our streets and highways. As one of the pioneers in the field, Chris Urmson has been there from the beginning, competing in the landmark DARPA Grand Challenge before going on to lead Google's self-driving car initiative. Now he's following through on the vision as the CEO of Aurora, which is developing self-driving technology for use by a variety of car and truck makers. On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we're playing highlights from our conversation with Urmson at the recent GeekWire Summit. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop. Edited by Curt Milton.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CHRIS URMSON, CHOROGRAPHER. Morisco is the first doll in history to get a uvb-gel finishing process that restores its original appearance - before it was prettified. Lexman interviews Urmson to hear his thoughts on the new technique.

Autonomous driving is among the most exciting applications for artificial intelligence. It is also among the most challenging to actually pull off: from the capital-intensive combination of hardware and software to the complex coordination between multiple stakeholders to ensure safety. What will it take to get it deployed on a large scale? Aurora CEO Chris Urmson and Nuro CEO Jiajun Zhu join Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman for a discussion on the state of autonomous vehicle technology. This interview was part of Greylock's Intelligent Future event, a daylong summit featuring experts and entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence. You can watch the video from the interview here: https://youtu.be/8vjlhregfeg You can read a transcript of the interview here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/autonomous-vehicles-the-road-ahead/

Lexman and Chris Urmson discuss the fascinating world of sphenograms. Lexman marvels at how sphenograms can capture a moment in time and share a unique perspective not possible with other forms of photography. Urmson shares his story of using sphenograms to document his battle with pancreatic cancer.

Chris Urmson, developer of the game "Dune", talks about how parsimonious apophthegms are and why corkage costs should be reduced for mammals.

With the advent of artificial intelligence, some people worry that machines will take over the world. Chris Urmson, CEO of Google's artificial intelligence company DeepMind, tells us what the future of AI looks like. He discusses how AI is changing the way we live and work, and how we can use it to improve our lives.

Lexman and Chris Urmson talk about how Hagiology (the study of legendary figures) can be used as a tool for brainstorming, and how it can be used to inspire creativity. They also touch on some of the challenges of using hagiology in creative work.

Lexman and Chris Urmson discuss the art of double-crossing, the dangers of spacewalks, and the deliciousness of picotees.

The gang talks about the Tingler, a device designed to relieve muscle tension and stress. Chris Urmson, the creator of the Tingler, joins the conversation to talk about the inspiration behind the product and how it works. Lexman also shares a poem about the dangers of technology.

In the realm of modern technology, it doesn't get more exciting than self-driving vehicles. Aurora is the only successful independent company in this business. The team has remained focused on building the Aurora Driver, partnering with existing leaders (Toyota, Uber, Volvo, Paccar, and more) for the other pieces of the puzzle. Chris shares the advantages of relying on partners to bring that technology to market, noting “we'll actually be able to build a better product and we'll end up actually having a better business and have a bigger impact on the world because of that.” What Aurora has been able to achieve in the self-driving space is remarkable. Index partner Mike Volpi sits down with Chris to discuss Aurora's unique approach to self-driving, the outlook on the industry, and how the company keeps people focused when solving such a complex, long-term problem. In Chris's words, “it's been an incredible adventure and we're only just at the beginning.”

On this week's podcast, we speak with Aurora Co-Founder and CEO Chris Urmson, on the future of driverless technology in both the freight trucking and taxi markets. We talk about the winding path that autonomous vehicles have taken and what steps are still necessary for Aurora to debut its first driverless trucks in 2023. Will people even drive cars in the future? Take a listen.

Aurora CEO Chris Urmson and Reinvent's (RTPY) Michael Thompson join David Drapkin to talk self-driving technology, why Aurora is setup for success, and the overall SPAC market. Aurora / Reinvent just announced their shareholder vote on the deal is happening on November 2nd. Reinvent Technology Partners Y (RTPY), is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. More on Aurora: https://aurora.tech/ More on Reinvent: https://www.reinventtechnologypartners.com/ Discussion DetailsOverview of Aurora and its technology, partnershipsWhy public now vs. an additional private roundWhy Reinvent, process of finding a SPACSponsor alignment with public shareholdersKeys to success as a public company2023 Truck launch and go-to-market strategyWhy Aurora vs. a GM or Waymo?Valuation in context vs. Peers and latest raise?Telling Aurora's story to the publicCapital structure of the company post closeReinvent as a SPAC sponsor - picking SPAC targetsFuture of the SPAC market from a sponsor perspectiveBiggest Risk for Aurora

Chris Urmson has had to take a different approach in building his company Aurora, which develops self-driving technology. As opposed to creating and iterating a product with a handful of people, and then building a company around that product, Urmson says he's had to do the opposite. “Given the scale of the problem we're trying to solve and the complexity and breadth of it, we really had to build the company almost ahead of the product,” he says in this interview with Rapid Response host and editor-at-large Bob Safian. Urmson is determined to transform transportation as it is today – a goal that has and will continue to require a great amount of energy and investment upfront, he says. However, if he's able to pull it off, “the benefit and impact that we'll have socially and economically will be profound.”Read a transcript of this interview at: mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtXSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chris Urmson has had to take a different approach in building his company Aurora, which develops self-driving technology. As opposed to creating and iterating a product with a handful of people, and then building a company around that product, Urmson says he's had to do the opposite. “Given the scale of the problem we're trying to solve and the complexity and breadth of it, we really had to build the company almost ahead of the product,” he says in this interview with Rapid Response host and editor-at-large Bob Safian. Urmson is determined to transform transportation as it is today – a goal that has and will continue to require a great amount of energy and investment upfront, he says. However, if he's able to pull it off, “the benefit and impact that we'll have socially and economically will be profound.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 18 of our host Pieter Abbeel meets Chris Urmson. Chris is one of the world-leading pioneers in self-driving. He led the Google self-driving project for several years - which later became Waymo. Then, in 2017, he co-founded his own self-driving company, Aurora where he is currently the CEO. In this episode, he discusses his involvement of the DARPA Grand Challenge, departure from Google, and his (and Aurora's) vision for the future of autonomous vehicles. | Visit therobotbrains.ai and follow us on Twitter @therobotbrains, Instagram @therobotbrains and YouTube TheRobotBrainsPodcast | Host: Pieter Abbeel | Executive Producers: Ricardo Reyes & Henry Tobias Jones | Audio Production: Kieron Matthew Banerji | Title Music: Alejandro Del Pozo See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chris Urmson the CEO of Aurora, a leading self-driving company, joins Jason to recount the history of autonomous vehicles (1:06), the roadmap for removing human drivers (16:47), what technology problems are left to solve (38:25) and more!

Chris Urmson the CEO of Aurora, a leading self-driving company, joins Jason to recount the history of autonomous vehicles (1:06), the roadmap for removing human drivers (16:47), what technology problems are left to solve (38:25) and more!

Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of the self-driving technology startup Aurora, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the state-of-play of self-driving technology, the criticisms the tech must address, and the huge challenges to be overcome before we trust a computer to drive our kids to school.

By Walt HickeyWelcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. Each week, I'll sit down with an author or a writer behind one of the stories covered in a previous weekday edition for a casual conversation about what they wrote.This week, I spoke to Alex Davies, the author of the brand new book Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car. It's just out as of last week and is an enthralling read about the events that led us to the present-day state of the art of autonomous vehicles.I've been looking forward to this book since it was announced, and it doesn't disappoint: from the iconic if shambolic 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge to the legal battles that threatened to tear the industry apart, the creation of this tech could change the world. It's a great story.For the first time, I recorded one of these to be podcast-quality so you can actually listen to the interview up top. Let me know if you enjoy that, and maybe I'll do more of them!The book is Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car and can be found wherever books are sold, and Alex is on Twitter at @adavies47. This interview has been condensed and edited. Unless otherwise indicated, images are from DARPA. Podcast theme by J.T. Fales.Alex, you are the author of the brand new book, Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car. You cover all about transportation, you cover all about vehicles and you've also covered a lot about the technology that goes into them. There's been a lot of talk about driverless cars recently, you were talking about how this is a really long journey. How far back have we been working on driverless cars?I think the people first started talking about the driverless car right around the time people came up with the car itself. The car was a great invention for all sorts of reasons but one thing people noticed very quickly was that when you got rid of the horse, you got rid of the sentient being that would stop you from driving off a cliff or into a wall if you, the human driver, stopped paying attention. You see these stories from the ‘20s and ‘30s of people coming up with ways of remote-controlling cars using radio waves. And in the ‘50s, you start seeing programs from General Motors and RCA working on embedding electric strips into the road, which obviously didn't work for various reasons, that would help guide a car along the highway. You see examples from the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs in New York where GM is talking about, "oh, cars that will drive themselves and you'll have these things like air traffic controllers saying, okay, your car is clear to go into self-driving mode," or back then they would have used the word autonomous.Ford Pavilion, 1939 World's Fair, via Library of CongressSo, the idea itself is really old but technologically, I think you've got to date this work from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. That's when you first start seeing the technology that undergirds the way we think about building self-driving cars today, which is not by following any kind of radio path, nothing built into the infrastructure and the system, but the basic idea of giving the car the tools it needs to drive itself the way a human operates a car. You've got three basic buckets: one is you have to recreate a human's senses, so that's where you see things like cameras, radars, LiDAR sensors, giving the car the ability to see the world around it. You have to replace what a human's arms and legs do or hands and feet, really, and those are just kind of servo motors built into the car that give the car the ability to turn the steering wheel or pump the gas and brakes. And, actually, in today's cars, that's all done purely over software, it's not even really mechanical in there anymore. And then the last, the really tricky thing is how do you replace the human's brain? The step between the senses and actually carrying out the decisions you need to make.I start my story with the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge. I give a little bit of the history of the robotics and artificial intelligence research that happened before it. But for me, the Grand Challenge is really the starting point. DARPA is that really kooky arm of the Pentagon that is basically charged with making sure the U.S. government is never surprised on the technological front. It came out of the Soviets launching Sputnik, which really shocked the Americans to hell, and they're like, “okay, we need an arm of the military that's just going to do the kooky kind of far out stuff.” So DARPA, a lot of big hits — the internet, GPS, stealth bombers. Some not so great moments — DARPA was instrumental to the creation of Agent Orange. Whoops.Oops, yeah no, don't want to do that one.That one, not so nice.Look, they're not all hits, they're not all hits and that's okay. We are friends, we have been friends for a while now. I feel like you have told me the story of the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge many times, as this deeply formative event, not only for self-driving cars but also robotics and Silicon Valley and how government can work together on different things. Do you want to go into what went into creating this event and kind of what happened at it? Which I feel like is a very, very cool story that I imagine is a solid chunk of the book.It is a solid chunk of the book. It's also, personally, my favorite part of the book. To me, this is really the heart of the story. DARPA was tasked with helping the U.S. military develop autonomous vehicles and the basic thinking there was that vehicles were a way a lot of soldiers got hurt, especially in the early 2000s, as we were starting to get mired down in these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We wanted autonomous vehicles so soldiers didn't have to be in vehicles that were being hit by IEDs, so you could send cars by themselves on convoys and dangerous missions, and basically, it was to save the lives of the troops. DARPA had been funding all sorts of research into autonomous driving for decades by this point and the guy running it, DARPA director Tony Tether, was frustrated that he just wasn't seeing the kind of progress he wanted to see, it just felt like one internal research project after another.So, he said, “do you know what?” DARPA had, at the time, a relatively new power to give out prize money and he could give out up to a million dollars without needing congressional approval. So, he created a thing called the DARPA Grand Challenge with a $1 million first prize. It was a race for autonomous vehicles across the Mojave Desert in California. You would go from this real dusty little town called Barstow in the California Mojave Desert to just across the line to Primm, Nevada, which is a pretty sad town because it's the least driving you have to do from California to legally gamble in a casino. If you're like, “I don't have the energy to drive the extra 45 minutes to Las Vegas,” you go to Primm.Oh no.And so, Tether's original idea, very briefly, it was we're going to have the cars go from Los Angeles to the Las Vegas Strip and they'll go on the freeway. And the guy at DARPA who was actually in charge of putting on this race was like that is completely insane, you can't do any of that. These robots don't work, we don't even know what they're going to look like. So, they ended up doing it in the desert, which made more sense for the military application anyway when you think about what your driving in the Middle East would be like. But the key part of the challenge was that it was open to anybody, this was not just Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Carnegie Mellon University, the big contractors who had been doing this kind of work. Tony Tether just said, “anybody who can build a self-driving car, we'll bring them all to the desert and we'll do this big race.” And so, you see this wide range of characters who come into this.I think, foremost among them, interestingly, is Anthony Levandowski, who at the time is just about 23 years old. He's an graduate student at UC Berkeley and he decides he really wants to be in this because he loves robotics, even though he doesn't have a ton of robotics training. He's like, “I'm going to build a self-driving motorcycle.” So, that's his idea. You've got the big players like Carnegie Mellon and that's where Chris Urmson, who becomes Anthony Levandowski's great rival once they're both at Google years later, comes in. Chris Urmson is a big player, Carnegie Mellon is the robotics powerhouse in the world, probably the best roboticists in the world and have been doing tons and tons of self-driving research over the decades. They field this team as a powerhouse of a team and you've got this guy, Red Whittaker, who's the old roboticist there.This is amazing.I have been yelled at by Red Whittaker more times than I care to remember. Really!He's just very cantankerous, he's an ex Marine, he's now 70 years old, he's well over six feet, he's 250 pounds, the guy is built like a redwood and he's just always yelling. And he builds robots, someone pointed this out to me once, he builds robots that look like him, in a sense. They're always these enormous, hulking things and for the Grand Challenge, they built this Humvee. And Red Whittaker, someone told me, he has this penchant for saying really bombastic things that sound crazy and don't actually make any sense. So, he once told someone, this project, it's like a freight train, you've just got to grab on and it'll rip your arms off.It sounds terrible.When he told me this, it's like, what does that even mean? But he has this incredible talent for really developing young engineers. And Chris Urmson is among his many proteges who are now pushing this technology into the world.And so, you have this collection of wacky racers, gathering to win a million dollars from the Defense Department in the desert. And the first one is 2004, what happens at the first one?It is a disaster. The 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge is supposed to be a 142 mile race through the desert, 15 teams get out of a qualifying round and make it to the final round. If you looked at the qualifying round, vehicles were smoking and shaking or they couldn't even start at all or they were just driving into every last thing. And then the race in the desert itself, wasn't all that much better. It got off to a great start, Carnegie Mellon's Humvee, Sand Storm, was first off the line, it shoots off into the desert. So, it's doing okay, the first couple of vehicles get off the line okay. And then you get through the bottom half of the field and it becomes a comedy of errors. You've got one little bathtub shaped thing that goes up onto the tiny ridge just on the side of the trail where it's raised and flips over and lands upside down.You've got one that drives 50 yards out, does an inexplicable U-turn and drives back to the starting line. We've got one, one just veers off-road into barbed wire and then can't find it's way back. You've got this thing from OshKosh that's a 14 ton military truck, a six wheeled thing, it's lime green and it's got a tumbleweed, like a bush thing in front of it. And its detection system says, this is an unmovable obstacle, but then another tumbleweed shows up behind it and so, it just starts going forward and backward and forward and backward like Austin Powers, trying to turn around. And then, even Carnegie Mellon's vehicle, which is doing well and is seven miles into the race, it's going around a hairpin turn, it goes off the edge of the road a little bit and it gets hung up on this rock. It gets, basically, stranded like a whale on a beach. It's raised up to the point where its wheels can't get any traction anymore. The robot brain doesn't know this and it's just spinning its wheels, spinning its wheels at full speed until the rubber is on fire and smoke pouring off this thing. And DARPA has to show up from a helicopter. They hop out of the helicopter with the fire extinguishers, and it's a complete disaster.And the thing that DARPA had really hyped up, they're like, “this is the new innovation, we're going to save the lives of all these troops.” And so then, reporters come after Tony Tether and he meets them, he meets the reporters who are waiting at the end line, at the finish line, which is roughly — it's 142 mile race — 130 miles away from the closest car. The Outcome.Carnegie Mellon did the best, it went 7.4 miles. Anthony Levandowski's motorcycle makes it into the final round, mostly as a stunt. It did horribly in qualifying, but the DARPA guys are like, “this thing is so crazy, it really embodies the spirit of what we're trying to do, so let's just bring it to the race anyway.” It's not like it can win, its gas tank doesn't hold enough gas for it to go all the way to the finish line.So, Anthony brings it up to the starting line, hands it off to a DARPA guy who kind of holds his hand on it until it goes, motorcycles starts going, he takes his hand off and motorcycle instantly falls to the ground. Anthony had forgotten to turn on the stabilizing software system before it started.That will get you.And so, one of his lessons for the next year was make a checklist.The cool thing about this is that it's an utter fiasco, it's how you always tell it. But then everybody who was there for this fiasco, they stuck around and they went, in many ways, to kind of form the current self-driving industry. Do you want to talk about that seed, what it has turned into since?Yeah. So, very quickly, what's great about the Grand Challenge is that it brings all these people together, and it pits them against this problem that everyone had kind of dismissed as impossible. So, what happens is DARPA does the 2005 Grand Challenge 18 months later, and the 18 months really prove to be the difference in that teams that weren't ready at all for the Grand Challenge, for the original one, are ready 18 months later. They've learned much more about how this works. And so, the 2005 race is a huge success. Stanford, led by Sebastian Thrun, comes in first place, Carnegie Mellon second, five teams finish this big race through the desert. Then DARPA follows it up with the 2007 Urban Challenge, which pits the vehicles against a little mock city, where they have people driving around and all of a sudden they have to deal with traffic and stop signs and parking lots and all of this stuff.What you really get from the Urban Challenge is the sense that this technology seems, suddenly, very possible. And by 2007, this is a big media event, it's hosted by the guys who did MythBusters and Larry Page is there, and he shows up in his private plane full of Google execs, and it's like, look at this future of technology. About a year later, Larry Page wants to build self-driving cars. This is actually something he'd looked at as an undergraduate or a graduate student and then his thesis advisor said, “well, how about you focus on internet search instead?” And it worked out pretty well.It worked out okay, I think, right?I think he did fine, that's what I thought. He decided I want to get back to self-driving cars. He'd been at the Urban Challenge and been like, “I can see how far this technology has come,” so what he did was he went to Sebastian Thrun, who had led Stanford's team through the challenges and he was already working at Google, he was a big part of making Street View happen. Along with Anthony Levandowski, who Thrun had met through the challenges and he's like, “oh, this guy's nuts but he's really talented and he's a real go-getter.” So, he brings him on to help them do Street View and then Larry Page says, “okay, now build me a self-driving car.” Sebastian Thrun says, "okay, well I happen to know the 12 best people on the world at this technology, I met basically all of them through the DARPA challenges."He has this meeting at his chalet in Lake Tahoe, at the end of 2008. And he brings together a dozen people and it's Anthony Levandowski and it's Chris Urmson and then people like Bryan Salesky — names that are now really the top tier in self-driving cars. And he says, “Google is going to build a self-driving car, we're going to have something that looks a whole lot like a blank check and I want this team to be the one to do it.” And that becomes Project Chauffeur. They become this really secretive project within Google, they go forth over the next couple of years, and they make this incredible progress in self-driving cars. And this is the story of the second half of the book: how this team it comes together and then how they ultimately come apart because as soon as they have to start thinking about how to make a product, how to commercialize this technology and the reality of money and power within the team become real wedge issues.Within them, you see rivalries, especially between Urmson and Levandowski, who are fighting for control and fighting for the direction of the team. Ultimately, things kind of break apart and what you see over time is as people leave and as this technology starts to look a lot more real, everyone splinters off to do their own thing, and this was what I call Google self-driving diaspora. Chris Urmson leaves to start Aurora. Bryan Salesky leaves to start Argo. Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu leave to start Nuro, Don Burnette leaves to start Kodiak, and Anthony Levandowski, of course, leaves to start Otto, which is acquired by Uber, which is the genesis of the Uber-Waymo huge self-driving lawsuit.Considerable amount of litigation that I believe is ongoing to this day, yes.So, the litigation did end, fortunately for everyone but the lawyers, I think. Uber and Waymo ultimately settled and then, weirdly, about a year after that, the Department of Justice charged Levandowski with criminal trade secret theft to which he ultimately pled guilty, and a few months ago he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but he will not start his sentence until the pandemic is over.So, it definitely seems that this is still very much seen as the start of something, and you have covered a lot of this industry. What's kind of the state of the art now and where are things kind of moving forward?Well, fortunately for the industry, all of these personal rivalries, I think, have largely cooled off. And I think the book is really a history of how this got started and how these people pulled this technology forward, and then kind of came apart at the seams. But now what you've got is something that looks a little bit like a mature industry. You have Waymo with its program in the Arizona suburbs of Phoenix, and it's starting to really take the safety drivers out of its cars in earnest. Cruise, which is also a focus of the book, which is part of GM and also backed by Honda, is moving to take the safety drivers out of its cars in San Francisco, a much more dynamic environment, as it moves to start a self-driving system there. Self-driving trucks are looking much more serious than ever before. Argo AI, which has partnered with Ford and Volkswagen, is moving towards starting a taxi service, a robo-taxi service in Miami.I talk about the Gartner hype cycle where, I think, from 2014 to 2017 or so, we were really at peak hype, totally inflated expectations where everyone said, “your kids will never have to learn how to drive.” Chris Urmson is saying, "my 12 year old son will never have to learn to drive a car," and I'm pretty sure the kid's got his learner's permit by now. Those inflated expectations burst a little bit as people realize just how hard this technology is. But I think where we are now, on that Gartner hype cycle, is on what's called the slope of enlightenment, where people are getting more serious. Even if they haven't cracked the problem yet, I think they have a really good sense of what it takes to crack the problem, which, it turns out, is a lot of time, an incredible amount of money and at least 1,000 very talented engineers.Whole lot of lasers, a very sympathetic governmental oversight structure in a suburb of Phoenix. We have the ingredients for the solution, right?We could make it work. And so, I'm still optimistic about it, I still think the technology can do a lot of good. I think what people are figuring out is how to right-size this technology. People are figuring out how to actually apply self-driving cars in a realistic way, and I think the cooler projects out there are companies that are working on making self-driving shuttle cars for senior living communities, these big areas in Arizona and Florida, they cover 1,000 acres and people need to get around but can't necessarily drive anymore. And where the driving environment is pretty calm, that's a great use case. The trick right now is to figure out where you can make the technology work, and then the next question will be where can you actually make money off of this? That one I'm less bullish on because the economics of this, I think, are going to be pretty tough to crack.I mean, we're closing in on the end of this one, but DARPA seeded a little bit of the initial funds, it seems, for a lot of this research. Is that still an application that people are looking into or getting folks off the road in places that are dangerous?The army is still working on that, and I think those projects are still ongoing. But the initial push for DARPA was a line in a congressional funding bill from the end of 2000, it was one of the last things Clinton signed into law. And it mandated that by 2015, one-third of all ground vehicles, I think it was military, be unmanned, which was completely insane.How did we do? What's the number?I mean, maybe we've got three vehicles. That stuff hasn't panned out so much. But my favorite thing, one of the first people I managed to track down for this book was the guy, the congressional staffer who got that line into the bill. And I told him, I was like, "oh, I'm researching this and I would just want to ask you about why you put that in there and what your thinking was." And he goes, "Oh, did something come of that?"That's amazing.I was like, “yeah, I don't know, an industry that's predicted to be worth $7 trillion.”And what also came of it is Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car by Alex Davies. Alex, where can people find the book? You can find this book, basically, anywhere online, it's available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your regular booksellers. It's out in hardcover January 5. You can also get the audiobook, you can get it on Kindle. Get it however you like, I just hope you enjoy it.My Twitter handle is @adavies47. You can find some of my work on Business Insider, where I'm the senior editor for our transportation desk.Ah, excellent website, very, very good website. If you have anything you'd like to see in this Sunday special, shoot me an email. Comment below! Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for supporting Numlock.Thank you so much for becoming a paid subscriber! Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips, or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Get full access to Numlock News at www.numlock.com/subscribe

Aurora CEO Chris Urmson delves into details on the engineering ‘horsepower’ provided by the groundbreaking acquisition, why he favors a trucking-first approach to autonomy and the versatility of the company’s virtual driver. Plus Pt. 2 of "Mobility at a Crossroads," featuring highlights from this month's Shift virtual event.

With Aurora taking over Uber's self driving efforts, what is on the horizon for the start up whose leaders have roots at Waymo, Tesla and Uber? Co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin in this special edition of Smart Driving Cars. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smart-driving-cars-podcast/support

Today on Business as Usual, we are welcoming a true pioneer of the autonomous vehicle industry -- Chris Urmson, Co-Founder and CEO of Aurora! Chris co-founded Aurora in 2017 to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Chris has been instrumental in pioneering and advancing the development of self-driving vehicles since the early 2000s. While earning his PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Urmson’s technical leadership was critical in the development of his team’s robotic vehicles that participated in the DARPA Grand Challenges. He was one of the original leaders of Google’s self-driving car project, which later spun off into Waymo in 2016. On the tail of announcing new office space in the Strip District, Chris will discuss Aurora's commitment and investment in Pittsburgh to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly and broadly.

Like it or not, self-driving vehicles are coming. Some say they’re already here. With ever-increasing speed, the technology for creating both autonomous private vehicles and public transportation is becoming a reality. But who do we become when we relinquish control to machines? How safe will these vehicles be? What will they look like? And who owns the data they generate? To mark the SXSW world premiere of his new documentary, Autonomy, Malcolm Gladwell (author and host of Revisionist History) joins Chris Urmson (CEO of Aurora Innovation) and NBC News Correspondent Jo Ling Kent for a conversation about where we’re heading and who we’ll be when we get there. Read Malcolm Gladwell's column in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/malcolm-gladwell Listen to the podcast Revisionist History: http://revisionisthistory.com/ Learn more about Aurora here: https://aurora.tech

Fifteen years into his career in the self-driving-vehicle industry, Chris Urmson has assembled a team of his own. His vision? To make our roads safer by building the world's driver. With a PhD from Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and experience developing Google's self-driving-car program, Chris partnered with his co-founders in 2017 to launch Aurora. Since then, Aurora has raised over $600M in venture funding and inked partnerships across the auto industry. Chris explains how he drives urgency despite the long road ahead, how to foster diversity of thought, and what he thinks the rollout of autonomous vehicles will look like for the average consumer.

Chris Urmson ist der ehemalige Chefentwickler bei Google Cars. Vor drei Jahren hat er sich mit seinem Unternehmen Aurora Innovations selbstständig gemacht, dass mittlerweile einen Börsenwert von zwei Milliarden Dollar hat. Nicht zuletzt, weil sich bei Urmson bereits Kunden wie VW, Hyundai oder Byton gemeldet haben, um von deren Technik fürs Autonome Fahren zu profitieren. In dieser Folge von Moove, dem New Mobility Podcast von auto motor und sport hören Sie Urmsons Beitrag, vom auto motor und sport Kongress 2019. Dort hielt er neben anderen Keynote-Speakern wie dem damaligen Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, Ex-Rennfahrer Nico Rossberg oder dem Continental-Chef Elmar Degenhart einen Vortrag zum Thema autonomes Fahren und verriet, was seine Beweggründe die Arbeit daran sind, was die Technik dahinter alles zu leisten vermag und gibt nicht nur einen Einblicke wie die kalifornische Tech-Industrie auf die Herausforderungen, sondern auch wie er mit seinem Team bei Aurora daran arbeitet. Urmson erzählt, was ihn von der Vision vom autonomen Fahren begeistert hat, wie er vor 15 Jahren mit dem Thema in Kontakt gekommen ist und warum er schnell lernen musste, dass mit einem reinen Kraftakt auf diesem jungen Forschungsfeld nicht viel mehr zu holen ist, als jede Menge Scherben und schrottreife Prototypen, die in der Wüste in Flammen aufgehen. Ganz nebenbei berichtet er all den ersten Malen, bei denen autonome Fahrzeuggeschichte geschrieben wurde. Etwa vom ersten Unfall zwischen zwei autonomen Fahrzeugen oder dem ersten selbstfahrenden Auto, das von der Polizei angehalten wurde und beschreibt, wie schwer es ist, einer Maschine beizubringen Reaktionen anderer vorauszusagen. Wenn Sie eine Frage, Wünsche oder Anregungen haben, schreiben Sie uns einfach unter podcast@moove-magazin.de Weitere auto motor und sport Podcast-Formate finden Sie unter http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/podcast

If you know anything about autonomous drive technology, you probably know the name Chris Urmson. From Carnegie Mellon's DARPA Grand and Urban Challenge teams to head of Google's Chauffeur program (now Waymo) and now as co-founder and CEO of Aurora, Urmson has been in the thick of AV development since its earliest days. He joins The Autonocast for the first time, recorded live as the annual CES party gathered steam, to discuss what he's learned at the forefront of this new technology and where he sees it going.

Learn about the latest thinking for autonomous driving technology from Aurora CEO Chris Urmson, who led Google’s self-driving car program. This former Carnegie Mellon professor also tells us about his days with DARPA and shares predictions for 2020 and beyond. Listen to other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts

#109 - Today, I suggest that if cities embrace Uber, then they will embrace AVs; I rip apart the ridiculous article suggesting that sidewalks will become cages to protect humans from AVs (and vice-versa); and, yes, lidar is (apparently) a crutch, at least according to Chris Urmson. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/autonomous-cars-with-marc-hoag/message

Chris Urmson was the CTO of the Google Self-Driving Car team, a key engineer and leader behind the Carnegie Mellon autonomous vehicle entries in the DARPA grand challenges and the winner of the DARPA urban challenge. Today he is the CEO of Aurora Innovation, an autonomous vehicle software company he started with Sterling Anderson, who was the former director of Tesla Autopilot, and Drew Bagnell, Uber’s former autonomy and perception lead. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn,

Greg Rogers sat down with Chris Urmson, CEO and Co-Founder of Aurora, at AVS 2019 for a wide-ranging discussion on the evolution of the AV industry, the importance of public education, and the regulatory landscape for AVs. Chris Urmson has been involved in automated vehicles since the DARPA Grand Challenges and Urban Challenges in the 2000s that birthed the modern AV industry and was instrumental in starting Google's Self-Driving Car Project (now Waymo). After seven and a half years at Google, Chris started a new AV company, Aurora, which has rapidly expanded to nearly 300 employees in the past two years and attracted investments from Hyundai, Kia, and Amazon. Learn more about Aurora here: https://aurora.tech/ And follow Chris Urmson on Twitter: @chris_urmson As always, you can also keep up with the Mobility Podcast on Twitter: @MobilityPodcast, @AVGregR, @SharedMobilityS, @SmarterTranspo.

In this episode April Glaser talks to Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora, a company that builds the technology for self-driving cars. Urmson offers a timeline for when we might see autonomous vehicles on the road and lists the different hurdles the industry still needs to overcome. According to Urmson, driverless cars shouldn’t require a lot of extra infrastructure or government funding. Instead, they should work within our existing system.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode April Glaser talks to Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora, a company that builds the technology for self-driving cars. Urmson offers a timeline for when we might see autonomous vehicles on the road and lists the different hurdles the industry still needs to overcome. According to Urmson, driverless cars shouldn’t require a lot of extra infrastructure or government funding. Instead, they should work within our existing system.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aurora CEO Chris Urmson stops by to discuss the future of self-driving cars with The Verge's Nilay Patel and Andrew Hawkins. They explore how the industry has evolved over the years, and how long it will take before self-driving cars are commonly used on the road. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aurora is the most important self-driving car company you've never heard of. And its CEO, Chris Urmson, was building and racing vehicles long before Uber, Lyft, or Waymo were on the scene.

Throughout history, technology has enabled transportation to meet the shifting demands of society. Advancement in AI and ML technology is helping the industry get one step close towards an automated future. In this episode of Greymatter, we share a panel discussion from Greylock's Future of Transportation event. Greylock's Reid Hoffman, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson and Nauto founder and CEO Stefan Heck discuss the opportunities and challenges, including driver insurance and the digital divide, and the importance of working closely with policy makers and OEMs as we transition to autonomous vehicles. Aurora and Nauto are building software needed to build and scale autonomous vehicles safely. Prior to founding Aurora, Chris helped found the self-driving car team at Alphabet and led the team for seven years. Stefan was the co-architect of the sustainability practice at McKinsey and taught courses on energy and transportation innovation at Stanford before starting Nauto. Greylock's invite-only event hosted CEOs, company founders, and top industry leaders to discuss the impact of technology on the transportation landscape and the role of autonomy over the next several decades. Below are key takeaways and quotes from the panel.

Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora and former CTO of self-driving cars at Google, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about when autonomous vehicles will replace human-driven ones. Urmson, who started working on the technology at Carnegie Mellon University in the mid-2000s, predicts we'll see fleets of self-driving cars on some roads within five years, but that they won't completely take over for at least 30 years. He talks about the remaining challenges to making these vehicles completely safe — including the danger of their operators becoming complacent about the technology — and how their arrival will impact everything from government to public transportation to fast-food jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jack Stewart meets the engineers who are building vehicles that drive themselves. He has a ride in Google's driverless car, which has no steering wheel and no pedals. Google's Chris Urmson explains the company's approach to autonomous vehicles. Jack visits Stanford University's driverless car project where professor Chris Gerdes shows him Shelley, an automated Audi that races around a track at speed as well as a human driver. Chris is collaborating with a philosopher to explore some of the difficult questions around autonomous vehicles, such as who is liable if there's an accident. Is it the human or the car? And ,Jack meets Josh Swirtes whose company, Peloton, is linking trucks together with the idea that they should have fewer accidents. (Photo: Jack Stewart in Stanford's University X1)

Most traffic accidents are caused by human error. Engineers are designing vehicles with built in sensors that send messages to other cars, trucks, bikes and even pedestrians, to prevent collisions happening. The idea is to make the vehicles react to whatever's going on faster than the human drivers. Jack Stewart drives around the university town of Ann Arbor, in Michigan, in some of the many vehicles that are fitted with experimental devices in the world's largest connected vehicles project. He finds out how the system works from researchers at UMTRI, the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, and Kirk Steudle, Director, Michigan Department of Transportation. Jack has a ride in Google's driverless car which has no steering wheel and no pedals. Google's Chris Urmson explains the company's approach to autonomous vehicles. Jack visits Stanford University's driverless car project where Professor Chris Gerdes shows him Shelley, an automated Audi that races around a track at speed as well as a human driver. Chris is collaborating with a philosopher to explore some of the difficult questions around autonomous vehicles, such as who's liable if there's an accident. Is it the human or the car?