Congratulations to Cruise! Cruise Kyle Vogt's third acquired company. It's still ambiguous as to whether your first startup should be "hard tech" or not. I thi

Congratulations to Cruise! Cruise Kyle Vogt's third acquired company. It's still ambiguous as to whether your first startup should be "hard tech" or not. I think in the case of self-driving cars it makes sense because automobiles are a trillion dollar market and the anxiety to stay competitive with the rapidly changing landscape is intense. Plenty of room in this market yet. What is the biggest competitive advantage and who has it? Data & Tesla. Tesla is the only company with the appropriate data to make self-driving a reality faster than anyone else (tell me when Google starts collecting data in Norway). Data collection equipment is relatively inexpensive. Maybe figure out how to get people to attach sonar or lidar or tap into their car's computer to access that data. What else is a problem, even for Tesla? How about predicting pedestrian behavior and making eye contact -- or identifying if a pedestrian is disabled and sending a signal to those pedestrians that it is OK to walk. At the end of the day the market being targeted has huge weight to the likelihood of a successful outcome. Incidentally, if you want to get into YC: https://twitter.com/hunterwalk/status/708304772055441408 https://twitter.com/hunterwalk/status/708304772055441408