4 ms·

This post is factually wrong. GM acquired a ready to go R&D lab and leapfrogged everyone else in the process. The rest of the automotive industry is now playing

• jomamaxx 10y ago
  I beg to differ. I've worked closely with M&A teams for Fortune 50 and watched these kinds of acquisitions time and time again, and more often than not - they go sour. To your own point - yes, GM was probably panicking that they were 'behind' in self-driving cars, and needed to pay to 'catch up', however, we'll have to wait to see how well they are able to integrate this tiny technology team which had very few actual customers into the GM empire on an operational basis. Given the scope and scale of GM and the auto-industry, and that 'self driving cars' are 100% going to happen ... if GM is able to make the IP work in any reasonable way, it will likely be a worthwhile investment. As to 'leap-frogging' - given that BMW, Mercedes and so many others already have self-driving cars in the field, I'm not so sure that is a fair characterization. That said, the track record of large companies buying their way into markets by picking up small, unestablished technology companies is not good.