5 ms·

$112M for... geofenced self-driving? Is that the main differentiator, or did I read that wrong? I don't get their competitive advantage. Sure, he worked at Bai

$112M for... geofenced self-driving? Is that the main differentiator, or did I read that wrong? I don't get their competitive advantage. Sure, he worked at Baidu and led a team there, but this is a LOT of money for a very small chance at anything competitive. 2 years to reach the market? Where do they think Baidu, Google, Tesla & Uber will be in 2 years?

gizmo 9y ago
Their main differentiator is that they are China-first. China doesn't want to miss the boat on any new innovation, and their investment approach is to invest in literally everything, to maximize the likelihood of backing a winner. Tencent bought 5% of Tesla just months ago.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  Hypothetically say they have unlimited investment dollars. Can it do harm to invest in everyone?
  - jazzkingrt 9y ago
    These are private market investments, so nobody is crunching any numbers for them and producing a valuation, they pay for this out of pocket. A small VC would lose with an "invest everywhere" strategy, each new investment grows sunken cost of valuating and negotiating an investment. But there is a force in the other direction: each investment can only bear so much new capital without losing marginal value. So after a while you have to start to look for new investments to spread your capital around. There is probably a ton of money behind these chinese investments, and a relatively small total market for venture capital, so they end up making a lot of investments.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    If you pump unlimited investment dollars into unlimited investments, what tends to happen is that your investees and their employees/suppliers walk off with a lot of money and don't produce any goods or services that result in a sustainable competitive advantage. This is basically the definition of a bubble, and has happened over and over again, from Bitcoin to mobile to subprime mortgages to Web 2.0 to .com to AI to savings & loans. You need some sort of financial constraint - usually the threat of bankruptcy - to create an incentive to invest efficiently, where you make choices about where to allocate resources such that your firm is more competitive than everyone else. Spreading a small amount of money across a large number of investments within a sector usually works out pretty well, though. This is a diversified portfolio, and basically it means you're betting that someone in the sector will succeed without taking a position on who that will be. If you know that the market exists and the technology is attainable, it makes a lot of sense.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >Their main differentiator is that they are China-first. And maybe, just maybe, this is connected to: https://jalopnik.com/china-forces-all-cars-in-restive-region-to-have-gps-tra-1792678809 https://jalopnik.com/china-forces-all-cars-in-restive-region... and to the concept that an autonomous vehicle can be used as a weapon and as such it needs to eb controlled/controllable by a "local" trusted company: https://www.ft.com/content/a8dbd4e0-f807-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00 https://www.ft.com/content/a8dbd4e0-f807-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1...
ForHackernews 9y ago
> Where do they think Baidu, Google, Tesla & Uber will be in 2 years? Tesla will be nowhere. They simply do not have the sensor hardware needed to be competitive. Uber is likely not doing much better[0]. I suspect they will run out of cash before they can deliver a production-ready self-driving car. The smart money is on Waymo, GM, or Volvo (maybe Toyota). [0] https://www.recode.net/2017/3/16/14938116/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-internal-metrics-slow-progress https://www.recode.net/2017/3/16/14938116/uber-travis-kalani...
- QML 9y ago
  I wouldn't discount Tesla: 1. They already have cars on the road, albeit Model 3 has production delays. 2. The people who buy Tesla cars are the same ones who are willing to adopt self-driving technology faster. Waymo has no brand recognition outside the tech community; GM is old-fashioned, and tailors to alike customers; Volvo and Toyota -- same issue as GM.
  - deepnotderp 9y ago
    Tesla's SDC program is badly broken. Trust me, or trust the string of engineering departures.
  - Fricken 9y ago
    1. I wouldn't count Tesla until they make big changes to their hardware and general strategy. They've got an Elon-knows-better-than-the-experts-who-work-for-him problem. 2. Fully autonomous cars will be Robotaxis for the forseeable future. They're not for sale. I'm actually baffled as to how many people there are that don't get this, it's been in the news daily for years. They're far from being idiot-proof enough to put in the hands of private owners, they need careful maintenance and oversight, and cost north of $150k apiece. GM is moving aggressively, and with confidence. GM acquired Cruise Automation, and they've been developing their Autonomous OS since 2013, it was money well spent. They're the most vertically integrated company making real progress on the self driving problem, and only Waymo is ahead of them. The problem with Waymo is they can't make cars and don't have a legit partnership with anyone who does.
  - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
simi_ 9y ago
Not saying it's not stupid, but FWIW I noticed ACRush (competitive programming legend) is behind that startup - at least it should mean it's not a full-blown scam.
- Fricken 9y ago
  I'm reasonably confident in Pony.ai's potential to develop an autonomous OS in China, they've got some real street cred, and in the time they've been at it appears they're coming along fine, possibly they've already surpassed Baidu.(Baidu did a huge restructuring because they weren't getting anywhere). Pony has an American cousin: Aurora. Aurora was founded at almost the same time by ex-autpilot director Sterling Anderson and former Google SDC project lead Chris Urmson. Just like with Pony they decided they'd be better off starting their own company rather than try to work around the C-suite bullshit they had to put up with at their previous employers. Now the thing is, top tier talent is short shrift, and the best would rather be working with a Chris Urmson or an ACRush solving hard problems than for a bunch of suits or egomaniacs who just don't get it. So both Pony and Aurora have a special advantage when it comes to attracting talent that money can't buy. And talent is everything. Many of the best people were passionate about this long before the hype got out of control and the notion of getting stinking rich was ever a serious consideration.
mbesto 9y ago
> Sure, he worked at Baidu and led a team there, but this is a LOT of money for a very small chance at anything competitive. There's much more macroeconomics/geopolitics at play on this one and likely more behind the scenes action than anyone here has knowledge of. Honestly, I don't question what Chinese investors do anymore. They don't play by the same rules as everyone else - they expect lower returns than western firms, they want to get their money out of china and into the US, many of them have political ties, they use capital as a means of status/power (at the expense of financial ROI), and god only knows what is happening behind the scenes in terms of digital espionage.
- DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
  >> and god only knows what is happening behind the scenes in terms of digital espionage. I urge anyone who has been working for a large multinational to vanity search for themselves on github/gitlab.
Hasz 9y ago
I think the pitch is that they can be 99.999% sure their vehicle won't kill anyone, vs Tesla being 99.99% sure. If you have enough vehicles on the road, that .009% could translate into quite a few affected drivers. Geofencing constrains the total number of situations to a more manageable level. Maybe that's how they've pitched this? Otherwise, I can't imagine throwing 100M+ after a late entry to a market saturated with big players with deep pockets. That, or China gave Sequoia China a great backroom deal.

gizmo 9y ago

Their main differentiator is that they are China-first. China doesn't want to miss the boat on any new innovation, and their investment approach is to invest in literally everything, to maximize the likelihood of backing a winner. Tencent bought 5% of Tesla just months ago.

Waterluvian 9y ago
Hypothetically say they have unlimited investment dollars. Can it do harm to invest in everyone?
- jazzkingrt 9y ago
  These are private market investments, so nobody is crunching any numbers for them and producing a valuation, they pay for this out of pocket. A small VC would lose with an "invest everywhere" strategy, each new investment grows sunken cost of valuating and negotiating an investment. But there is a force in the other direction: each investment can only bear so much new capital without losing marginal value. So after a while you have to start to look for new investments to spread your capital around. There is probably a ton of money behind these chinese investments, and a relatively small total market for venture capital, so they end up making a lot of investments.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  If you pump unlimited investment dollars into unlimited investments, what tends to happen is that your investees and their employees/suppliers walk off with a lot of money and don't produce any goods or services that result in a sustainable competitive advantage. This is basically the definition of a bubble, and has happened over and over again, from Bitcoin to mobile to subprime mortgages to Web 2.0 to .com to AI to savings & loans. You need some sort of financial constraint - usually the threat of bankruptcy - to create an incentive to invest efficiently, where you make choices about where to allocate resources such that your firm is more competitive than everyone else. Spreading a small amount of money across a large number of investments within a sector usually works out pretty well, though. This is a diversified portfolio, and basically it means you're betting that someone in the sector will succeed without taking a position on who that will be. If you know that the market exists and the technology is attainable, it makes a lot of sense.
jaclaz 9y ago
>Their main differentiator is that they are China-first. And maybe, just maybe, this is connected to: https://jalopnik.com/china-forces-all-cars-in-restive-region-to-have-gps-tra-1792678809 https://jalopnik.com/china-forces-all-cars-in-restive-region... and to the concept that an autonomous vehicle can be used as a weapon and as such it needs to eb controlled/controllable by a "local" trusted company: https://www.ft.com/content/a8dbd4e0-f807-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00 https://www.ft.com/content/a8dbd4e0-f807-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1...

ForHackernews 9y ago

> Where do they think Baidu, Google, Tesla & Uber will be in 2 years? Tesla will be nowhere. They simply do not have the sensor hardware needed to be competitive. Uber is likely not doing much better[0]. I suspect they will run out of cash before they can deliver a production-ready self-driving car. The smart money is on Waymo, GM, or Volvo (maybe Toyota). [0] https://www.recode.net/2017/3/16/14938116/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-internal-metrics-slow-progress https://www.recode.net/2017/3/16/14938116/uber-travis-kalani...

QML 9y ago
I wouldn't discount Tesla: 1. They already have cars on the road, albeit Model 3 has production delays. 2. The people who buy Tesla cars are the same ones who are willing to adopt self-driving technology faster. Waymo has no brand recognition outside the tech community; GM is old-fashioned, and tailors to alike customers; Volvo and Toyota -- same issue as GM.
- deepnotderp 9y ago
  Tesla's SDC program is badly broken. Trust me, or trust the string of engineering departures.
- Fricken 9y ago
  1. I wouldn't count Tesla until they make big changes to their hardware and general strategy. They've got an Elon-knows-better-than-the-experts-who-work-for-him problem. 2. Fully autonomous cars will be Robotaxis for the forseeable future. They're not for sale. I'm actually baffled as to how many people there are that don't get this, it's been in the news daily for years. They're far from being idiot-proof enough to put in the hands of private owners, they need careful maintenance and oversight, and cost north of $150k apiece. GM is moving aggressively, and with confidence. GM acquired Cruise Automation, and they've been developing their Autonomous OS since 2013, it was money well spent. They're the most vertically integrated company making real progress on the self driving problem, and only Waymo is ahead of them. The problem with Waymo is they can't make cars and don't have a legit partnership with anyone who does.
- 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

simi_ 9y ago

Not saying it's not stupid, but FWIW I noticed ACRush (competitive programming legend) is behind that startup - at least it should mean it's not a full-blown scam.

Fricken 9y ago
I'm reasonably confident in Pony.ai's potential to develop an autonomous OS in China, they've got some real street cred, and in the time they've been at it appears they're coming along fine, possibly they've already surpassed Baidu.(Baidu did a huge restructuring because they weren't getting anywhere). Pony has an American cousin: Aurora. Aurora was founded at almost the same time by ex-autpilot director Sterling Anderson and former Google SDC project lead Chris Urmson. Just like with Pony they decided they'd be better off starting their own company rather than try to work around the C-suite bullshit they had to put up with at their previous employers. Now the thing is, top tier talent is short shrift, and the best would rather be working with a Chris Urmson or an ACRush solving hard problems than for a bunch of suits or egomaniacs who just don't get it. So both Pony and Aurora have a special advantage when it comes to attracting talent that money can't buy. And talent is everything. Many of the best people were passionate about this long before the hype got out of control and the notion of getting stinking rich was ever a serious consideration.

mbesto 9y ago

> Sure, he worked at Baidu and led a team there, but this is a LOT of money for a very small chance at anything competitive. There's much more macroeconomics/geopolitics at play on this one and likely more behind the scenes action than anyone here has knowledge of. Honestly, I don't question what Chinese investors do anymore. They don't play by the same rules as everyone else - they expect lower returns than western firms, they want to get their money out of china and into the US, many of them have political ties, they use capital as a means of status/power (at the expense of financial ROI), and god only knows what is happening behind the scenes in terms of digital espionage.

DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
>> and god only knows what is happening behind the scenes in terms of digital espionage. I urge anyone who has been working for a large multinational to vanity search for themselves on github/gitlab.

Hasz 9y ago

I think the pitch is that they can be 99.999% sure their vehicle won't kill anyone, vs Tesla being 99.99% sure. If you have enough vehicles on the road, that .009% could translate into quite a few affected drivers. Geofencing constrains the total number of situations to a more manageable level. Maybe that's how they've pitched this? Otherwise, I can't imagine throwing 100M+ after a late entry to a market saturated with big players with deep pockets. That, or China gave Sequoia China a great backroom deal.