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Autonomous Vehicle Experience Valued in Robotics Startups, Executives Say
Startup CEOs in the robotics industry report that experience from the autonomous vehicle sector provides transferable skills for robotics development. Executives highlighted similarities in development cycles, from data collection to real-world deployment. Attendees at a recent industry event included representatives from multiple mobility companies.
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Startup founders and CEOs in the robotics sector have stated that professionals with experience in autonomous vehicles bring valuable skills to robotics companies. They noted that the processes involved in developing self-driving cars, such as data collection, model training, safety validation, and deployment, align closely with those needed for robotics applications.
This perspective was shared by several executives who transitioned from autonomous vehicles to robotics. Adrian Macneil, cofounder and CEO of Foxglove, a data infrastructure platform for robotics companies, said his company prioritizes candidates with autonomous vehicle backgrounds.
Macneil, who previously worked at General Motors' Cruise, reported that about 40% of Foxglove's 75 employees come from autonomous vehicle or related companies, including Waymo, Motional, Aurora, Applied Intuition, Luminar, and Cruise. He founded Foxglove in 2021.
Tony Zhao, CEO and cofounder of Sunday Robotics, which develops home robots, stated that autonomous vehicle experience is advantageous for both software and hardware roles. Zhao, who worked on Tesla's Autopilot team, explained that the field requires systems-level thinking, involving sensor selection and handling real-world data, differing from text-based large language models.
His cofounder, Cheng Chi, was a software engineer at Nuro, a company preparing for a commercial robotaxi launch with Uber later this year. He noted a shortage of hardware companies combining AI and advanced technology, making autonomous vehicle talent particularly relevant.
