Financial News Media Disconnect, Uber Doubles Down, Will Alphabet Ever IPO Waymo?

Executive Summary

In this episode of The Road to Autonomy, Grayson Brulte and Pete Bigelow dissect the massive disconnect between financial media’s perception of the autonomous vehicle industry and the ground truth. They explore the differing, yet functional, technological approaches of Waymo and Tesla, the under-appreciated safety benefits of robotaxis, and Tesla’s surprisingly prudent rollout strategy. The discussion also covers Uber’s strategic moves to double down on autonomy and the persistent question of whether Alphabet will ultimately spin off Waymo in an IPO to fund its massive scaling costs.

Key The Road to Autonomy Questions Answered

Key Topics & Timestamps

[00:00] Media Disconnect on Autonomous Vehicles 

The episode begins by highlighting the significant gap between how the financial media, particularly on CNBC, portrays the autonomous vehicle industry and the actual reality of its progress. Analysts on these platforms often dismiss companies like Waymo, criticizing their costs and predicting their failure, which contrasts with the perspective of those working within the industry.

[01:00] Waymo vs. Tesla: Different Paths to Autonomy 

The discussion compares the strategies of Waymo and Tesla. Waymo’s approach, which utilizes expensive LiDAR and high-definition maps, is presented as the reason for its current success in deploying 1,500 commercial robotaxis. This is contrasted with Tesla’s distinct ecosystem, which has a wider scope and is viewed separately from the rest of the industry. Both technology stacks are considered to be effective despite their different methods.

[02:00] The Under Appreciated Safety Benefits of Robotaxis 

A major, yet under appreciated, benefit of robotaxis is the enhanced feeling of safety for passengers, especially women. Riders have shared positive experiences about not having a “creepy driver” in a Waymo, a stark contrast to potential experiences in traditional ride-hailing services. This eliminates the uncertainty and worry a rider might have about the driver they are matched with.

[05:00] Tesla’s Cautious Robotaxi Rollout 

Despite years of ambitious marketing promises from Elon Musk, Tesla’s actual rollout of its robotaxi service has been prudent and cautious. The company is starting with a small fleet of only 10 vehicles in a constrained operational design domain (ODD). This methodical approach is similar to how Waymo began its service in Chandler, Arizona.

[09:00] Public Perception and Media Narratives Around AV Crashes 

The conversation addresses the media’s tendency to create a “boogeyman” narrative around AV incidents. While any crash involving a self-driving car becomes a national headline, the 40,000 traffic fatalities caused by human drivers each year are so common they are barely considered newsworthy. It is suggested that an independent, third-party study confirming the safety of AVs would go a long way in building public trust.

[12:00] Defining “Safe Enough” for Self-Driving Cars 

A fundamental challenge facing the AV industry is the lack of a clear, established answer to the question, “how safe is safe enough?”. Without an agreed-upon baseline to measure against, it becomes difficult to make true “apples to apples” safety comparisons between autonomous systems and human drivers, especially when considering variables like time of day, road type, and location.

[15:00] The AV Industry’s Messaging Problem 

The speakers concur that the AV industry has done a “horrific job” with its public messaging. The industry has historically overpromised with grandiose claims, such as reducing 40,000 annual fatalities to just 40, rather than focusing on more immediate, tangible benefits like reducing food waste with autonomous trucking. The messaging is now shifting to the more modest claim of being “safer than a human”.

[18:00] Automation, Job Creation, and the Populist Movement 

The discussion explores the societal impacts of AVs, noting the populist backlash against technology and concerns about job losses for truck drivers. However, the counterargument is that automation and autonomy will ultimately create more high-paying, safer jobs, similar to how the introduction of ATMs led to a net increase in bank teller and branch jobs.

[22:00] The Need for Vocational Training and Apprenticeships 

To ease the transition for the workforce, it’s suggested that the AV industry should invest in apprenticeships and partner with vocational schools. This would create pathways to skilled jobs without the crushing burden of student debt, which is a growing crisis. The value of a traditional college degree is being devalued, making vocational training a more practical and financially viable option for many.

[28:00] Uber’s Future in the Autonomous Vehicle Space 

Uber’s recent promotion of Andrew McDonald is seen as a “strong indicator” that the company is doubling down on its autonomy strategy. The company currently maintains a “frenemies” relationship with AV providers like Waymo, partnering with them in some markets while competing in others. The long-term nature of these partnerships remains an open question.

[34:00] Will Alphabet Ever IPO Waymo? 

There is persistent speculation that Alphabet may spin off Waymo through an IPO. The primary motivation would be to raise the significant capital required to scale its expensive robotaxi operations into more cities. This move would align with a broader Alphabet strategy to have its “other bets” like Waymo gain commercial traction and stand on their own, rather than being treated as an “endless science project”.

[40:00] How Will the Market React to Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch? 

The market is expected to react with bullish enthusiasm once Tesla’s robotaxi service officially launches. This milestone will likely be seen as validation of the market’s long-term faith in the company’s AV ambitions. In terms of initial scale, it is projected that Tesla could have around 50 cars operating in Austin by the end of 2025.

[44:00] Are Zoox and Others Falling into the “Cruise Trap”? 

A key concern is whether companies will repeat the mistakes of Cruise by trying to scale too quickly. While Tesla appears to be taking a more measured approach, Zoox is raising flags by announcing “grandiose expansion” plans to numerous cities before it has even launched a single commercial service with paying customers.

[51:00] What’s Next for Amazon and Zoox? 

The future for Zoox is largely dependent on its parent company, Amazon. It is argued that Amazon would be reluctant to sell Zoox because of the powerful proposition of integrating a robotaxi service directly into its Amazon Prime subscription. The central question is whether Amazon will continue to invest and wait for Zoox to overcome its challenges or choose to sell the company.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Pete. We’re playing ping pong. Again, thank you so much for having me on the Shift podcast. Now you’re back here on The Road to Autonomy. We love, so we’ve got this fun game of a ping pong going on. That’s the reality. But when you look at tv, CNBC in particular, there is a massive, massive disconnect. Between what’s actually happening in the autonomous vehicle industry to what they perceive that’s happening. These people go on there and they poo pa, Waymo, blah, blah blah. Waymo, this Waymo that they’re gonna get their butts kicked. They cost too much. They masquerade as analysts. Where does this disconnect come between? That’s called the chattering class on CNBC and the actual reality of people like you and me that are actually doing the real work, understanding where this market’s going.

Pete Bigelow: it’s, it’s a great question because I think, you know, Tesla has kind of lived in its own ecosystem, that that is separate and and wider in scope than. The ecosystem that perhaps we spend most of our time in, uh, that’s the one that’s closest to the industry. And I, I don’t want to sit here and poo poo Tesla, uh, because I do think that’s, you know, Elon has a track record of, of eventually important things happen when you look across this portfolio of companies. But, but I think the ground truth here, Grayson, is, you know, yes, the Waymo cars might be expensive and yes, they use. Lidar, that’s expensive and they rely on, you know, high definition maps. Uh, but, but that’s how they’ve gotten on the road, man. That’s, that’s why they have 1500 robo taxis and driverless commercial service today. And why nobody else comes close, because you can’t, uh, you know, I, I guess say this, you get what you pay for, and right now that’s a viable, uh, deploy meaningful deployment for Waymo in multiple cities.

Grayson Brulte: Waymo’s proven they can do it. Waymo’s proven it’s safe. There’s the data from Swiss Re, and then there’s just the general consumer feedback. And when I say safe, it’s not just the safety outside the vehicle, safety inside the vehicle. You read these stories and these threads on red of these women that used to go have bad experiences and it’s called the TNC carriers. I respect their privacy on this one. And then they go in the Waymo and they said, this is a great experience. I didn’t have a creepy driver. That’s a huge benefit.

Pete Bigelow: Is a huge, absolutely a huge underappreciated benefit of, of robo taxis. And, you know, frankly, that’s something that, uh, I heard when I visited Waymo probably two summers ago at this point. The, you know, when they first deployed in San Francisco is how many women felt safe. Uh, as opposed to getting into a, you know, an Uber or Lyft and, and kind of wondering what, having, having to have the thought, like, what kind of driver am I getting? Am I safe with this driver? Do I feel creeped out? Uh, major advantage of a robot taxi that you never have to question that.

Grayson Brulte: Me as a guy, I get in some of these things. I go, oh boy, I almost got kidnapped in one a few weeks ago. I mean, you get some bad, bad drivers. The guy’s trying to, trying to take me a different direction. I had to basically threaten the guy to get out, jump out, and hop out and go out because it’s, it’s not a safe experience where Waymo enables the safe experience because you’re limiting the risk of the driver. And Tesla, when they launch on June 12th, is going to eliminate the risk of the driver. It’s a safer vehicle. And then there we, we, I lived in Florida, Pete, as you know, and it’s, it’s the summer, it’s the rainy season, and then there’s all this chatter, OnX, oh, a Tesla can’t drive in the rain. Tesla can’t drive in. Heavy rain bullshit. It was a monsoon yesterday and I’m driving around in an FSD 13.2 0.9, and guess what? Flawlessly, I couldn’t see the road, but the Tesla drove safely. That goes back to this whole disconnect around this technology. The the Tesla FSD technology works. And on the other hand, I want to clarify for the record because I truly believe the Waymo technology works. They both work through different approaches.

Pete Bigelow: I definitely have seen firsthand Waymo driving in the rain. Uh, I can’t speak to FSD, but obviously you can. But, but I think, you know, one note of caution on saying definitively that this works is we’ve had these firsthand experiences where it’s worked. How it works over a hundred million miles. That’s probably like where safety truly lies, right? Like, I’m always very reluctant to say I had this safe experience. Thus, that applies at, at meaningful scale. Um, so, so with that caveat, I directionally agree with you, like it’s clear that it’s not a, you know, that rain is not a, a make or break moment here because we’ve both experienced these technologies working safely in the rain.

Grayson Brulte: One of the greatest experiences I ever had in a Waymo was driving around San Francisco in the rain, listening to kind of blue by miles Davis. That was this magical experience we call only in San Francisco, only in Waymo experience. You’re right about Tesla and Walt and I talk about this on autonomy markets quite a bit, and you’ve done really good reporting on this. Tesla cares about safety. If you look at the rollout that they’re going to do with robotaxi, it isn’t a constrained ODD. It’s only 10 vehicles. It’s not what some individuals have, you believe, oh, they’re gonna turn on the switch overnight and you have a million Teslas running around. No. Tesla’s taking a very. I would say a very thoughtful approach to this, and I don’t feel that’s covered enough and talked enough about they’re not this rushing out the door. Here we are. Ha ha ha. Here we are.

Pete Bigelow: No, I think you’re right. And like for all of the marketing promises that Elon has made over more than a decade now, right? Uh, and, and broken over a decade now, every year we’re a year or two away from, from robo taxis at scale. But I think the counter argument to that is, I. Uh, in practice they’ve been prudent in not doing this yet. Uh, and, and maybe they could have at, at a lower safety threshold. So, uh, there are a lot of questions I think about what, what is the Tesla safety threshold right now, and how do the tele operators work? With the vehicles, how many, how many tele operators, uh, are handling how many vehicles? So, so lots of questions before I would like proclaim that there are no safety questions here. But, but on the other hand, I do think it’s very fair to say for, you know, maybe the guy who’s been saying this is gonna happen quickly, year after year after year, has in fact held off because there have been safety questions and now, and now he feels ready. And I wish we had more. Transparency, uh, into the decision making process, uh, into that right now. But I, I, I think certainly that is one way to look at this is that in fact they have been prudent so far.

Grayson Brulte: Another way to look at this. They’re taking the Chandler approach. They’re starting in a constrained ODD and expanding outta there. Waymo did that. I mean, this seems like. I, I, I feel like I’m Fred Flinstone and, and, and you’re Barney Rubble if we wanna go back in time. But it was literally only a couple years ago that Waymo was operating a very constrained ODD and Chandler. They wouldn’t go into Phoenix proper. They wouldn’t go into into Mesa.

Pete Bigelow: but I think Elon has fed the idea that. The thing that separates his approach from Waymo’s is that he doesn’t necessarily need this like incremental, slow block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood approach. So I think that’s where, that’s where there’s a bit of a disconnect now and again, would love to hear more specifics from Tesla on, you know, does that change at some point or, or is in fact. That the Tesla plan, which again, may be very prudent to grow, slowly, slowly expand that ODD, uh, slowly expand to the next city. Uh, and indeed just follow, follow Waymo, albeit seven years behind.

Grayson Brulte: The thing to watch. If by December 31st, 2025 is the Tesla ODD in Austin comparable or larger than Waymo’s and, and what is the safety record? That’s gonna be a really interesting statistic to watch.

Pete Bigelow: No question. I think that, you know, and, and safety record is, is relative too, right? Like Waymo has not had a terrible crash, like the one that sideline Cruise, like the one that shelved the Uber program. I. Um, but, but they’ve had a couple, let’s call ’em odd instances. And I think that’s one of the interesting things about self-driving technology writ large, is that these cars are gonna crash in, in new ways, right? They may, they may solve old problems, but they may create new ones. And the one that stands out to me is the. Crash that Waymo had last year, uh, in, in the Phoenix area where, uh, two different Waymo’s hit the same tow truck pulling a, a backwards facing vehicle. Uh, that, that its software misread. So it crashed into it twice in a matter of minutes. So like fairly innocuous in the grand scheme of things. But, but when some company has a, another major incident, I think, uh, the question is, uh, a how does that affect the rest of the industry? B. We’ve seen Cruise and, and Uber shelved from, from a single incident. So, uh, will the next company to have a bad crash, uh, find itself in a unrecoverable situation?

Grayson Brulte: It depends on who the company is. Point, point, blanks depend on who the company is.

Pete Bigelow: does it, I don’t know. I’m not sure. That’s a good, I, I, I think there’s a couple that I would certainly rule out, like to say probably can’t recover from this but on, but, but maybe even the, the best, uh, will have difficulty.

Grayson Brulte: The problem is the media’s gonna run with a false narrative and scream about this, but yet, when somebody dies in a car crash, nobody talks about it. They don’t scream for the headlines. But if it’s a self-driving car, the boogeyman comes out. There’s a giant misconception around reality ’cause look at how many. Crashes and fatalities. Waymo’s prevent it. That’s not talked about. Oh, Waymo gets an offender, but or Waymo gets an incident, it’s national headlines and then you get these people out there like it’s the end of the world having out this narrative. And that’s a huge problem.’

Pete Bigelow: yes, I think Waymo probably has saved lives and injuries and they’ve, um, they’ve done their own research to kind of bolster that claim. But I think it’s gonna go a long way when a third party independent researcher comes along and says, yes, this is what Waymo’s done. We’ve studied it, versus the company’s touting its own safety record. I think that’s, that’s just the nature of the beast and I think, Boy, you know, I, I also think you’re, you’re, you’re right too on the sense that 40,000 people die a year in crashes, and it’s so common that we don’t talk about it. It’s almost, uh, you know, it, it’s relegated to Backpage news because it happens so often that it’s, it’s, it’s almost not newsworthy. What do they do when there’s a fatality on the road? Like they close the road, they clean up the mess, and they open the road and we all start driving again. It’s. There’s psychological and sociological aspects to this that, you know, boy, we could spend the whole podcast on. So I’ll just shut up now and, and agree with your point that we definitely don’t talk about that part of the equation, uh, nearly enough. But I do think, I, I’m not, I’m gonna be reluctant to say that there’s false narratives around any crash. Like, I think there’s legitimate narratives and legitimate questions that, that have come from previous crashes and will continue as. As robots start to kill people and are we, how comfortable are we with that? If they only kill a quarter as opposed to, you know, 40,000, if they get that down to 10,000, is that something we’d all accept? I’d like to think so, but, but maybe not. Sorry, I’m throwing a lot at you.

Grayson Brulte: No, I love it. That, listen, we’re about to, I feel like we’re about to have our own Bigelow battle now that Sterling’s gm, he’s gonna have handcuffs, he won’t be able to talk. We gotta get somebody else in this to have a Biegelow battle. Maybe, perhaps we’ll have a Bigelow battle here. If you, if you look at humans over life, we could hundreds of millions of people with our bare hands. Look at what the Gatlin gun did. The Gatlin gun destroyed the Indian population in the West. I’ve been, I’ve been to the battle a a little big horn where they got their revenge. It, it’s very truly sad what the Gatlin gun did to the west, but yet we, we kind of relegate that to history. We look at what the nuclear bomb to, we look at all these manmade creations and it just fast. The same thing’s gonna happen. Humans kill more people than robots. It’s the end of the, it’s the, it’s the bottom line there. Robots are gonna be safer and we’re not gonna have this whole conspiracy issue around the the terminator scenario because our uncles all be buck and we’ll and he’ll come kick the shit out of the robots if that’s what’s going to happen. But, but getting to your independent auditor, inde in Independent Safety Review, I like that idea with a caveat. How do you get somebody that’s not bias? ’cause a lot of these independent researchers, I’m not saying all I’m saying a lot, and you know who you are ’cause you listen. Have extreme biases. How do you get somebody neutral, like an earnest and young, a Deloitte, one of these, let’s say, accounting auditors to look at this from a neutral standpoint, not a bias standpoint.

Pete Bigelow: This all kind of gets back to the question to me of how safe is safe enough, and we don’t have a, you know, two decades into self-driving vehicles right now. We don’t have a clear answer to that. And I feel like if we’re going to ask researchers to measure safety, you know, perhaps having a baseline or guideline to measure against would be very helpful here. Uh, so I, I feel like. That’s a missing part of this equation and conversation. But I, I, I don’t necessarily know if I, if I need a Deloitte or, um, you know, business consulting firm to look at this. I feel like there’s a lot of universities out there who, who would study this question and if they came away with a definitive robotaxis are safer, uh, I think that would go a long way. But the other part of that’s hard too, Grayson, is like. Are we saying that like robot taxis are safer than humans at, at 6:00 AM on a, you know, on an interstate in metro phoenix, um, there’s, it’s really, really hard to make apples to apples comparisons, and that’s, we all want something really simplistic, but, uh, ODD, time of day type of vehicle, uh, all these things kind of factor into. And Waymo has, you know, this is part of the Waymo research that they’ve put out there from their, uh, safety research team, uh, which is pretty compelling, um, is kind of making those apples to apples comparisons. Like, okay, let’s look at arterial roads in this, in this particular city. Uh, I don’t know if they’ve done time of day or not. I’d have to go back and look. But, uh, all those things kind of factor into is this safer? The one thing I will say that I. Overall industry wide that I think has kind of been regrettable on the safety front is that, you know, five, 10 years ago, everybody was talking about dramatic reductions in traffic fatalities and, and safety improvements. And, you know, as Nans said, uh, in that, that white paper about RSS, that, you know, self-driving technology holds the potential to take us from 40,000 fatalities a year to 40. Um. Now I see most of the industry players kind of backtracking to, we’re gonna be safer than a human. And I think there’s a dramatic difference in, in cutting to 40 fatalities a year in, you know, we’re gonna be marginally better than a human or, or some, some more incremental benefits as opposed to society has just changed. And that’s where the messaging has been. You know, maybe the industry’s done themselves a disservice by, by starting out with such the hype filled messaging and now reality kind of sets in.

Grayson Brulte: This industry has done a lot of good. Gamechanging technologies, which is gonna lead to the autonomy economy. The one thing this industry has done a horrible job, a horrific job on, is messaging. Remember going back to 2000 with the big hype bubble that everybody, a lot of people left the industry and you and I stayed and this thing kept going, this messaging has been a whackadoodle. And you try and speak these individuals, and I gotta give a lot of credit to a board member here for Council for Economic Resilience. Gus Carlson talks about, he goes, guys, it’s not the technology story. It’s what’s the impact on society’s story? And it never resonated. And now you’re starting to see more and more of that messaging coming out and putting out these grandiose statements, 40,000 to 40. How do you verify that? There’s so many factors that . go into that.

Pete Bigelow: there are, and I, I’d have to go back and read the paper, but I mean, I. It was a paper that relied on, on math and kind of, you know, building that safety envelope around the vehicle that you could get from 40,000 to 40. But, uh, but I, you’re right, I think, I think the industry has done itself, you know, a, a kick in the shins a bit by, by, not by overpromising. Um, and, and by not focusing on. Here, here’s the material benefit, here’s the benefit of self-driving trucks and, and lowering the price of consumer goods for one potential, you know, near term, uh, benefits. That that would be one plank. And start talking about the incremental benefits. Being very transparent that, that there’s a lot to learn, a long way to go. Uh, but that’s, that doesn’t raise fundraising dollars, I guess. So, that’s one reason why we started out in a very grandiose place.

Grayson Brulte: We started grandiose place ’cause that’s what the, the VCs wanted to hear. Now we’re in a, I call a more mature phase as companies are public and companies are going public and companies have filed to go public. If you look at autonomous trucking, one of the greatest benefits of autonomous trucking, you have the economic resilience, you have the uptime. But this is the thing that nobody talks a lot about and too simple. Did a really good job on this back in the day. Food waste. Those trucks can run 20 plus hours a day, could eliminate food waste and give healthy foods. And if I’m sitting there as an executive autonomous trucking company, I’m hopping on the Bobby Bobby Kennedy wagon of Maha Make America healthy again. Autonomous trucks can get you fresh produce to kids. You’ve got a big advocate there in the White House that will go along with this. You have a big advocate there in health and human services. It just seems that this industry is not tapping into is called the populism movement. In America right now that despite, you know, some grievances and, and, and that you can look at pew polling data, you can look at Gallup polling data, you can look at ap, you can look at NNBC. You can look at CNN. The majority of the 53% of the country thinks we’re going in the right direction. I know it’s not a big majority, but it’s over the 50% threshold. Why is nobody tapping into that and then all on the backside of that? You know what that does, Pete? That helps get a national autonomous vehicle framework that everybody in this industry needs.

Pete Bigelow: I mean, do you think the answer to the question is that it’s still so fledgling that, uh. Maybe people are reluctant and overpromising right now, but I conceptually, I, I think I do see where you’re going. Like, we can deliver goods faster, be they, you know, vegetables for, for healthier lunches or, you know, just stuff coming off the, the ships, uh, at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Uh, the, the promise of goods getting to people faster, might resonate, but I do think that there’s, there’s very real concerns about job losses and I think that. A lot, a lot of the populist movement has been fueled by a backlash to, to Silicon Valley and technology overall. And here comes, here comes these self-driving trucks that are going to take jobs from, from truck, truck drivers, right? Who, who very much depend on these. We’ve seen, Teamsters fighting them left and right and, and all these pop up battles state by state. Uh, so I think that’s where. I think the, you know, it’s obviously very nuanced, but I think that populism versus technology is, is more of a contrast right now than a, uh, you know, cooperative direct agreement or direction.

Grayson Brulte: Yes and no because the the backlash, yes, you have a small minority of the populist movement. That doesn’t like big tech, but you know what you have, you have a majority of the public through their retirement, through their investment funds are invested in the s and p 500. What’s driving the growth of the s and p 500? The Mag seven. What’s the Mag Seven large technology companies, apple Meta, Google, Netflix, all driving outsized returns. So that’s that. So, and then the other part of the populist movement. It’s the immigration movement that wants to deport everybody. So if you take away that labor, you have to replace it with automation. So you’re in this really interesting political dynamic and on the jobs front, automation is going to create jobs. Autonomy is going to create jobs. At the end of the day, if, ’cause if you look at, I love to give the argument, oh, it’s not gonna, it’s gonna kill jobs. ATMs are gonna kill jobs. We have more ATMs today. We have more tellers today. We have more bank branches today. Before that technology is introduced, guess what? Jamie Dimon will go on the record and tell you it’s created hundreds of thousands of jobs. The same thing is gonna happen with automation and autonomy. It’s going to create jobs. And guess what? They’re gonna be high paying jobs and they’re gonna be safer jobs than some of these jobs that individuals have to do today.

Pete Bigelow: I don’t disagree with that. Like I think the idea that you can take away jobs that are dull, dirty, dangerous. That you can get truck drivers home with their families at night instead of, you know, on these long haul trips. Like, I think there’s a lot of merit to that, but I think while you’re right, that there’s going to be a net benefit for jobs and that, uh, probably many of these jobs will be, uh, better jobs, higher paying jobs. Like there’s a net benefit, like there’s gonna be winners and losers. There’s not. I think you have to have the right programs in place to, to take people who are being displaced and provide them with the new opportunities and not just let them see the opportunities slipping by, which has perhaps fueled a lot of the concern and, and, and class resentment that we see in the country right now. And obviously we’re, we’re living in polarized times. I don’t know that the two of us are gonna. Solve, uh, solve our problems, right, right now. But, but to your point, it’s a nuanced conversation. I think if you want to present this as a job benefits, you’re going to have to sell the people who might also lose their jobs as part of it, as, as here’s the ladder to your, uh, or their bridge to the next next step for You.

Grayson Brulte: You know what I’d like to see this industry do, invest in apprenticeships and invest in creating programs and partnering vocational schools. Give individuals, young individuals a, a path to a job. And when you give ’em a path to a job, do them a favor. The biggest crisis facing the United States right now outside of war. The rising student debt levels is scary because it immobilizes somebody, it suffocates them. It takes away any opportunity they have to save, to buy a house, to have a family without going further into debt. You read these horrific stories. 50 year olds, 60 year olds are still paying their college debt. This industry should come together and say, we’ve, we, we understand the economics of the society. We understand the rising cost of tuition, which is outpacing inflation. We’ve partnered with us called Acme Vocational School in 30 different states. We’ve set up an apprenticeship program and we’re gonna give you a path to a job. And you know, the key to that is there’s two big keys, Pete One, no college debt. Two, you have a path to a job, and that’s a good thing.

Pete Bigelow: I think that, uh, two things come to mind. One, uh, much to their credit we saw. Too simple. Back in the day, start a, uh, you know, a, a two year program with one of the local Arizona community colleges. I forget which one. Uh, but, but that probably is Exhibit A of the industry doing something very along the lines of what you’re talking about. Uh, and b more generally here in Michigan, uh, governor Whitmer and I, I think this is a bipartisan thing, uh, a year or two ago, signed. Legislation that lets any high school graduates go to a community college, uh, which obviously have a lot of vocational training programs, uh, for, for an auto industry desperately in need of skilled, uh, workers, by the way, um, most mic not, I don’t think everybody was eligible, but most high school graduates in Michigan would be eligible to go to a two year college for, for free. Um, and I, I, I think that speaks to these . what you’re talking about and also like the broader needs for a skilled workforce, be that in, uh, robotics and automated driving in particular, or, or, you know, more skilled trades writ large.

Grayson Brulte: It’s a brilliant move by Governor Whitmer. I commend it. I, I think it’s a, it’s a wonderful move because you’re giving. Individuals an opportunity to build a great life because over time I’m ready for the bows and arrows. The college degree is going to be devalued.

Pete Bigelow: I think it already has been no question.

Grayson Brulte: because who, who wants to send a child? Let’s, let’s one of the most expensive universities in the country, Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, it’s over a hundred thousand dollars a year. So let’s tack on, and that includes, let’s say 550,000. 560,000, you’re coming out without scholarships. You’re coming out with a ton of debt. And the one thing that I don’t know a lot of people don’t talk about, you can’t file for bankruptcy and write that debt off. It never goes away.

Pete Bigelow: No question.

Grayson Brulte: And that’s another thing. So you, you’re right, we, we need to invest more. It is not just the autonomous vehicle industry. I like to see tech in general invest more in vocational schools. And if you look at the whole vibe, coding movement, it expose kids to this technology. Into the individuals that run schools that listen, that I know you. Listen, stop thinking AI is a boogieman. Embrace ai. Put it in the in, in the classrooms with children. Let them learn to, to use this technology because it’ll create a path for jobs and they can go do automation, they can do other things, but it, we really have to inspire children to create this new jobs that are coming in the future.

Pete Bigelow: I don’t disagree. I do think that there’s a whole rethink that needs to happen on, on public education, uh, that includes the, the value of a college degree. I think we got caught up somehow decades ago in this idea that everybody needs to go to college. And it, you know, I think people saw the growing disparity between, you know, the, the average college graduate made X amount more than the average non-college graduate and, and started chasing that. But, but again, back to like. This is not black and white. This is pretty nuanced. Uh, there’s a lot of successful people who, who don’t need the college degree. And, and in fact, if you, you know, skip college, start working right away and, and don’t accrue that debt. Like studies show that you know it’s gonna take the debts laid in college graduates a significant amount of time to, to catch up to someone who starts working right away and, and socking money. Into a savings counter or 401k off the bat. Like it might take a quarter century to, to kind of catch back up if you’re the college graduate. So, um, I think that acknowledging not everybody needs to go, that there’s shortages for skilled labor, especially as we look to reshore, a lot of manufacturing right now, uh, people to run those facilities that might be highly automated . yeah. Grayson, I think you’re right. It’s a. Our kids are entering a world that we can’t totally, you know, we can sketch it out right now, but we don’t know the details. So the the right thing would be to, to, to me, to, you know, emphasize critical thinking, have them learn some practical skills and, and, you know, give them a chance to be flexible and not, not drag down by debt. Uh, but, but flexible in terms of critical thinking and career path And And all that’s going forward.

Grayson Brulte: Yeah, and expose them to books, expose them to technologies, and let them participate in one of the greatest miracles that Einstein said, the benefits of compound interest. You start collecting the compound interest instead of your debitor, and then you’re in a really good place if you, if you look at companies. They’re in a really good place today that have, if you wanna say an uncertain future, but they’re in a really good place today. Uber. This week they announced Andrew McDonald, the SVP of the Mobility Business and Operations has been promoted to president and COOM ran their autonomy business. DRIs said he’s staying on for the long haul, I believe Mr. Khaki’s statements, but is this higher an an, an promotion and indicator that Uber is going to potentially double down on their autonomy efforts?

Pete Bigelow: Yes, no question. I think, uh, it’s, it’s absolutely a strong indicator that that’s the direction they’re going. And to your point about what is the uncertain future here, like Uber is frenemies with a growing number of autonomous vehicle providers. And uh, you know, right now it seems like the, the interests of the providers such as a Waymo or May mobility or in the future, a wave, uh, seems converge. But I don’t, you know, it remains an open question as to how long their paths align. And, you know, at some point, do they. Adopt a more competitive posture and who are the winners and losers in that. And it’s way too early to tell from my perspective, but I think it’s a, it’s a both an intriguing and important question to, to ask here in, uh, June, 2025.

Grayson Brulte: I mean, if you, this goes back to the college stuff. There’s winners. In the old days, there was the winners who went to college, the losers who, who didn’t go to college, and it’s changing. To today in, in autonomy. So Waymo is operating exclusively on Uber in Austin, in Atlanta. We haven’t seen any news of that. There’s speculation that the short term deals, we have no confirmation on how long the deals are. But let’s hypothetically say, so it’s June, 2025, let’s say June, 2026, one year from now. Waymo’s no lot longer operating on Uber in Austin or Atlanta. They’re operating on Waymo one. Where does Uber go? Or on the backside to that, what if Waymo never adds any other Uber markets? Where does Uber go?

Pete Bigelow: It’s a good question. I, I kind of go back in my mind to, and I don’t even know this is still around like 10 years ago, I, I wound up riding around Austin, Texas during South by Southwest with a local TNCI think it was called Ride Austin, as opposed to an Uber or Lyft. And, you know, it struck me on just how hard it would be to go somewhere and set up your own network. Like e maybe even if you have a discreet. You know, one-off in a city like Austin, like this, what were the odds that someone, I’m gonna get off my plane at Austin, Austin Bergstrom, uh, know that it exists and, and take, you know, take Ride Austin around town as opposed to, because those, those airport rides and, you know, tourists or business travelers are some of the most lucrative parts of the ride hailing business. Uh, so it just got me thinking a lot about, you know. How, what does it really take to set up a, a rival network? Um, you know, at scale? And I think it takes a lot, which is why we see Waymo partnering with Uber now, like that, that is a hard, hard thing to dislodge right now. ’cause, I mean, Uber’s synonymous with ride hailing, right ? nobody calls your ride inhaling anymore. You can go get an Uber, even if you’re getting a Lyft. But I, I would at least say this. I think that these partnerships in select cities, and it’s interesting which ones Waymo’s partnering with Uber in and which ones they’re not. Um, but, but I tend to see these partnerships lasting for many multiple years at this point. Like, I’m gonna say, I’ll say four years, in, in Austin and Atlanta right now . so I, I, I just think it’d be really hard for them to go. Get the market share. Well, although, although we see Waymo Dislodging Lyft in San Francisco as the number two provider, I dunno if you saw that, uh, story earlier. So maybe a, you know, a company that has the means of a alphabet can do that, but I, bottom line, I think it’s a long slog to to start your own network and say you’re gonna compete with Uber for, for share, uh, and, and zoo’s obviously on that path as well. And, and well behind Waymo at this point.

Grayson Brulte: You’re, you’re referencing the Mary Mer AI and automation. Bond report. Yes. And so they’ve done that. But to me, the, the signs that I’m looking for, and we saw this in the early days of Uber, this is back when Travis was running the company. I remember JP Morgan Chase chooses Uber as a corporate partner, allowing individuals to expense it. Then he had the Morgan Stanley press release. This is when they started to expand in New York. All the corporations started allowing from an expense standpoint that they could expense their Uber rides. Once we start seeing those press releases, let’s say Salesforce, one of the largest employers in San Francisco. Now has a corporate contract with Waymo. Employees can expense it and use it. That’s a really interesting tell sign. The other tell sign that we’re starting to the early signs is Waymo’s starting to advertise pretty heavily in San Francisco, doing it on bus stops. I even saw one on Reddit. They’re doing it in Fortune cookies. So they’re, they’re upping the advertising. Now, if I start seeing advertising in Austin, Atlanta, other markets, that’s a clear indicator that Waymo’s looking potentially for the exit hatch.

Pete Bigelow: Sure. And that’s really interesting because I think that they’ve not advertised to this point. Right. Uh, so, so to see that I, I, I think you’re right. Like I think that Waymo is . as they scale, they are definitely, you know, they’ve gotta have that IPO in mind and, uh, and hitting certain metrics to, to get ready for that IPO and if, if advertising boosts them to a certain percentage of, of, of rides in a particular market, I don’t, you know, if that’s something everyone’s looking at to gauge, gauge health, um, maybe that’s why they’re starting to advertise now as opposed to to not so much before.

Grayson Brulte: It was really interesting. There was a individual that put up a tweet on X, just got done filming a Waymo commercial. A couple individuals that work on Waymo that are publicly identify themselves. Liked it. I reached out to Waymo for comment. No comment. But it appears based on the X Post, based on the likes that I got on X, that Waymo’s doing a commercial. What do you think is gonna be in that commercial? What markets do you think it’s gonna run in? And then is that another sign.

Pete Bigelow: I work backwards. I guess I haven’t seen that, so I can’t speak that intelligently about it. But, uh, what would be theoretically be in a Waymo commercial? Uh, I think that it kind of draws back to what we were talking about earlier. Uh, you don’t something that kind of connotes the feeling of safety because you don’t have an Uber driver. Something that connotes the feeling that you’re going to have a, a consistent experience, a comfortable experience, a safe experience. If those would be the three things that I’d be looking to convey if I was, uh, you know, masterminding the Waymo commercial.

Grayson Brulte: If I was, it’s your own, it’s your own personal karaoke sing at the top of your lungs. You’re not gonna bother anybody. It’s just ’cause that that resonates with a human. You, you mentioned Waymo, IPO, that there’s a lot of chatter. All lung confirmed, and I don’t buy it. That Waymo, at some point, alphabet, sorry, at some point, is gonna explore an IPO for Waymo. Why do you think that is? And then after you tell me, I’ll tell you why the theory I have that they won’t, but you go first.

Pete Bigelow: I mean, I guess I don’t know precisely when it’s coming. Like I wouldn’t, I I’ve heard a lot of the chatter. Um, I have no inside information that would say that would guide what I’m about to say. So kind of with the caveat that this is Pete Bigelow’s speculation and nothing more like, I dunno if it’s coming this year or next year, but, but I’d say clearly, like I think they’ve been on that path. Toward an IPO for a long time, and that’s directionally been their plan . over time I think Google and Alphabet have been less and less inclined to say that this is going to be this endless science project, that at some point it needs to kind of gain commercial traction on its own . and we’ve seen Alphabet, you know, fund Waymo with the additional $5 billion that’s kind of given out and, and tranches over the next few years. So may, maybe not until the end of those, you know, those funds will, will Waymo need to IPO. But I guess that, I think that’s kind of like always like get spinning this out into its own thing has been the plan. I think as Waymo continues to scale up in more and more cities, uh, that’s expensive. They’re going to need some capital to do that. And then it’s just kind of like, at some point reaped the rewards of their investment, right? Like I think Robax as a, as a commercial business are, are hard and a bit of a slog. And that’s one reason why we see Waymo looking with Toyota, uh, at the prospect of probably higher margins, uh, putting a Dr. Automated driver in a personally owned vehicle. Um, so, so where, where Robotaxis go? I don’t know. But I think that they want to exit before they get to a point where they have to acknowledge that it’s a a tough, tough business.

Grayson Brulte: That’s an interesting point, but if you look at it, alphabet recently lost the DOJ antitrust suit and they’ve been, this is in the DOJ filings in 2022, they paid $20 billion to be the default search engine on Safari. You and I both know searches under attack. The LLMs, the ChatGPT’s, the Grok’s of the world are starting to eat away. At their market share very little today, but the business is under assault and that’s why you’re seeing Sundar actively out there talking about ai. At the end of the day, autonomy is an AI problem, but I take the counter argument. If you sit here, if to me, if Alphabet has lots of assets and you could say they’re getting the conglomerate discount, it’s a value trap out outside of search. The most valuable asset inside of that company is YouTube. YouTube’s YouTube is an absolute juggernaut. Can you imagine YouTube would probably get Netflix multiples, maybe a little bit of higher multiples if it was spun out and independently traded. Does Alphabet say, wait a second, our core business is under attack. We have a juggernaut in YouTube. Why not invest in Waymo and make it a juggernaut as well? And that over time could eventually start to contribute billions and billions of dollars of revenue. And I know I say billions, it’s really not gonna move the needle. But over time, it could really ramp up. Or do you truly, truly think that they’re just gonna look for the parachute?

Pete Bigelow: I mean, I think it’s a question of, you know, yes, I think the revenues are there, but are the profits there? Like, what is the margin on this business? And I don’t, I don’t know the answer to that now, but I could, it’s probably not as wide as we thought it was five, 10 years ago by, by any stretch. Uh, and I think that, you know, I don’t think anyone has unlocked. The, the secret sauce to, finding wider margins, the more they scale. I, I, I think it kind of comes down to, you know, every city you add incurs its own costs. And, you know, un until we really know, for one example, and this is one slice of the problem, and not all of it, like how many tele operators, or how, how many vehicles can a single tele operator watch? At a given time . so that, I think that’s part of it too. Uh, so the more vehicles you add, the more tele operators you need. Uh, I just, I think it’s a intriguing problem that no one has really kind of figured out how to keep adding cities without, without adding the, the expenses of running those cities.

Grayson Brulte: Are the vehicles even monitored in real time or just when a knees on the tele op just comes on? And there’s a big difference between tele ops. You have some individuals that sit there with driving. A lot of individuals with a screen. So there’s, there’s a really big difference there.

Pete Bigelow: Really big difference and no question. I think that’s a whole nother, that’s a whole nother rabbit hole. Grayson is like, do the tele operators, can they directly control the vehicle by driving it, or do they. Do they pop on when there’s a problem and they, they kind of look at the environment and issue directions to the vehicle, but the, the vehicle, actively engages with those directions And does the driving still, uh, those are, those are very different approaches and I think that the industry is coalesced around the ladder and you don’t have someone directly driving. But, I, I don’t know. That’s, that’s a whole nother, that’s a whole nother rabbit hole, uh, is, is tele op and obviously with, with Tesla, in Austin. Now that’s that’s on a lot of people’s minds.

Grayson Brulte: It’s, it’s on a lot of people’s minds. The tele ops of you and I both visited head at May, and you see how they worked in the old days when Mark Rosekind was at Zoox. He showed me how they did it. We know how Waymo does it, and we don’t know that we have no. Photographs. We have no public statements on how Tesla is going to do tele ops. I’ll just state that there. But we do know they’re going to launch Bloomberg’s reported June 12th. We have no confirmation. Tesla is gonna be June 12th. We do know that it will be before the end of the month, the, the first ride, the first uh, post on X comes out. How does the market react?

Pete Bigelow: Oh, I think that it’s only going to be more, more bullish, right? Um, I think the markets will see this as validation that it’s faith in Tesla over many years has been, uh, validated and that . you know, things will only grow from there.

Grayson Brulte: How fast do you expect Tesla to grow? From an operational standpoint, we do know 10 vehicles to start. How fast do you expect them to go? 15. 2025. How fast do you expect that that ramp to go?

Pete Bigelow: That’s a great question. Uh, and again, like, you know, I think Elon has said he’ll go from 10 to 20 to 30 to 40. Maybe, and again, if, if we’re gonna go back to where we started with, like, if we’re gonna buy the premise that he’s doing this in a prudent fashion maybe. And, and I also go by the idea that I think it’s really, really hard as, as many people have learned in a hard lesson, it’s hard to go from a two dozen vehicles, uh, in a test fleet to a commercial operation of. Of a hundred plus cars, something that Cruise learned the hard way clearly . like to me, and this is just ballpark, like I would not be surprised to see Tesla at 50 cars in Austin by the end of 2025.

Grayson Brulte: I would say a hundred. But yeah, I, I like that because you have you and I in this industry studies history, if you expand and scale too quickly. You run into the cruise problem, they expanded way too quickly. And I’m hoping, and I have no, I’m hoping that Tesla takes the Waymo and does a slow, methodical, and when I say slow, obviously technology mature where they can go faster. But I hope they take a similar premise to Waymo. And then to me, that would be a clear indicator to me, in my opinion, that Tesla’s doing this the right way.

Pete Bigelow: What’s interesting is like thinking about that, like Waymo was really, how long did we go between when they started Metro Phoenix and when they started San Francisco? I wanna say it was like four years, like San Francisco was summer of 23 and it kind of reached a. A fever point last summer where people started to notice it . so let’s just say it was four or five years between city one and city two, and now we’re seeing Waymo kind of up the cadence of, then they added Los Angeles and now they added Austin, uh, this spring. Like their, their pace of starting new, new cities is, is, uh, ramping up. And you know, I agree with you that I think. Doing it the way Waymo has done it would be a smart path for Tesla to follow. And I generally think that Waymo has done it the right way so far. But, but I also like would caution too, like, all right, like now that they’re starting to ramp up that pace, like I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna rule out the possibility that they’re not also following into that cruise trap right now. Right. Where Cruise had, I mean, I think they had announced like 12, 13 cities even as they were only operating in one. I mean, it was. It was almost absurd that like every week there’s a new, like, we’re gonna open up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Like, why are we, why are we like, make so concerned about announcements of new cities versus squaring away the operations that are taking place in the cities that are already started.

Grayson Brulte: They wanted to keep up with the narrative that they can compete with. Waymo, that trap if you, it’s a trap point blank. Tesla’s not falling into it. You know who is Zoox? They’re announcing all these cities, but yet I’m not beating up on you Zoox yet. I don’t have one commercial city operating, taking, paying passengers. And yet you’re announcing this grandiose expansion.

Pete Bigelow: I mean, at least they’ve not opened and then continued that they’re, you know, if, if I’m gonna sit here and defend Zoox, they’re not following Cruise in the sense that they were struggling in city number one while pretending that they’re gonna do all these other cities. They’re, they’re still at, you know, they’re still behind the starting gate, so to speak, commercially while they’re announcing all these, uh, new cities. So, little bit of a nuance there.

Grayson Brulte: There is nuance, but why not perfect one city, turn it into a business before expanding because. And I’ll say this, they have not proven the technology is scalable. They have not proven that it is safe. There was two Nitsa investigations that that are ongoing and they haven’t put a paying commercial passenger in the vehicle yet.

Pete Bigelow: they had that accident a few weeks ago where the Zoox vehicle moved after. After they, you know, had a collision with a, you know, a e scooter rider and I think it was, they’re very careful to say that it was the scooter rider who had hit their vehicle. Not vice versa, but still the zoox vehicle moved when, when that, uh, rider was on the ground near the vehicle. So it’s, it’s concerning ’cause it’s sounds like, uh, they potentially have not learned from the cruise crash.

Grayson Brulte: It sounds very similar to the cruise crash. Hopefully we’ll get more clarity when the, the NHTSA investigation is made public and. I would ask Zoox and the, and for the benefit of this industry and society, release the video show, show the public build, build trust. You have an unconventional design. A lot of individuals don’t trust it. Build, build that trust with us. That’s where they have to go. But yet they’re announcing all these cities. And then if you, Zoox has always been added at a disadvantage as, as Waymo scales up May mobility in my opinions further ahead because they are taking paying pastures in June 12th, Ed Ludlow of Bloomberg’s. Correct. Tesla begins, Zoox falls further down the line. I know they have Amazon money, but how are they going to compete and scale up Once Tesla’s proven they can do it? Me mobility starts rocking on Uber, Wayve starts rocking on Uber, and by that point I’ll just throw a number out there and I have no inclination. This Waymo’s operating in 10 cities.

Pete Bigelow: I wouldn’t put Wayve in that bucket yet ’cause they’re not operating anything. So I can’t include wave in this conversation. Uh, even though Uber is an investor in Wayve, right . yeah, I mean, I think I. Probably like you, you could make the argument that Zoox is taking this prudent approach that we, we have put forth that, that Tesla is as well, like I think it’s. I think it would be a fool’s errand to worry about the competition with Waymo before you’re ready to launch anything. And if you know you’re not ready to launch anything, uh, then, then don’t do it. And, you know, whatever, whatever the long-term consequences are in terms of a competition or, or quote unquote race, then so be it. But the worst thing you can do is launch when you’re not ready, as we’ve seen with Cruise.

Grayson Brulte: Don’t launch tier ready. I like that, but I’ll say, don’t announce new cities. Focus on one city, commercialize and get it going. And furthermore, we do not have final regulatory approval that Zoox could even commercialize that vehicle because the way that they did it, if you want to use the term, I’ll use it very liberally. A loophole. We do not have final confirmation that that vehicle, uh, is ready to go.

Pete Bigelow: I think you’re, you’re spot on. And that’s, that may be why we’ve not seen a, a launch. And, uh, obviously there was the NHTSA investigation into zoox self-certification that that vehicle met F-M-V-S-S last year. That, and NHTSA found, I think six or seven different areas where that vehicle did not meet F-M-V-S-S. , So, uh, you know, Zoox is at a crossroads with that. I think clearly they’re not going to. Come back and say that they’re going to self-certify this again. I think what’s going to happen is that they’re going to have to go through the existing exemption process, uh, which is probably what they hoped to avoid years ago. Uh, and that even under a Trump administration where that might be streamlined, that’s still a process that is outside their control. And that might delay this launch further, but that that might be the path forward for the Zoox toaster vehicle.

Grayson Brulte: It could potentially, and this is just based on historical data years based on how the government moves. I’m not saying I, I’m saying just based on historical data, it could be years. If that is indeed the case, and as you described, they have to go that route. Why not put a plan in place to launch service on the Highlanders to at least start generating some revenue? Start building brand awareness.

Pete Bigelow: That would seem to be the, the short term fix, right? Is, is launching the Highlander. I don’t know if the Highlander’s a great, uh, robotaxis vehicle. Like do you want, do you want customers to have an experience with a vehicle that’s I. It’s not the one you planned that, uh, you know, it’s not the Pacifica that Waymo used. I, I think I’d rather just from a Robo Taxii perspective, be getting into a Pacifica than, than a Highlander. But it’s a good question Grayson. And I think that, uh, they’ve gotta be working on a plan B at the very least. And since you have the Highlanders have tested on the Highlanders, it, it might be. That might be the plan B, but you know, is there an argument to be made? We’re just gonna wait till the thing. We’ve already waited 13 years since we founded the company. What’s a couple more to use the vehicle that we’ve designed from the ground up for this express purpose as opposed to putting something out there that that doesn’t match our brand and maybe doesn’t provide a great experience. It’s not a great answer, but might be, I don’t know.

Grayson Brulte: it’s not a great answer, but it’s an honest answer. ’cause the, the brand matters. But in, in two years by now, the market is gonna have pass them by. So Amazon’s gonna have to make a difficult decision. And if Amazon does make that decision, do they put Zoox up for sale and sell it? And if they do, there’s only one buyer crazy enough in my opinion. Just read Gambling Man by Lionel Barber, the former editor of The Financial Times about MAs Sun. Masa is the only one creating stuff I think that can buy Zoox. And if Masa does buy Zoox, where the heck does this thing go? That’s how we’re wrapping Pete. Let’s hear it.

Pete Bigelow: oh boy. I don’t know. I, I, I think that Amazon would be reluctant to cut Zoox loose because of something you said a long time ago, Grayson, and that is the prospect of having your own Robo Taxii company offered as part of Amazon Prime is very intriguing . like that, there’s a strong value proposition there, I think. And. Uh, unless this thing is a, a dead dog, like I think that they are going to try and see it through, like, you know, maybe in the grand scheme of things, this, this NHTSA problem, I don’t wanna say it’s small potatoes, but if they see this as an obstacle, they can eventually navigate around and still get to the promise of, you know, your, your roboto, taxii on prime. Then that’s the allure of that may still be pretty strong.

Grayson Brulte: Theore strong, and then Amazon could tie that into their growing advertising business, which is becoming a juggernaut inside the company. But the question is, does Amazon double down invest and wait. Or do they get Footloose, which we can call Zoox loose and end up selling the company. And is Masa crazy enough to buy Zoox? That’s the question I’m leaving you with. And perhaps coming this September, you and I’ll be at Move Detroit. We can have a Bigelow battle over the future of Zoox. Until then, the future is bright. The future autonomous, the future of his robotaxis. Pete, as always, thanks for playing ping pong with me.

Pete Bigelow: Absolutely anytime. Thanks for having me.