He mentions in the video that he saw the idea in "a math exchange post" and he also has a link to the exact post in the video description. Doesn't that count?
I only have experience working in the robotics field as it exists today, so you're right that I am probably unaware of how things are done in the software world. (I mean I read HN so I'm at least somewhat aware, but I don't have first hand experience of it in my work, so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing). So in that sense, I'm rooting for your success in launching this company -- it would help accelerate and expand the robotics field!
I think the way you're bounding your addressable problem space -- industrial vehicles operating in a closed environment -- makes a lot of sense. I also agree that certain classes of problems (like wheel slippage) would be better solved "once" by an expert team rather than repeatedly by people who are actually trying to solve a different problem of higher level autonomy as you put it.
Some random other thoughts:
- your business model and offering sound kinda similar to [Tangram Vision](https://www.tangramvision.com/about-tangram-vision), though not close enough to where you would be competitors. I'm not affiliated with Tangram at all, I've never even interacted with them, just sharing what I've come across in my research.
- How do you think about how your customers join and potentially leave your platform? In your reply you mention a certain scale and amount of success where companies may decide to start doing this themselves, or even going to other companies that specialize more than you do (e.g. Applied Intuition for sensor simulation). It might feel a bit early to think about on launch day, I'm just curious about how you think about your company's value prop for customers at different stages of growth. Are you potentially limiting your market to only niche segments and smaller players? Who is your key customer you're targetting?
I appreciate your response and candor, I'm very interested in seeing your company take off!
I work in robotics, I understand that every robotics company builds substantially similar core autonomy for different industrial vehicles, so I definitely see the value of what you're creating. However, every company needs to figure out how their autonomy will handle their specific vehicle's dynamics and their specific physical environment. For vehicle dynamics, they have to model things like wheel slippage on rough terrain, articulating joints on multi-axle vehicles, braking distance while hauling a load. For physical environment, they have to figure out how dust, fog, and poor lighting conditions affect their sensing and perception. Do you intend to make custom sim vehicles for each of your customers? Will you simulate each customer's particular camera/lidar/other sensor in their specific environment?
not totally clear if this is the point you’re trying to make, but the US today fits that description exactly
> killing/imprisoning a lot of your own population
the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world
> creating an economic climate where it was hard to sustain your family
the cost of housing has far outgrown the median household income and in many places you need 2+ income earners to sustain a household meaning nobody has time to raise children
Your link says Autopilot, not FSD. Autopilot is highway autonomy, which is vastly easier and you can rack up many more miles very quickly. This is not at all a relevant comparison.
How is this a moat for BlockFi? Why can't a competitor do exactly the same thing as BlockFi without paying the $100M fine? Asking this question earnestly because I actually want to know more.
> Here’s another thing about being a private company. What if this had worked? What if Goldman hadn’t noticed anything unusual and had coughed up the $40 million? Wouldn’t Goldman have been embarrassed when this story came out? Well, no, because this story never would have come out! Even if someone had told Goldman after the fact “hey that call with YouTube was fake,” what would they have done about it? They could call Ozy and demand their money back but presumably Ozy spent it. They could sue, but how much would they be able to recover? Once you’ve been tricked into investing in a high-flying startup, the only rational move is to hope that they succeed, clean up their act and go public at a higher valuation. You’d never go around saying “we were tricked”; that just destroys value.
> Similarly, if you are an investor and board member of a hot startup, and you find out that the co-founder impersonated a customer to try to trick someone into investing, what are your incentives? If you make a big deal about it and throw around words like “fraud,” it will be hard for the startup ever to raise money again, which might make your own investment worthless. If you say, meh, unfortunate one-time event, no harm no foul, then maybe the company’s vision will end up working out and you’ll be able to sell at a profit. If you invest in a startup you are buying an option; your goal, as a board member, is not to extinguish the option value too soon. Just, you know, let it ride, see where this goes.
GDPR is about privacy and security, not interoperability. It was (and still is) a very controversial set of regulations, so shoehorning in more requirements would have made it even more unpopular.
Just because it's being sold today doesn't mean it's actively manufactured still. They could have stockpiled the older processors or have spare inventory to continue meeting demand
ASICs only make sense if you have high volume. PCI-e takes a lot of resources/space. The sweet spot for FPGA-CPU hybrid chips are embedded devices that are latency sensitive. For example, time-of-flight sensors and specialty cameras.
I agree, a typeface for numerical use should pay attention to that! I like the typeface used in new versions of JetBrains IDEs like Pycharm. There's special attention paid to disambiguating 0 from O and also ; from : and many other details!
Yes! I posted in the threads on Jan 1 and Feb 1 of this year. I was contacted by a cumulative total of 14 companies, of which 2 were actually interesting to me. I'm a mechanical engineer working in robotics hardware, so that's a little different to the typical opportunities listed here. For both companies I was interested in, the process started with 2-3 phone interviews, then I was invited to fly out for on-site interviews (very important when working on hardware!). I was offered the position at both places, and ultimately accepted one. I joined a couple of months ago, and I'm loving it so far!! Feel free to ask me any questions
I currently work in mobile robotics for mapping and inspection. I have experience in mechanical design/prototyping and testing in the lab including vision systems, sensor fusion failure modes, contamination testing etc.
I currently work in mobile robotics for mapping and inspection. I have experience in mechanical design/prototyping and testing in the lab including vision systems, sensor fusion failure modes, contamination testing etc.