Self-driving has been “almost here” for over a decade. But somewhere between DARPA challenges and a handful of driverless trucks hauling freight between Dallas and Houston, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson\u2019s story changed. The self-driving truck company started commercial driverless operations last April and is now scaling from a handful of trucks to hundreds this year. <\/p>\n
On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, we’re bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan had with Urmson at the HumanX conference in San Francisco. The pair dug into the long road from lab to highway and how physical AI differs from the LLM boom everyone else is chasing. <\/p>\n
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. <\/p>\n
Chapters: <\/p>\n
00:00 Intro <\/p>\n
00:49 Urmson’s self-driving journey from DARPA to Aurora <\/p>\n
03:30 How macro headwinds and supply constraints are shaping Aurora’s roadmap <\/p>\n
06:08 Why trucking beats robotaxis as a business <\/p>\n
13:46 How Aurora’s path diverged from Waymo’s <\/p>\n
18:09 What 24 years in physical AI teaches you about building a startup <\/p>\n
19:33 Why safety hits different when there’s no human in the loop <\/p>\n
23:38 Verifiable AI vs. end-to-end systems: why it matters for safety <\/p>\n
27:11 Other autonomy companies worth watching <\/p>\n
29:04 Real-world data vs. simulation: do you still need both? <\/p>\n
30:03 Outro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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