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Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

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Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#2
Not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that guy is always looking for his next job. Good luck keeping him on board for any significant amount of time. Although maybe he already ran out of self-driving-vehicle startups to work at.

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#3

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that guy is always looking for his next job. Good luck keeping him on board for any significant amount of time. Although maybe he already ran out of self-driving-vehicle startups to work at.

I was just thinking this, but it seems his departure from Cruise coincided with the GM acquisition, and the transition to Uber from Otto probably happened because Uber acquired Otto. The primary job changes then are from Tesla to Otto and now from Uber to Voyage.

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#5
post #3

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that guy is always looking for his next job. Good luck keeping him on board for any significant amount of time. Although maybe he already ran out of self-driving-vehicle startups to work at.

I was just thinking this, but it seems his departure from Cruise coincided with the GM acquisition, and the transition to Uber from Otto probably happened because Uber acquired Otto. The primary job changes then are from Tesla to Otto and now from Uber to Voyage.

Why didn't he stay on at GM if he was good/critical? Do not acquiring companies want to keep at the good people, not let them all leave immediately after acquisition?

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#6

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that guy is always looking for his next job. Good luck keeping him on board for any significant amount of time. Although maybe he already ran out of self-driving-vehicle startups to work at.

Seems to me people that have a job title where the first letter begins with "C" and rhymes with "Reef" are given a much wider berth when it comes to the types of thing that would get the average worker thoroughly passed over in job screenings.

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#7
Hello everyone! @olivercameron, CEO of Voyage here.

Drew is currently busy at our Testing Grounds shipping a new release, but if there's any Voyage or self-driving car related questions I can answer, I'd love to hear em'!

My previous life was at Udacity, where I spent 4 years working on their self-driving car and machine learning curriculum. I learned a ton from working with Sebastian Thrun and the rest of the Udacity team.

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#8
That's a reasonable business model. But their self driving doesn't really work reliably yet.[1] Their "deployment" in San Jose is three cars, max speed 25MPH, with a "safety driver" on board. Now they've hired people from the "fake it 'til you make it" self driving projects. Not a good sign.

This is similar to what Local Motors and Navya, which make minibus-sized driverless vehicles, are doing - the area and routes are very well known, but there may be some intrusions into the driving lane. Nobody has this working well enough for an airport parking lot shuttle yet.

It's too bad Waymo didn't continue with the Google mini-car. They could probably make this work. It's not as hard at 25MPH, because stopping solves most problems and sensor range is more than sufficient.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/technology/driverless-car...

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#9

Hello everyone! @olivercameron, CEO of Voyage here. Drew is currently busy at our Testing Grounds shipping a new release, but if there's any Voyage or self-driving car related questions I can answer, I'd love to hear em'! My previous life was at Udacity, where I spent 4 years working on their self-driving car and machine learning curriculum. I learned a ton from working with Sebastian Thrun and the rest of the Udacit…

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for taking questions. Few questions:

1) What online resources do you recommend for someone that wants to go from beginner to skilled in the field of self-driving cars? Is there a sequence of courses that you could recommend?

2) What important concepts should this self-learner hone in on as they learn?

3) How can someone that does 1) (and has projects) break into the self-driving cars career?

Re: Self-Driving Car Startup Voyage Brings on Ex-Tesla, Cruise and Uber Exec as CTO

#10

Hello everyone! @olivercameron, CEO of Voyage here. Drew is currently busy at our Testing Grounds shipping a new release, but if there's any Voyage or self-driving car related questions I can answer, I'd love to hear em'! My previous life was at Udacity, where I spent 4 years working on their self-driving car and machine learning curriculum. I learned a ton from working with Sebastian Thrun and the rest of the Udacit…

Hi Oliver, Thanks for taking questions. Few questions: 1) What online resources do you recommend for someone that wants to go from beginner to skilled in the field of self-driving cars? Is there a sequence of courses that you could recommend? 2) What important concepts should this self-learner hone in on as they learn? 3) How can someone that does 1) (and has projects) break into the self-driving cars career?

Hello! Great questions.

1) If you already have a good grasp of Python, I always advise to start with the AI for Robotics MOOC at Udacity, which is my favorite class of all time. Once that's done, I'd take a look at their Deep Learning classes and the Self-Driving Car Nanodegree.

2) I think it's crucial to get to grips with how the whole stack works, so I always advise to get to grips with a middleware like ROS. Also, don't be afraid to dabble in algorithms (think problems in motion planning, computer vision, etc.)

3) The traditional programs (think PhD programs) create a lot of specialists focused on a single domain, but the industry is in dire need of more generalists. An engineer who is able to dive into any part of the stack is a huge value-add!

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