Jonathan Ng

🪄✨🤖 Magical AI Experiences 🪄✨🤖 In yesterday’s Stratechery Daily Update, Ben Thompson describes his magical first ride with Waymo: “The ride itself was, on any objective basis, pretty uneventful…What was really surprising to me, though, was how I felt about the entire thing. After Waymo greeted me by name, explained the process (which only happens on your first ride), and dropped me off with a cheery “Happy Friday”, I felt a twinge of — what is this?! — sadness as it drove away. I felt like I had just made a new friend, and now my friend was driving away after too short a time together.” Later in the update, he comments, “What was the most striking was how this experience made me think about Google: I felt a genuine surge of affection for the Internet giant.” ^^This is what we strive for at OfOne (YC W23). With voice AI, restaurant brands have a unique opportunity to rethink and deliver a differentiated brand experiences. When done correctly, AI can be delightful and immersive. We’re working really hard every day to enable our partners to provide this to their customers. The technology is there, and it's getting better every day. The brands that lean in and execute on this well will win customers hearts. Link to article below. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, you should be!

22

3 Comments

Waymo is the best tech product I tried in years, and I can't wait for humans to be banned from driving. What's Waymo? Waymo has been at the forefront of autonomous vehicle development since its inception as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009. The core of Waymo's technology lies in its sophisticated combination of sensors, including LiDAR, cameras, and radar, integrated with artificial intelligence to perceive the environment accurately. This technology allows the vehicle to make quick decisions in real-time, such as identifying pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vehicles, understanding traffic signals, and adapting to unexpected situations like road work or detours. Over the years, Waymo has expanded its testing grounds from a single city in California to multiple locations across the United States, including San Francisco, Phoenix, and Detroit. In addition to testing, Waymo has launched pilot programs like Waymo One (The service I tried), a self-driving taxi service in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. You can use the app to request a ride in a self-driving vehicle. This service marks a significant milestone in commercializing autonomous technology, offering a glimpse into the potential future of urban transport. Additionally, Waymo Via focuses on goods delivery, utilizing the same technology to transport products efficiently and safely, which could revolutionize supply chain logistics by reducing costs and improving delivery times. I am grateful to Amjad for the access to Waymo One. Which city in the Middle East will be the first to welcome Waymo? I would say Dubai, what about you? #selfdriving #waymo

22

9 Comments

This is f*cking hilarious: TuSimple's pivot from self-driving trucks to AI animation and gaming! 🤖🎮 Right now, everyone’s betting on humanoid and general-purpose robotics startups. But after 5 years in self-driving tech and building Kopernikus Auto, here’s the reality: most humanoid robotics companies will be dead. In the self-driving world, we’ve only seen a few real winners: Tesla, Waymo, and Comma.ai. Why?  - Humanoid robotics isn’t a hardware problem; it’s a software problem. - You either have infinite data, cash, talent, or a clear use case—or you won’t make it, no matter how much you raise. From over 100 companies, almost all in self-driving tech are dead or miles away from profitability. ✨ Don’t get distracted by the appeal of humanoids. Focus on real problems you can actually solve. What are you focusing on? 👇

13

1 Comment

Who's got a Waymo experience to share? I just had my first truly bad one. First, I should say I love Waymo. It's not in many places yet, but it's poised to be everywhere soon. The app tells me I've done 26 rides covering 97 miles in SF and mostly it's been an exceptional experience. Apart from some quibbles like getting dropped off a block away up a big hill, it's a zen-like experience and a smooth better-than-human-driver experience on the way to wherever I'm going. But I think we're all bound to experience some hiccups as we journey to the future. In my case, I was taking a trip into the Financial District for an event and I had 6 minutes to spare given the ETA. Then all of the sudden it decides it wants to pull into the left lane, which is filled with parked cars. I sit at first amused at this decision. It pulls up right behind the parked car and waits. Then it goes through a dance of deciding it wants to get back in the original lane (everybody loves to snub a driverless car in traffic!) and pulling ever closer to the parked car ahead. Miraculously the driver of the parked car shows up, loads his trunk and departs with ease. The Waymo decides the next course of action is to pull directly behind the next parked car in the lane. My amusement fades. I call support via the touchscreen. My 6 minute buffer that had evaporated to 1 minute suddenly tells me I'll be 13 minutes late, a driver assistance team is dispatched and on their way. Yikes! Then magically (I think they manually took control), the Waymo behaves like a normal driver and inches back into the normal lane and I'm on my way, arriving 1 minute late to the meeting. So in the end, a bit of time stress for someone who really likes to be on time (I started a time company after all) and not really world-ending. In fact, despite this unfortunate experience, I'll be loyally riding again. And so I guess this ends as a parable about what Product Market Fit looks like. If you can mostly deliver superior experiences, there's room for rough edges. (pictured below, mom's first trip in a Waymo)

28

4 Comments

The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

11

1 Comment

That awkward silence is coming from your robotaxi. Waymo has had its share of bumpy roads, but its parent Alphabet believes the self-driving technology is on the right path to the yellow brick road, investing another $5 billion. The self-driving company is making the right turns. Drive around San Francisco on any given day, and chances are good the vehicle that comes up right next to you will have you doing a double take. Robotaxis are commonplace in the city by the bay. Whether it's the traffic-filled streets in the downtown or the narrow streets of Golden Gate Park, Waymo vehicles are dodging traffic and avoiding pedestrians. It's full speed ahead. Waymo delivers 50,000 paid rides per week, offering a fully driverless ride-hail service in San Francisco and Phoenix, and recently expanded to Los Angeles and Austin. And soon, the service will be available for airport rides to and from the San Francisco International Airport. The road well traveled doesn't mean everyone is so accepting. While Waymo has received compliments from some, it hasn't been welcomed by others. In San Francisco, vehicles have been vandalized and destroyed along with many who question the safety of self-driving vehicles. Whichever side you fall on, self-driving can be a highly polarizing issue, and only time will tell if the perception will ever change. Alphabet is betting that the sky's the limit. While the $5 billion commitment is nothing to shake your windshield wipers at, Waymo's partnership with Chinese electric automaker Zeekr is both symbolic and substantial. Waymo's deployment of a custom-built, roomier robotaxi made by Zeekr marks a significant step forward in the company's autonomous vehicle development. Zoom, zoom, just not too much zoom. Robotaxis aren't going way. Waymo is expanding if not slowly here in the states, while other countries such as China have companies such as Baidu taking the lead in major cities. And Elon Musk is gearing up with his own line of robotaxis in the near future. For Alphabet, the challenge is not only making them more acceptable to the masses, but also addressing safety concerns. The technology isn't perfect, but $5 billion will certainly help get it there https://lnkd.in/gn3TZcPx #alphabet #waymo #zeekr #robotaxi #culture #autonomousvehicles #automotiveindustry #transportation

3

Waymo's co-CEO taught me something unexpected about market choices: The so-called 'simple' path can lead to a massive dead end. That's why Waymo avoided what many believed was the obvious route — autonomous trucking. It seems like it should be the reverse. Autonomous trucking focuses on highways because there are: • Fewer variables • Less complexity • Straightforward routes • More predictable conditions • Fewer pedestrians, etc It sounds logical, right? But here's the reality of it: Highway accidents at 70mph with 20x the mass are catastrophic. The margin for error is almost zero. And, the trucks still have to eventually navigate into cities to pick up and drop off deliveries. Meanwhile, Waymo took the "harder" route. They focused on urban environments with: • Unpredictable pedestrians • Complex intersections • Endless variables Now it provides over 100,000 paid rides each week. By solving the long tail of possible scenarios the cars can encounter, they’ve catapulted ahead. And it’s just getting started. So what’s the lesson here? Starting with the "harder" problem can be smarter than taking shortcuts when the less hard version is a false proxy for the real thing. It means you: 1. Build robust solutions 2. Tackle core challenges head-on 3. Develop deeper expertise 4. Create transferable technology Waymo's journey since 2009 proves it: • Started in complex urban environments • Built sophisticated systems • Created resilient technology • Achieved real-world success Meanwhile, highway-focused companies are still struggling with the "easier" problem. The takeaway for startups: Don't chase the easy path. Chase the right path. Sometimes, embracing complexity early leads to simpler solutions later on.

17

15 Comments

20 hours in and Hoyo's formidable craftsmanship is on full display with ZZZ. ⭐1.0 release pool of 16 characters. Hoyo games have always prioritized quality over quantity, leaning instead on deep systems to enable diverse team comps / fun theorycrafting. Interestingly, Wuthering Waves also launched with the same # of characters in its 1.0 pool. I'm personally a big fan of this approach, and hope to see more games adopt it going forward. ⭐Female to male character ratio of 3:1. HSR currently stands at ~2:1 and Genshin at ~1.7:1. Every faction shown so far has only 1 male char. Surprising given Hoyo's recent titles have focused more on the "mainstream anime" audience instead of catering only to the core otaku audience. Very happy to see Hoyo honoring its roots here. They cooked and core fans are going to be very pleased with all of the fanservice (e.g. cinema artwork, main menu char selection, etc.). ⭐C6 / Cinema artwork is... IYKYK. They clearly tested it with HSR and are fully leaning into it with ZZZ. Congrats to all you Grace C6 havers. They knew exactly what they were doing. ⭐First Hoyo game with dedicated furries / anthropomorphic races. Ellen, Ben, and Von Lycaon are all very compelling characters. Wakayama Shion does such a fantastic job as Ellen's VA. Hoyo absolutely nailed the launch banner here. ⭐Just like other Hoyo games, ZZZ is more "casual" than it is "core." It doesn't demand much of your time as a single player live service title. For me it's the perfect side game that I can see myself spending 1-2 hours per week on. I don't expect everyone to like it (might be too "easy" for core gamers), but it's a winning formula that Hoyo has perfected for its target audience. ⭐One of Hoyo's underrated special talents is making "core" genres widely accessible from a gameplay standpoint across all platforms. ZZZ plays flawlessly on mobile, PC, and console without diluting the experience at all. Everything from the simplified switching system to the flat level design was intentional to make it incredibly accessible even for someone who has never played action games before. This is something really only Hoyo is capable of pulling off with such finesse. ⭐Really digging the comic / manga style storytelling. Glad to see Hoyo continue to innovate on how it delivers its stories and really looking forward to seeing more of this. ⭐Hoyo's investments into its music / animation departments are really paying off. The release trailer for ZZZ is Hoyo's best yet and their character drip marketing is perfected to the point where I'm basically forced to pull on every banner. In many ways, Hoyo is slowly becoming the Apple of the gaming industry, and their IPs are rapidly expanding the audience for gacha and anime on a global scale. I'm honestly humbled. Shut up and take my money... #zenlesszonezero

22

What's going to happen to NVIDIA now that they've reached 3tn market cap? For the current employees and long timers... I've read stories of mid-level engineers who reportedly earned more than $60M via stock appreciation. Imagine the numbers for the more senior folks. How will NVIDIA keep folks around who are post-economic? And for all the new folks... The value proposition is complex. The company is the most valuable (by market cap) in the world. If they are heavily compensated via RSUs, the assumption is that there is significant remaining upside to be gained. It's incredibly difficult to continue orders of magnitude stock appreciation after reaching the absolute zenith... NVIDIA is an obvious tech darling - it looks and feels like a version of Google in the mid to late 2000's - but I'm really interested to see if the immense financial success of the stock will end up driving out the core talent group (eg, the long timers who are now mega rich) while also limiting access to new upstart talent who don't see a path to outsize financial success. Curious what others think!!

36

10 Comments

In my opinion, this is one of the lesser discussed disruptions that we will experience in this decade. While widespread availability and economies of scale are yet to be fully figured out, this has enormous potential to reinvent last mile logistics, transportation and also road safety. Exciting times ahead !! https://lnkd.in/g9iUeADd

16

"AI is powerful, but without the right data foundation, it’s just noise." In the latest Tech Teams Today podcast episode, I had a great conversation with Yongsheng Wu, VP of Engineering at Granica, about why a solid data foundation is crucial for AI success. Here are the top insights from the episode: 1️⃣ Data Foundations Matter: Before diving into AI, ensure your data systems are robust. Solid pipelines & data integrity are critical for meaningful insights. 2️⃣ AI as an Enhancer: AI and ML should optimize existing processes, not solve undefined problems. 3️⃣ Data Quality is King: Curating and labeling data accurately is vital for effective AI models. The better the data, the better the outcomes. 4️⃣ Efficiency & Cost-Effectiveness: Successful AI solutions balance effectiveness with cost efficiency, especially as models scale. Catch the full episode on all major podcast platforms or watch it on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dbkE__JC #AI #EngineeringLeadership #DataScience #MachineLearning #TechTeamsToday

30

4 Comments

Founder <> founder convos are the biggest unlock for company building. I spent the last 2+ weeks in SF. Besides meeting with customers, I spent a ton of time with founders / early stage builders that I deeply respect (shoutout to Abhinav Asthana, Christina Cacioppo, Kevin Van Gundy, Akshay Kothari, Yuhki Yamashita, Tara Viswanathan, Celine Halioua, & Michelle Valentine). I’m extremely grateful to have the chance to spend time with these folks. Some reflections from these brilliant people. 1/ People > everything. A company is a collection of people. Company success comes down to hiring the best people. 2/ Startup problems aren’t *that* unique. Startups are HARD and even if you think your challenges are specific to your company, they’re likely not. Someone else has faced the same thing, and you likely don’t need to reinvent the wheel. 3/ Let some fires burn. Focus > trying to do everything. As a startup, you can’t fix everything at once with limited resources (even if you want to). You need to focus on the stuff that will move the needle the most. Pick the top 1 or 2 problems, fix them, then move onto the next. It’s okay if some fires need to burn for a little in the meantime. 4/ Company operating cadences are key. We’re redoing our cadences now, so it was super interesting to learn how others run their board meetings, leadership meetings, all hands, etc. A consistent theme for board & leadership meetings is to have everyone complete a prompt in written doc, share with each other, then use the time to have meatier discussions. 5/ Be competitor aware, customer obsessed. Competitors cause unnecessary noise. Build products and make decisions based on customer / market need and founder intuition, never based on competition. Are these learnings helpful? If so, can share more founder learning posts in the future!

104

17 Comments

We had Linear event for founders in SF last night, and as part of that I had a fireside chat with Patrick Collison from Stripe. We covered some topics like the importance of craft, product management, good leaders, etc. Some highlights: The importance of craft: At Linear we see the craft as the requirement for quality. People who care about their craft, almost automatically produce quality. Patrick: "We want to employ really good people. Really good people just don't like working on kind of sloppy things. There's just a deep spiritual aspect to that." Power of small teams: In my experience in companies, some of the best work was always done by a small, focused team, most features at Linear are built by 2-4 team members. Patrick: "The original iPhone software team was 20 people. The kernel, the apps, the browser, the touch interface, like the whole thing. So when people are telling you that they need 40 people for some project, you can explain to them how the iPhone was built with 20 people. So how big would you consider your project in multiples of the iPhone?" How Stripe still builds products in a startup way: Patrick: "There is an internal recipe for this which first guides you to figure out the right user for the product, then the team should go talk to some of those people. Then you should get some of these people into the Slack channel or some other channel where you can get them to try it, get more feedback or try the product. Once you have 5 excited users for something, you can scale it to 100. Then you can start looking at some metrics, but again you look at things like is it actually solving their problems etc."

696

13 Comments

🚕My first Autonomous Taxi Ride - Mic drop! Having just spent a week in SF I was lucky to be invited to ride Google's Waymo Autonomous Taxi. I have just seen the future. Key takeaways - Taxis are everywhere in SF. Wait was less than 5 mins - They use multiple LIDAR and cameras (unlike Tesla which still uses just cameras for self driving). Cars are heavily modified - The ride was AMAZING. It felt like the car was being driven by the most confident driver ever. Acceleration and braking smooth and assured. - The car saw a person running across the road before I did and slowed down. - Showed human-like behaviour like nudging forward at stop signs - I quickly forgot I was in an AV. I felt much safer than almost every human driver I get driven by Given how advanced the technology is and how few accidents there have been. I am surprised we haven't seen this in more cities globally. I can't wait for this future. Highly recommendd if you are in SF Waymo #autonomoustaxi

78

14 Comments

Some context from the #Founder perspective. As liberal as Seattle is as a city with policy and politics, it's incredibly conservative from an investment standpoint. One of the reasons you may not hear big "home-run" type pitches or pitches with sizzle, is simply because investors in Seattle don't like those types of pitches and Founders have been ingrained to not present in that manner. They may say they do, but ask any Founder and they'll tell you how they have been told to size down their pitch or talk about MVPs, first customer, first revenue, etc. or how what matters more is what you can do first couple years rather than the home run. Those early metrics are important by the way, but different from the big home run. Do you know who is receptive to homerun pitches? Investors in the Bay, NYC, Miami, Hong Kong. Seattle is not great for early-stage Founders with many prioritizing raising outside the city. We will be raising capital in the fall and as of now, have no plans of reaching out to Seattle-based VCs. I should also add that our company has a blockchain component and sadly Seattle VCs have not embraced crypto or blockchain. Welcome to #Seattle, Kyle Lui! Hopefully, you can help change the narrative! GeekWire

22

7 Comments

🧑‍🍳 Work with Cathy Guo (and me!) on Iterative We're hiring a Senior Associate to help evaluate the startups that apply to Iterative. We receive 1K+ applications roughly every 3 months and invest in roughly 1.8% of those applications. Maybe somewhat counter-intuitively, we want to increase that % and take more risk. The trick is figuring out what areas (founder, market, country, etc.) that we should be taking more risk in. You'll be an active participant in how we evaluate companies. See the job description for the typical stuff but here's 2 things we DON'T do as part of our investment process. 🤔 Invest Based on Who Else Is Investing We don't care who else is in the round. Most of the time, we make our decision before everyone else does. That means you'll have to do the work of building your own conviction. 🤓 Invest on School, Previous Work Experience, etc. We don't have any filters around what school a founder went to, what company they used to work at, etc. We evaluate all founders based on our interactions with them. Why settle for a proxy of whether someone is good (that's what all of these are) when you can talk to them directly? If you can't tell whether a founder is good by talking to them.. well.. Instead.. you'll have to think for yourself and argue from first principles. Mostly with me :). If that's how you want to invest or want to learn how we do that, you should apply. For more details about the role, look for the 📌 in the comments.

172

8 Comments

Here's an out-of-band $408k offer for a new RIV-5 AI engineer hire at Rivian. Notably, their new hire stock grants are structured in spans of 2 year instead of the traditional 4 year grant. This follows the trend of many companies either front loading their stock grants or even going as narrow as initially granting one year grants to employees. I’ve posted about front-loaded vesting schedules here: https://lnkd.in/gP7-Pj55 And single year equity grants here: https://lnkd.in/gNyZZAay Super neat to see all these details including the bonus breakdown as you browse through offers on Levels.fyi (download our app!) and if you’re a company we even notify you of these market intelligence updates for companies that fall within your peer group. Competitive intelligence dossiers: https://lnkd.in/dByYUHWq Any other companies with interesting vesting schedules? Planning to write more about some of the unique ones.

224

18 Comments