The Self-Driving Startup Nobody Saw Coming | E2289

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:IM8 Health: IM8health.com/TWISTSquarespace: Squarespace.com/TWISTRender - Render.com/TWISTSelf-driving just stopped being a science problem and became an engineering challenge instead. That's the through-line of today’s double-header with the CEOs of two of the most important AV companies in the world — Wayve's Alex Kendall and Waabi's Raquel Urtasun. Between them: ~$2B raised in the last six months, Uber as a partner, Nissan and Volvo as OEMs, and a shared bet that end-to-end AI plus world models beats Waymo's city-by-city map-and-pray approach.If you want to understand the state of the self-driving industry beyond recent Waymo announcements, this is the episode for you.Guest Links:Wayve: wayve.ai/Waabi: http://waabi.ai/Alex Kendall https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgkendall/Raquel Uratsun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-urtasun-298400139/Company Links:Wayve’s GAIA-2 world model: https://wayve.ai/thinking/gaia-2/Wayve’s 500 city roadshow: https://wayve.ai/thinking/ai-500-roadshow-500-cities/Wavye’s most recent funding round: https://wayve.ai/press/series-d/Waybe + Uber: https://wayve.ai/press/wayve-nissan-uber-robotaxi-collaboration/Waabi closed-loop simulator: https://waabi.ai/insights/waabi-worldWaabi + Volvo: https://waabi.ai/insights/waabi-and-volvo-autonomous-solutions-partner-to-jointly-develop-and-deploy-autonomous-transportation-solutionsWaabi + Uber: https://www.uberfreight.com/en-US/blog/uber-freight-and-waabi-introduce-industry-first-autonomous-truck-deployment-solutionTimestamps:0:00 Alex Kendall (Wayve) joins the show1:19 The contrarian bet on end-to-end AI and world models in 20173:05 What is a world model? GAIA-2 and GAIA-3 explained7:34 Sensor agnosticism: camera, radar, LiDAR and minimum bar for safety9:56 $1.5B raised — have we cracked self-driving?10:09 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free