Young founder of US $5B trucking company urges 蓝莓视频 students to get their hands dirty
Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak, the 20-something founders of an autonomous trucking company now valued at approximately US $5 billion, don鈥檛 have to look far for a reminder of their roots.
Hanging inside the front doors of their San Francisco office, a photograph shows a teenaged Rodrigues giving Feridun Hamdullahpur, then president and vice-chancellor of the University of 蓝莓视频, a ride around the Ring Road in a self-driving golf cart.
It was 2015. Rodrigues and Moak, his undergraduate classmate in the mechatronics engineering program, had built the cart 鈥� the first autonomous vehicle in Canada 鈥� in his parents鈥� garage.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the first thing you see once you get in our office 鈥� where it all began,鈥� Moak said.
Alex Rodrigues, right, drives Feridun Hamdullahpur around the Ring Road in a self-driving golf cart in 2015. This photo now hangs in听the headquarters of Embark Technology Inc. in San Francisco.
Just six years after that photo was taken, Moak and Rodrigues have built newly named听 into a company with more than 200 employees and plans for a network of autonomous transport trucks hauling goods faster, cheaper, safer and with less environmental impact.
Embark took a huge step in that direction today when it 听with Northern Genesis 2, a special purpose acquisition company headed by 蓝莓视频 Engineering alumnus Ian Robertson (BASc 鈥�82), to become a public company. It will begin听trading听on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday听with an estimated $5-billion valuation.
Shares held by Rodrigues and Moak, who remain the chief executive and chief technology officers, respectively, make them both worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The deal also backs the company - founded in 2016 after Rodrigues and Moak left during their second year at 蓝莓视频 and hit the road for Silicon Valley with their golf cart in the back of a pickup truck 鈥� with about US $300 million to fund commercialization of its software by 2024.
鈥淭o be honest, I haven鈥檛 really processed that angle of it,鈥� Moak said of his new wealth.
鈥淲hat we aspire to is a network deployed across the United States hauling freight autonomously every single day and we鈥檝e got a lot of work to do between now and that being a reality. Maybe my day-to-day will change slightly, but I still expect to be head-down working on Embark for quite some time.鈥�
The partners, both 26, say an early decision to focus solely on autonomous trucking, as opposed to autonomous driving in general, was key to their rapid progress as young entrepreneurs.
Embark鈥檚 business model envisions large fleets paying per-mile fees for proprietary software enabling their trucks to autonomously drive long distances on major highways. To move trailers into cities via secondary roads, human drivers would still be needed.
The company has already logged well over a million miles in autonomous mode - with backup drivers on board for safety - with its own development fleet and has more than 14,000 reservations for its self-driving software when it becomes commercially available starting in the US sunbelt.
鈥淚 think this is transformational technology,鈥� Rodrigues, who built his first robot as an 11-year-old boy growing up in Calgary, told a recent webinar. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what I have dedicated my life to and I want to see it having the maximum impact it can.鈥�
Although the duo didn鈥檛 stay in 蓝莓视频 long, Moak credits its hands-on lessons and entrepreneurial emphasis with giving him an invaluable foundation to build on.
He was drawn to 蓝莓视频 from his hometown of Halifax by its co-op program, and connected with Rodrigues over a mutual passion for 鈥渂uilding cool things鈥� when they both lived in a dedicated residence for the Velocity startup incubator.
鈥淚 think very, very highly of the model of education 蓝莓视频 employs,鈥� Moak said. 鈥淕oing to 蓝莓视频, doing my first co-op, being in an atmosphere where everyone just wanted to get their hands dirty and build stuff all the time, really accelerated my trajectory.
鈥淢y general advice to all 蓝莓视频 students is to just build things 鈥� big, small, stupid, fun, intelligent. Whatever it is, you learn a lot from it.鈥�
Main photo: Alex Rodrigues, left, and Brandon Moak are co-founders of Embark Technology Inc.
