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- What industry do you work in and what is your role?
- What are your responses in your role / position?
- Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
- How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
- What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
- How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
- What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?
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- Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
- Anything of interest happening?
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1. Nuro, a developer of autonomous driving technology backed by two former Google engineers, hauled in an additional $600 million to speed up efforts to commercialize its robotic delivery services from past investors including SoftBank and Toyota’s Woven Capital and a surprising new one: Google.
2. The Series D round was led by Tiger Global Management and includes funds from Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Gaorong Capital, SoftBank’s Vision Fund, T. Rowe Price and supermarket chain Kroger, for which Nuro provides delivery services. The new investment boosts the Mountain View, California-based company’s total funding to more than $2 billion and inflates its valuation to an estimated $8.6 billion. Nuro didn’t break out investment amounts from Google or any of the individual companies in a statement announcing the round.
3. “We’re thrilled to have the backing of these prominent investors and world-class companies, and honored that they support our vision of improving communities and revitalizing local commerce,” said Dave Ferguson, Nuro’s cofounder and president. “We believe this investment will allow us to accelerate our commercialization strategy and better everyday life with Nuro’s technology.”
Assuming that these vehicles become very popular, what do you think the most immediate positive effect of them will be? (society, economy etc.). Similarly, what will be the biggest positive long term effect be?
SURPRISING FACT
4. Unlike Alphabet’s Waymo, the former Google Self-Driving Vehicle Project that both Ferguson and his fellow cofounder and CEO Jiajun “JZ” Zhu once worked for, Nuro is focused on commercializing small urban and suburban robotic delivery vehicles that haul only goods, not people. Waymo is also developing autonomous trucking and urban delivery services with its Waymo Via program, so Google’s decision to also back Nuro is an unexpected development.
5. In addition to its prodigious fundraising, Nuro has also operated numerous pilot delivery projects with companies and services including FedEx, Walmart, CVS, Kroger and Domino’s Pizza in Texas, Arizona and California. It also counts Chipotle as an investor.
6. Since partnering in 2018 “Kroger and Nuro completed thousands of deliveries to our customers—driving innovation that supports our expanding seamless ecosystem by creating consistent and rewarding customer experiences with scalable, sustainable and profitable solutions,” Yael Cosset, Kroger’s senior vice president and chief information officer, said in a statement.
As with question 1, lets discuss what the short term and long term issues might be, specifically regarding mass manufactured and deployed automated delivery vehicles
7. Along with investment dollars from Google, Nuro said it also has a five-year “strategic partnership” with Google Cloud that will support very large-scale self-driving simulations, machine learning services and storage of data from its vehicles. Nuro said it will also collaborate with Google to “explore opportunities together to strengthen and transform local commerce,” without elaborating.
If you were tasked with designing this vehicle, what features both functional and aesthetic would you include?
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