
SoftBank Will Invest $2.25B in Cruise - sethbannon
http://fortune.com/2018/05/31/softbank-invest-billion-gm-self-driving-car-unit-cruise/
======
sethbannon
Cruise strikes me as the ideal acquisition, and a formula others should copy.
Kyle Vogt and the rest of the Cruise founding team got personal liquidity; a
huge influx of capital to continue R&D; access to GM's marketing,
manufacturing, and talent infrastructure; but retain general independence in
the pursuit of the ultimate mission of self-driving cars.

Pretty impressed with GM for having the insight to understand that arrangement
was best and the flexibility to pull it off. And incredibly impressed with
what Kyle and his team have achieved post-acquisition. They clearly remain as
hungry to make this happen as on day 1.

~~~
criticali
really? have a friend who interviewed there pre GM acquisition. said it was a
colossal joke of a place, engineering wise. and hes worked at some sh*thole
startups, so i take his word for it.

honestly, it was 100% luck GM took notice of them. weren't many other
alternatives around at that time. GM buying them spurred the explosion of
self-proclaimed software/full stack self driving startups we see today.

So Im not as impressed with the achievements so far as I am with the absolute
dumb luck these guys have had. Kudos, i guess.

~~~
makes_me_go_hmm
I've noticed that when cruise articles pop up here on HN they reliably provoke
someone to create a new account express this sentiment.

Previous examples are this account:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tmpnam1234567](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tmpnam1234567)

and this user _Fricken:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=_Fricken](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=_Fricken),
who based on choice of username seems to actually be impersonating the
submitter of this thread.

As to the validity of the criticism I have no idea, but it strikes me as very
odd.

edit: Fricken (no underscore) didn't actually submit this, but submitted the
same article and is here in the comments.

~~~
dang
It's all the same person. In addition to having a 'friend' who 'interviewed'
at Cruise, they've been an 'engineer' at Cruise, a 'founder' of Cruise, and
also the 'cofounder' who left.

We've banned all the trolling accounts we know about and their main account as
well.

------
creddit
Large investments in all the major ride sharing companies + large investment
in Cruise, Softbank is becoming, in the background, the future of
transportation. By networking all these companies together, preventing cross-
market competition and supplying self-driving tech to their players, their
market power can be seen to be pretty massive.

~~~
THE_PUN_STOPS
Don’t forget Boston Dynamics... my dream of riding around town on a fuel cell
powered BigDog may yet come to pass. Yeehaw!

------
samfisher83
GM bought cruise for 1 billion. Softbanks stake would value it at 11 billion.
Even if GM put in some money into cruise their return on investment seems
pretty good.

~~~
harigov
I think softbank isn't just a regular VC. My speculation is that it may
provide other services like dealing with govt(s) that makes this offer even
more compelling. Otherwise I don't see why GM would need an investment from
softbank.

~~~
karthikb
It’s not always just about the money. One of the most effective ways to ensure
that a long-term project stays alive at a big company as people come and go is
to create an external tie-up or partnership.

------
Roritharr
Sometimes I wish Deutsche Telekom would go head to head with Softbank in doing
these kinds of Investments and Aquisitions.

Not because I think they'd be good at it, but more for the fact that this
would give Germany a real chance for a seat at the table of future tech-
giants.

------
0x4f3759df
Did anyone watch GTC 2018?

NVidia has a self-driving software stack that they can drop into a 3D sim.
Same stack works in the sim (ie real world has a real camera, sim world has a
sim camera, real world has a real lidar, sim world has a sim lidar...) They
will drive billions of sim miles with their stack.

Hour 1 Minute 58
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95nphvtVf34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95nphvtVf34)

~~~
dchuk
Isn't that what Waymo is doing already?

~~~
jacksmith21006
Yes for awhile. They have a virtual state of California they ride in and have
more than a billion miles driving.

Would be curious on accidents? Wish Waymo would share?

------
rdlecler1
GM’s head of business development is looking pretty smart right now.

------
indescions_2018
Subtext here is that Cruise's driverless product is done. And the cash wont be
spent on further R&D. But on go-to-market strategy. Ultimately culminating in
the public rollout of a fleet for major markets. Perhaps centered around the
Bolt EV 5-door subcompact.

The seismic shift in marketing will be fascinating. From the freedom evoked by
taking hairpin curves with the wind tossing your hair about. To a focus on the
hardships and hidden costs of car ownership.

As passenger attention shifts from watching the road and scenery. To focusing
on windowpane display screens. Expect to see branded partnerships with Disney
/ Netflix. As well as content specifically formulated to entertain or shop
during the 20 minute car trip ;)

~~~
wil421
I’m sorry but I disagree. Driverless cars are a pipe dream at this point. A
lot of people are going to die and legislation will catch up eventually. The
tech isn’t even standardized with everyone taking different approaches. The
article about TI millimeter wave radar that’s was on the front page shed some
light.

I’m sure this won’t be popular on HN. The Uber crash gave some insight on the
real state of things. Tesla is in full PR mode even getting banned from the
recent crash’s investigation.

~~~
floathub
I could not agree more. Softbank and the investment community may just be in
greater fool mode. Or, to be more generous, perhaps they are taking a long
term approach. But anything close to Level 4/5 is a _long_ way away, as even
senior technical folks have been admitting recently.

~~~
Fricken
Waymo is already doing level 4. Check it out, a Waymo van was on Jimmy Kimmel
the other day:

[https://youtu.be/c6twRCBtd-g](https://youtu.be/c6twRCBtd-g)

~~~
soVeryTired
Lex Friedman's team at MIT seem to think that fully autonomous driving is a
long way off: there are just too many edge cases to deal with.

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06976](https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06976)

From the abstract: "Until these problems are solved, human beings will remain
an integral part of the driving task, monitoring the AI system as it performs
anywhere from just over 0% to just under 100% of the driving".

Now there's room to be optimistic or pessimistic about how much an AI can
help, but the academic consensus is that level five will need many more
research breakthroughs. There are some good video lectures that give an
overview of the field (but not that much depth) here:

[https://selfdrivingcars.mit.edu/](https://selfdrivingcars.mit.edu/)

~~~
Fricken
Lex Fridman's team has drawn their highly disingenuous conclusions based on
studies of automated (not autonomous) systems from Volvo, Tesla and Range
Rover. They didn't study a single product from a company working on an actual
autonomous driving system, and of course they can't because those products are
all currently in development and not available to study.

~~~
soVeryTired
It's fair to criticize a study but when you start calling an academic
researcher 'highly disingenuous', you just sound like you have a horse in the
race. Did you found an autonomous driving company or something?

------
repsilat
For a man on the street to invest in Cruise, would he need to invest in GM?
(Or "invest in GM and short Ford" or something?)

It sounds like they're serious business, but I don't want to dilute a bet on
self-driving cars with a bet on consumer trucks.

~~~
jonknee
Yes, which is up over 10% on this news. The good news is consumer trucks are
massively profitable which can fund making autonomous vehicles.

~~~
zitterbewegung
All the American car makers only really sell trucks and all of the other Cars
don't make up much money on their balance sheet.

