I recently was given the opportunity to give a talk on self-driving cars to the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership. Super cool to have the chance to speak alongside Brad Templeton from the Google Car team.
The most unpopular prediction from the talk: All American automakers will be completely marginalized or bankrupt by 2050, replaced by newer, nimble, low-cost manufacturers who are glad to receive tiny 7% margins. All big-box retailers ( e.g. Best Buy, Walmart, Target) will probably disappear too, overtaken by Amazon’s 30-minute delivery guarantee on, well, everything. If your store isn’t as fun as Starbucks or Anthropologie, people will just shop online.
Actually, it might be sooner than 40 years. In 1903 the world only had one airplane: the Wright Flyer. Ten years later the first private, for-profit airline began operations. The first regular international airline service began in 1916. The barriers to get an airline started in 1913 must have been unconscionably difficult. No internet. No computers. WWI had not yet poured the wealth of nations into developing the military aircraft industry. No modern machine tools (planes were made of wood!). No real venture capital (that wouldn’t be invented until 1946). No history of safety, and no way to prove safety (Kolmogorov, father of probability, was only ten years old in 1913). Maybe it should be considered an advantage that VC and modern probability weren’t yet on the scene to naysay and put money into safer ventures. But the achievement stands: from first airplane to first commercial airline in ten years.
The first self-driving car to finish the DARPA grand challenge did so on October 8, 2005. It’s been about seven years. I hope our generation isn’t bested by a bunch of top-hat-wearing, mustachioed hustlers born in the 1800s.
