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Self-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-world
Waabi + Uber: https://www.uberfreight.com/en-US/blog/uber-freight-and-waabi-introduce-industry-first-autonomous-truck-deployment-solution
Timestamps:
Alex Kendall (Wayve) joins the show
The contrarian bet on end-to-end AI and world models in 2017
What is a world model? GAIA-2 and GAIA-3 explained
Sensor agnosticism: camera, radar, LiDAR and minimum bar for safety
$1.5B raised — have we cracked self-driving?
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Raquel Urtasun (Waabi) joins the show
World models as controllable simulators for physical AI
One AI brain across trucks, robotaxis, and beyond
What changed in AI to make 2026 the deployment year
Why Waabi raised $1B when they're capital-efficient
Where Waabi is today: Volvo VNL Autonomous, Dallas-Houston, Uber Freight
Per-mile pricing and the Driver-as-a-Service model
Has Uber tried to buy Waabi? "Not for sale"
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