Uber, Nissan, and Mercedes Chose This Self-Driving Startup | Alex Kendall, Wayve

Uber, Nissan, and Mercedes Chose This Self-Driving Startup | Alex Kendall, Wayve

From Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI by Lukas Biewald

April 15, 2026 · 46 min · Season 1 · Episode 138

About this episode

Alex Kendall discusses the journey of Wayve and the future of self-driving technology.

"Every vehicle is capable of driverless operation. That's clearly the steady state of where we're going." Wayve started in a rented house in Cambridge with $1.5M, a car in the garage, and an aim to integrate end-to-end AI into driving. A decade later it's driven across 506 cities without a single HD map and is worth over $8.6 billion. In this episode, CEO Alex Kendall joins Lukas Biewald to talk about how he built the AI driver Uber, Nvidia, Mercedes, and Nissan all backed, and why putting self-driving AI into 100 million cars a year is a far bigger bet than 10,000 robotaxis. Waymo and Tesla both come up. He doesn't shy away. Connect with us here: Alex Kendall Lukas Biewald Wayve Weights and Biases

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