#241 – Boris Sofman: Waymo, Cozmo, Self-Driving Cars, and the Future of Robotics

Boris Sofman is the Senior Director Of Engineering and Head of Trucking at Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car project. He was also the CEO and co-founder of Anki, a home robotics company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Boris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bsofman
Boris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman
Waymo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo
Waymo’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/waymo
Waymo’s Website: https://waymo.com/

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00)– Introduction
(07:32)– Robots in science fiction
(13:13)– Cozmo
(38:28)– AI companions
(45:23)– Anki
(1:10:56)– Waymo Via
(1:42:34)– Sensor suites for long haul trucking
(1:52:30)– Machine learning
(2:10:26)– Waymo vs Tesla
(2:21:02)– Safety and risk management
(2:30:06)– Societal effects of automation
(2:41:11)– Amazon Astro
(2:45:35)– Challenges of the robotics industry
(2:50:03)– Humanoid robotics
(2:57:06)– Advice for getting a PhD in robotics
(3:04:37)– Advice for robotics startups
(3:15:43)– Advice for students