Kartik Tiwari has a background in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and was the CTO and co-founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup that aimed to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home.

Starsky began moving freight on the highway in early 2017, and one year later became the first company to take the safety driver out of a truck when it drove fully unmanned for seven miles on a closed road in Florida. In June 2019, Starsky did the first-ever fully-unmanned test on a public highway with live traffic. But was shut down in early 2020 after raising over $20 million in venture capital from the likes of Shasta Ventures and Unshackled Ventures.

In today's episode you will learn:

1. What was Kartik's journey from India to the US, and his leap of faith into the startup world

2. What is the entrepreneur's dilemma and how to go about it?

3. What are the challenges of starting a startup in the unmanned vehicle sector?

4. How does the team impact the development of products and technology in a space where things have not been built before? What kind of dynamic should exist?

Contact: Linkedin, Kartik Tiwari

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