Alex Rodrigues

He grew up in suburban Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His father, Claudio, runs Retail Media, an advertising firm in Calgary; he recalled that when he was a child his father taught him business planning by asking him questions such as how many employees he would need and what something would cost.⁠[1][2]

He recalled in 2019 that his father grew up in many places and speaks about six languages, and that whenever the family visited a new country his father made sure they first learned how to say “thank you” in the local language.⁠[3]

He built his first working robot in seventh grade, at the age of 11. He began with small Lego Mindstorms robots and moved on to larger, dishwasher-sized robots for competitions.⁠[2][1]

His biography on Embark’s investor relations website states that he won a world robotics championship in 2009, while in middle school; Embark’s team page and his speaker biography for FreightWaves events say that he competed against high school teams, while the biography on the 20VC episode page describes the competition as one for adults.⁠[4][5][6][7]

Sources describe this period differently: a 2021 FreightWaves article states that at 13 he captained a team that won a FIRST Tech Challenge championship; a 2019 Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry interview states that at 13 he founded a competitive robotics team that won a world championship in its first year; and a 2018 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry profile states that he started in robotics in high school in Calgary and won a world robotics championship with a robot named Muffin, programmed to sort hockey pucks into a bin.⁠[2][3][8]

At 14 he tried, unsuccessfully, to build a self-driving lawn mower. At 15 he started his own FIRST Robotics team without mentors, and when he was 16 the team reached the championship finals.⁠[9][2]

He enrolled at the University of Waterloo in mechatronics engineering and, during his co-op terms, lived in the Velocity Residence, a residence for student entrepreneurs. He said in 2016 that co-op at Waterloo had taught him a great deal technically and broadened his sense of what a student could do: “being able to do co-op at Waterloo has helped me learn a lot technically.”⁠[10][11]

A 2016 University of Waterloo article states that Varden Labs grew out of a conversation he had with Velocity director Mike Kirkup about two and a half years earlier. While at Waterloo he also mentored one of Canada’s leading FIRST Robotics teams.⁠[10][2][1]

The biography on the 20VC episode page states that he worked as a software engineer at Nuance Communications and later joined Khan Academy as a software engineer, where he also taught robotics at the Khan Lab School.⁠[7]

In the summer of 2015 he and his classmates Michael Skupien and Brandon Moak began building a self-driving golf cart in his parents’ garage in Calgary; they joked about going to Y Combinator, and the group laughed. His parents paid for the $1,800 golf cart and the $8,000 lidar sensor and provided the garage as a workspace; his godfather, who had worked at a GPS technology company, arranged for them to borrow a $30,000 GPS system.⁠[9]

The cart was named Marvin. A University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering article states that he and Michael Skupien were then second-year mechatronics students and founders of Varden Labs, and that they built the vehicle during an Enterprise Co-op term; he said the rough prototype took about six weeks: “Technically it could drive itself within a month and a half.” A CTV News report states that the team built the cart in about two months; he was then 19 and Michael Skupien 20.⁠[6][11][12]

The CTV News report states that the cart had a top speed of 20 km/h, used motion-detecting lasers and a rooftop GPS system to avoid obstacles, and followed a predetermined GPS map, so that the passenger did not drive. The Waterloo Faculty of Engineering article adds that the route was prerecorded as GPS coordinates and that the system projected about three metres ahead onto the path to look for obstacles, slowing and stopping for obstacles within about 1.5 metres of the route’s width.⁠[12][11]

In late July 2015 Varden Labs won $25,000 at the University of Waterloo’s Velocity Fund Finals with a pitch on how autonomous shuttles could be used on campuses, at hospitals, at large corporate campuses and at assisted-living facilities; a 2016 University of Waterloo article places this win in spring 2015 and states that the company officially launched after it, while a CBC News report states that Varden Labs was launched in May 2015. He then planned to start at slow-paced sites such as airports, retirement communities and theme parks and to deploy the shuttles across the country within a few years, saying: “The objective of the shuttle is not to compete with cars.”⁠[11][10][12][13]

On August 18, 2015, the Varden Labs vehicle drove itself around the University of Waterloo’s Ring Road with the university’s president and vice-chancellor, Feridun Hamdullahpur, riding with him; the university described it as the first autonomous vehicle to drive on a Canadian road. A CBC News report states that on a Thursday the golf cart drove itself around Ring Road in less than 10 minutes, stopping for stop signs and pedestrian crossings, with him aboard.⁠[11][13]

Speaking of the first ride in a self-driving car, he said: “When you first get into a self-driving car, it’s insane.” He later recalled that the president was nervous at first but relaxed during the ride.⁠[13][10]

In late 2015 Geoff Ralston of Y Combinator interviewed him, Brandon Moak and Michael Skupien, who were then 19 or 20; Geoff Ralston writes that before joining Y Combinator the team had already built the first self-driving vehicle in Canada. At the end of that year the three left university with about $10,000 from their parents and the $25,000 prize, since acceptance into Y Combinator’s 2016 class required them to leave school. Varden Labs joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 (W16) batch.⁠[14][9]

Recalling his reasoning at the time, he said: “Either you learn a lot, and it doesn’t work out and you go back to school.” He later described school as boring: “You learn a lot of math and build very few robots.” As of December 2021 he had not finished his degree, and he and Brandon Moak said they might take their time before finishing their degrees.⁠[9][1]

At Y Combinator the team first intended to build self-driving shuttles for university campuses, where conditions were more controlled; campuses proved less constrained than hoped, and each had its own challenges. A mining company in Australia suggested self-driving mining trucks, but the team stayed with campuses, signed campus customers, had a successful Demo Day and raised early funds; CNBCCNBCCNBC is an American business and financial news cable channel launched by NBC in 1989; it merged with its rival FNN in 1991 and since January 2026 has been part of Versant Media Group, spun off from Comcast.Open the full entry states that they raised $2.1 million through the program’s connections.⁠[14][9]

A University of Waterloo article of April 29, 2016 states that Varden Labs had completed six pilots, tested its shuttles with students on several campuses, shuttled VIPs from a parking lot to a Sacramento KingsSacramento KingsThe Sacramento Kings are a professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California, competing in the Pacific Division of the NBA’s Western Conference. Their home arena is the Golden 1 Center. The franchise’s history spans Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Sacramento.Open the full entry game and run a five-college tour of CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry that included Sacramento State and UCLA; its current model was named Alvin, the team had grown to four people, and it was among the winners of a $5,000 prize at the 2016 California Pitch Alumni Event, alongside Voltera and Lumotune. He said: “It’s been really cool to see that the best way for people to learn about self-driving cars is to try it.”⁠[10]

On June 21, 2016, the Thiel Foundation announced its 2016 class of 29 Thiel Fellows, and he was among them. The announcement gives him as from Calgary, Alberta, and Mountain View, California, working on autonomous vehicles as CEO of Varden Labs, a startup developing self-driving shuttles for private campuses whose technology, it said, had been used to transport thousands of people, more than any other autonomous vehicle company in the US.⁠[15]

BetaKit wrote on July 4, 2016, that he was selected as co-founder of Varden Labs, one of five Canadians in that year’s class. The Thiel Foundation named 29 new Fellows that year from more than 6,000 applicants worldwide; each received $100,000 and mentorship from the foundation’s network of founders, investors and scientists, on condition of leaving college or university for the two-year program.⁠[16]

A Communitech article names him and Panashe Mahachi as the two local Waterloo recipients of the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry in 2016; his Embark biography also states that he received a 2016 Thiel Fellowship, and FreightWaves and Global Finance describe the fellowship as a two-year grant of $100,000.⁠[17][4][2][1]

He and Brandon Moak later concluded that campuses were not the right market to start with and turned to self-driving trucks confined to highways, which they saw as an enormous market and a more tractable problem; their investors agreed to keep backing them, and the team quickly built its first self-driving truck. Embark was thus founded in 2016, with him as chief executive and Brandon Moak as chief technology officer; Transport Topics notes that both he and Brandon Moak were 20 at the time.⁠[14][18][19]

In a 2022 interview with CO— he said that truckers and fleets approached him and his team about applying self-driving technology to trucking, which led to the founding of Embark; he considered long-haul trucking important to the U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry economy and a natural fit for automation.⁠[20]

In February 2017 Embark emerged from stealth mode; since the summer of 2016 it had been working quietly on technology that lets trucks travel from one highway exit to another without a driver. He was then its co-founder and CEO; the company had moved to California and was backed by a multi-million-dollar investment from Maven Ventures and Silicon Valley angel investors, and its first truck had logged 10,000 miles in NevadaNevadaNevada is a state in the western United States bordered by Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and California; its capital is Carson City. It was admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864, as the 36th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,104,614.Open the full entry after receiving approval earlier in 2017 to test on public roads there. He said the company was committed to proving the technology safe and reliable.⁠[21]

Embark’s plan was for trucks to drive themselves on long, simple highway stretches between cities, with people taking over in urban areas to reach final destinations. Michael Skupien left the company in 2017.⁠[21][9]

On July 18, 2017, Embark announced a $15 million Series A round led by Data CollectiveDCVCDCVC (Data Collective) is an American deep tech venture capital firm founded in 2010 by Matt Ocko and Zachary Bogue, with offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco, California. It invests in companies that use computing and AI to solve real-world problems in fields such as energy, climate, biomedicine, defense, space, and industry; as of October 2026 it had more than $4 billion in assets under management across 13 funds.Open the full entry (DCVC), with YC Continuity, Maven Ventures and SV AngelSV AngelSV Angel is a San Francisco venture capital firm cofounded in 2009 by angel investor Ron Conway and former Google executive David Lee. It typically writes small follow-on checks in seed rounds and has invested in companies such as Airbnb, Pinterest, and Dropbox; in 2018 it said it would no longer raise new funds from outside investors, and from 2022 it set up growth funds.Open the full entry participating, at a post-money valuation of $75 million, to hire engineering talent and expand its test fleet. Embark also announced a formal partnership with the truck maker Peterbilt: its original test prototype had been built on a Peterbilt 579, and Peterbilt would build custom test trucks for its fleet at its factory in Denton, TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry.⁠[22]

In February 2018 an Embark truck drove about 2,400 miles from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, with a safety driver aboard and scheduled rest breaks; the trip took five days, and Embark said it could take two once its system was cleared to run on its own. Embark describes it as the first coast-to-coast autonomous drive by a self-driving truck company.⁠[23][4][24]

On July 19, 2018, Embark announced a $30 million Series B round led by Sequoia Capital, whose partner Pat Grady joined its board; existing investors including Data Collective, Y Combinator, SV Angel and AME Cloud also took part, bringing Embark’s total funding to $47 million, and it had about 35 employees.⁠[23]

By then Embark had added operations in Ontario, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, and ran a daily freight service between Los Angeles and Phoenix. He wrote on Medium: “As of June, our system can complete the route end-to-end with no disengagements.” His model was not to replace drivers entirely: local drivers would handle the two ends of a long-haul trip, and Embark’s system the freeway stretch in between.⁠[23]

The November 30, 2018 issue of Forbes carried a short profile of him, giving his age as 23 and describing him as a co-founder of San Francisco-based Embark. It states that Embark was installing its self-driving software in existing Peterbilt semis, built to run on highways rather than in congested cities; he said this focus made the company “able to build a system that’s a lot simpler,” easier to prove safe, with a human taking over for the last part of each trip.⁠[8]

It states that Embark had raised $47 million from backers including Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator, that in July 2018 Embark had five trucks running between Los Angeles and Phoenix, and that he wanted to expand coast to coast with 100 trucks. He pointed out that trucks move 70% of goods in the United States and are central to the U.S. economy.⁠[8]

On March 6, 2019, Sequoia Capital published the interview “Seven Questions with Alex Rodrigues,” introducing him as co-founder and CEO of Embark and quoting his description of Embark as building “the world’s biggest robots,” that is, self-driving trucks.⁠[3]

On July 4, 2019, the podcast 20VC, hosted by Harry Stebbings, released an interview with him. The episode page states that Embark operated “the longest automated freight route in the world” and had raised more than $47 million from investors including Pat Grady of Sequoia Capital, Matt Ocko of Data Collective, SV Angel and Y Combinator.⁠[7]

In the episode he discussed his path from early robotics competitions to founding Embark; why he considered self-driving under-hyped in the medium to long term; whether self-driving vehicles would become a public utility, which ownership models might emerge, who should own the data that autonomous vehicles generate, and how to balance privacy with public safety; how to set long-term goals, track core KPIs, break large milestones into achievable wins and keep up team morale through a long challenge; and the mistakes young founders commonly make, hiring top talent in specialized fields and managing a board. The episode page also gives his favorite book as High Output Management.⁠[7]

On June 23, 2021, Embark Trucks announced that it would go public through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II; TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry put the deal’s value at $5.2 billion and Transport Topics the post-merger enterprise value at $4.5 billion. The deal was expected to close in the second half of 2021 and to give Embark about $614 million to $615 million in gross cash proceeds, including $200 million of PIPE funding from investors including CPP Investments, Knight-Swift Transportation, Mubadala Capital, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao was to join Embark’s board.⁠[19][24]

TechCrunch states that Embark had until then raised $117 million: a $15 million Series A led by DCVC (also its largest seed investor), a $30 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital and a $70 million Series C led by Tiger Global Management. Rather than build and run its own fleet, Embark sold its self-driving software as a service, with carriers paying a per-mile subscription fee; its partners included the carriers Mesilla Valley Transportation and Bison Transport, as well as AB InBevAB InBevAB InBev (Anheuser-Busch InBev) is a multinational brewing company headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, whose brands include Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona. It was formed when InBev, itself created by a 2004 merger, acquired Anheuser-Busch of the United States in 2008, and it combined with SABMiller in 2016.Open the full entry and HP Inc.⁠[19]

He described Embark as fundamentally an autonomous-vehicle software-as-a-service company focused on trucking, whose main product, the Embark Driver software, was licensed for a per-mile fee, alongside a Guardian service delivering 24/7 monitoring and remote assistance; its software could simulate up to 1,200 scenarios per second: “Each of these 1,200 simulations explore up to 60 seconds into the future.” He said the company planned to “enable carrier operation of self-driving trucks in the U.S. Sun Belt beginning in 2024” and expected after the merger to have a “war chest that fully funds this commercialization plan, and then some.” Transport Topics gives his age as 25, a figure taken from The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is a U.S. news publication founded in 1889, with a focus on business, finance and economics. It is published by Dow Jones, part of News Corp.Open the full entry.⁠[24]

FreightWaves wrote on November 8, 2021 that the shareholder vote of Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II (NYSENew York Stock ExchangeThe New York Stock Exchange is a securities exchange on Wall Street in New York City. It traces its origins to the Buttonwood Agreement signed by 24 stockbrokers in 1792, has used its present name since 1863 and has been owned by Intercontinental Exchange since 2013.Open the full entry: NGAB) was scheduled for that Tuesday and that after the merger he and Brandon Moak would together control about 70% of the voting stock through Class B shares carrying 10 votes each. At NGAB’s Friday closing price of $9.88, the article estimated his stake at $495.7 million and Brandon Moak’s at about $367 million.⁠[2]

The same article states that he is Canadian and a permanent resident of the United States, and that although he has a driver’s license he usually commutes the 3.5 miles to work on an electric bike or takes an UberUberUber is a technology company headquartered in San Francisco, United States, whose legal name is Uber Technologies, Inc. Co-founded by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, it uses digital platforms to connect riders with drivers, delivery consumers with merchants, and shippers with carriers, with main businesses in Mobility, Delivery, and Freight. Dara Khosrowshahi has been chief executive officer since 2017.Open the full entry. Sequoia Capital partner Pat Grady praised him in the article.⁠[2]

On November 11, 2021, Embark listed on Nasdaq through its merger with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II, in a deal that valued the company at about $5 billion; Global Finance estimated his stake at around $500 million. At 26 he thereby became the youngest current CEO of a U.S.-based publicly traded company.⁠[1][20]

On the same day, former Y Combinator president Geoff Ralston reviewed Embark’s path on the Y Combinator blog, calling the team’s thinking “startlingly clear and robust” and describing “a team of builders that was passionate, energetic, and committed.” Global Finance writes that he considered competitive robotics to have shaped Embark’s approach, including how it raised money from investors such as Sequoia Capital; he said: “In competition robotics, you’re measured on the performance.”⁠[14][1]

CNBC wrote on December 13, 2021 that Embark then had about 200 employees, had raised more than $317 million in total and was valued at more than $4 billion, its stock having fallen about 5% since the listing; his goal was to launch fully autonomous truck fleets nationwide by 2024, competing with TuSimple and Aurora InnovationAurora InnovationAurora Innovation is a Pittsburgh-based autonomous driving technology company founded in 2017 by Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnell and Sterling Anderson. Its Aurora Driver combines hardware, software and data services, initially for heavy-duty freight; it began commercial driverless trucking in Texas in 2025.Open the full entry. Of his rapid success he said: “It’s certainly not a normal feeling.”⁠[9]

On March 17, 2022, the University of Waterloo announced that he would give up his 2022 salary and bonus as CEO of Embark Trucks to launch Little Robots, a grant fund meant to inspire young people to pursue technology and give them a head start in tech careers, which would accept applications from groups and individuals from March 25. He said: “My early start in competitive robotics played a pivotal role in founding Embark,” adding that his mission was “to pay that forward.”⁠[25]

The first beneficiary of Little Robots was the Afghan Girls Robotics Team (the “Afghan Dreamers”), which had won numerous international robotics competitions and built low-cost COVID-19 ventilators from used car parts, and whose members relocated to Qatar after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.⁠[25]

CO—, published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ran an interview with him on May 9, 2022, stating that he had won the Young Entrepreneur award at CO—’s 2021 Dream Big Awards and describing him as an engineer. The interview describes the Embark Driver software as sensing through multiple redundant sensors, never tired or distracted, and always thinking ahead.⁠[20]

On March 1, 2023, after exploring a sale with a financial adviser, Embark’s board approved a review of strategic alternatives including dissolution, winding up and liquidation of its assets. On March 3 Embark announced that it was shutting down and considering a liquidation or sale, cutting about 70% of its workforce (about 230 employees) and closing its Houston and San Francisco offices; the remaining 30% of staff were kept on to handle the wind-down. Jalopnik wrote that laid-off employees would be paid until June 2 and keep their health coverage until the end of August, and that Embark’s stock then traded at $3.88, giving it a valuation of just over $90 million, a couple of years after it had traded at more than 50 times that level.⁠[18][26]

In an email to employees he wrote that the company had been “unable to identify a path forward for the business in its current form,” pointing to capital markets that had “turned their backs on pre-revenue companies” and to delays in the commercial deployment of autonomous trucking. He wrote that he was “profoundly sorry,” took responsibility, and wrote: “I’m sorry that myself and Brandon weren’t able to find a way.”⁠[18][26]

Transport Topics recounts that Embark was valued at nearly $5 billion at the time of its merger with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II, but investor redemptions cut its expected proceeds by about $300 million, leaving it with $314 million as a public company; in August 2022, facing the risk of delisting from Nasdaq, Embark carried out a one-for-20 reverse stock split. In December 2022 Embark delivered a Kenworth T680 equipped with its autonomous software to Knight-Swift.⁠[18]

On May 25, 2023, Applied Intuition announced an all-cash acquisition of Embark Technology at an equity value of about $71 million, or $2.88 per share in cash, approved unanimously by both boards. Applied Intuition planned to integrate Embark’s internal tools, data and software; Embark would retire its test fleet, and key employees were expected to join Applied Intuition. Embark stated that it had completed more than 1.5 million miles of autonomous highway operations.⁠[27][28]

In the press release he said: “Today marks an exciting, new chapter for Embark,” thanked all past and present employees for their contributions over the past seven years, and added: “I cannot wait to see where Applied takes the technology we have built.” FreightWaves wrote that he was winding down operations in San Francisco and that Embark’s fleet of 24 trucks would be retired as part of the transaction.⁠[27][29]

On August 2, 2023, Applied Intuition completed its acquisition of Embark, which became a wholly owned subsidiary and on the same day asked Nasdaq to delist its stock. Embark’s Form 8-K of that day states that he resigned as Embark’s chief executive officer and as a director effective immediately before the merger took effect, and that this was not a resignation from employment with Embark; after the merger Peter Ludwig became Embark’s president and secretary, and Qasar YounisQasar YounisQasar Younis is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Applied Intuition, founded in 2017, which develops autonomy and vehicle intelligence software for the automotive, defense and other industries. He was previously chief operating officer of Y Combinator and co-founded TalkBin, which Google acquired.Open the full entry its treasurer and a director.⁠[30][27]

In his 2019 Sequoia Capital interview he said that the principle he relies on daily is to innovate selectively: to start from first principles on core software work but rely on experts in areas such as compensation, legal and public relations; when Embark’s own videos fell short of professional work, the company hired professionals. He still considered it worth trying things oneself to understand the process, and he tapped his network for best practices and followed them for a while, since one needs to know why a standard exists before improving it.⁠[3]

His advice for starting a company was to make a plan that is “credible to you” and then follow it, which requires enough experience to picture each step. He recalled that when he and his co-founder were building the self-driving golf cart in his garage, experts said they were not ready, which was discouraging; what kept them going was confidence that each part of the plan should work, and the belief that something never done before could still be done.⁠[3]

He said he had stopped using Safari and most apps on his phone, keeping only email, messaging and photos, with a friend locking Safari behind a passcode; he now uses the phone for specific tasks for a few minutes and then puts it away, answering emails in idle moments such as rideshares. He named the 25-minute pomodoro as the unit of time that matters most to him: without following the technique strictly, he fully disconnects from asynchronous communication during that window, then checks messages and usually returns to work without a break; he also values shower time for free thinking and keeps track of 10 to 12 ideas by associating each with a physical location.⁠[3]

He said he wished he knew Mandarin, to connect with people in China, which he sees as a rising hub; he also said that he tends to research deeply before acting but was learning to just start and build momentum.⁠[3]

The books on his nightstand at the time were Andrew Grove’s High Output Management, Cal NewportCal NewportCal Newport is an American computer scientist and author, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University who studies the theory of distributed algorithms, and is known for bestsellers on digital distraction and focused work such as Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and A World Without Email; he is also a contributing writer for The New Yorker and host of the Deep Questions podcast.Open the full entry’s Deep Work and George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. His key takeaway from High Output Management was to separate general aptitude from task-specific knowledge and to invest in the latter before delegating or evaluating people, for example by having someone draft a project proposal and reviewing it together, and he adjusted how hands-on he was to each person’s stage of growth; he was reading Deep Work because long stretches of uninterrupted focus are hard to find as a CEO.⁠[3]

He said he had long believed camping to be very hard, remembering struggling with large tents in the rain as a child; on a recent camping trip with friends, for which he practised setting up the tent in his bedroom first, he found it straightforward and now wanted to camp often.⁠[3]

In his 2022 interview with CO— he said that his most important job as CEO was “First, hire excellent people, and second, make sure they have the trust, context, and tools to use,” prioritizing people who fit the company rather than reshaping the company around a person; he advised young engineers to pursue their passions even in slower, capital-intensive fields such as sustainability, longevity or rocket engineering, since those fields can be highly impactful.⁠[20]

Embark Trucks: Official website: https://embarktrucks.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodriguesalex/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]