Boris Sofman

He earned his bachelor’s degree at Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It grew out of the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded with funding from Andrew Carnegie in 1900, which were renamed the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912 and took the present name after merging with the Mellon Institute in 1967. The university is known for computer science, robotics, engineering, and the arts, and has campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and Rwanda. As of September 2025, it enrolled 16,582 students. Its current president is Farnam Jahanian. On September 30, 2026, the university announced a $3 billion gift from Ken Griffin and plans to build a new campus in Miami.Open the full entry and began graduate work at its Robotics Institute in 2005, the same year as his future co-founders Mark Palatucci and Hanns Tappeiner.⁠[1]

In 2010 he completed his Carnegie Mellon PhD with the dissertation Online Learning Techniques for Improving Robot Navigation in Unfamiliar Domains, on online learning for robot navigation in unfamiliar environments.⁠[2]

He co-founded Anki with Mark Palatucci and Hanns Tappeiner; the company launched in 2010.⁠[3][4]

On June 10, 2013, Anki came out of stealth during the keynote of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, where he demonstrated its first product, Anki Drive, a racing game played with AI-equipped motorized cars.⁠[1]

Anki Drive went on sale on October 23, 2013, through Apple’s online and retail stores in the US and Canada; the $199 starter kit included two cars, chargers and a track. By then Anki had raised $70 million from investors including Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, Index Ventures and Two Sigma.⁠[3]

The second-generation system, Anki Overdrive, began shipping in the US, UK and Germany on September 20, 2015, using modular track pieces; the $150 starter pack included two cars and ten pieces of track.⁠[5]

On June 27, 2016, Anki unveiled the small robot Cozmo, priced at $180 and shipping that October; its expressions were animated by a team drawn from studios such as Pixar and DreamWorks. He said: “We started thinking about Cozmo back in 2011.”⁠[6]

The same day, J.P. Morgan led a $52.5 million round in Anki, bringing its total funding to $182.5 million; the valuation was not disclosed.⁠[7]

On August 8, 2018, Anki announced Vector, an always-on home robot priced at $249 and due on October 12, with Kickstarter backers able to buy it early for $199. As chief executive, he said Vector would get smarter over time through its constant cloud connection.⁠[8]

The company said it generated over $100 million in revenue in 2017, when Cozmo was a top-selling holiday gift; Anki had raised more than $200 million by then.⁠[9]

On April 29, 2019, Anki said it was shutting down and laying off nearly 200 employees. The company said a significant late-stage financial deal with a strategic investor had fallen through, leaving its hardware and software business without funding.⁠[4]

Looking back, he said Anki had shipped over 3.5 million devices and robots worldwide in ten years, with annual revenues approaching $100 million, but “couldn't overcome recent hurdles and the complexities of consumer hardware.”⁠[10]

In June 2019 he joined Alphabet’s Waymo to lead engineering in its autonomous trucking division, reporting to chief technology officer Dmitri DolgovDmitri DolgovDmitri Dolgov is an autonomous-driving engineer and executive who co-founded Google’s self-driving car project in 2009, served as Waymo’s CTO, and since 2021 has been co-CEO of Waymo with Tekedra Mawakana.Open the full entry, with the team based in Waymo’s San Francisco office.⁠[11]

Waymo hired 13 former Anki employees in all. He wrote on 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: “I'm honored to be joining the team to lead the autonomous trucking engineering effort.”⁠[12]

On November 16, 2021, as Waymo’s senior director of engineering and head of trucking, he appeared on episode 241 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, which covered Waymo, Cozmo, self-driving cars and the future of robotics.⁠[13]

In July 2023 Waymo said it would concentrate its resources on ride-hailing and push back the commercialization of trucking. He stayed on, and with much of the trucking team turned to applying the autonomous-driving system to general freeway capabilities.⁠[14]

Bedrock Robotics’ biography says that as a Waymo executive he led autonomous trucking and core technologies for its public robotaxi network, including Perception, Reliability and Freeway Driving.⁠[15]

In 2024 he co-founded Bedrock Robotics in San Francisco with Kevin Peterson, Tom Eliaz and Ajay Gummalla, becoming chief executive and applying autonomy technology drawn from Waymo to heavy construction machinery.⁠[16]

On July 16, 2025, after more than a year of operating quietly, Bedrock Robotics announced an $80 million round led by Eclipse and 8VC for a self-driving kit retrofitted to existing worksite vehicles. He said the company was upgrading existing fleets with “sensors, compute, and intelligence.”⁠[17]

On February 4, 2026, Bedrock Robotics announced a $270 million Series B led by CapitalG and Valor Atreides AI Fund, taking its total raised past $350 million; its Bedrock Operator platform retrofits excavators, bulldozers and loaders with autonomy hardware and software without permanent modifications. He said: “The construction industry is being asked to build more than it can deliver.”⁠[18]

On August 17, 2026, Bedrock Robotics said excavators running its system were operating fully autonomously on live commercial customer sites for the first time, including a Nevada water treatment facility with Sundt Construction, an earthwork site in Texas with Champion Site Prep and a civil sitework project with Zachry Construction Corporation. He said: “The physical economy is the next great frontier for machine learning.”⁠[19]

As of October 2026, CapitalG’s portfolio page lists him as Bedrock Robotics’ chief executive and quotes him: “We're building toward a world where construction truly never stops.”⁠[20]

X: Public account: https://x.com/bsofman (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

LinkedIn: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

Bedrock Robotics: Official website: https://bedrockrobotics.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[20]

Waymo: Official website: https://waymo.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]