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Adam Rodnitzky

Sensor calibration, fusion, and streaming for mobile robotics and autonomous vehicles. Serial founder in perception.

Adam Rodnitzky is a skilled professional based in San Francisco with a broad range of interests including robots, cars, and music.

He holds an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, studied at the University of Oxford, and earned a BA from Wesleyan University.

Throughout his career, Adam has been involved in various organizations and roles, such as being a Network Partner at 2048 Ventures, Co-Founder & COO at Tangram Vision, Mentor at StartX, General Manager at Occipital, Director of Product Marketing at ShopperTrak, and Co-Founder & CMO at ReTel Technologies, Inc. which was acquired by ShopperTrak.

He also has experience as a Summer Associate at Floodgate and as a Co-Founder of TacitLogic, Inc.

Highlights

Jun 24 · linkedin

An observation from a conversation I had this weekend with what I'd call an "autonomy normie" - aka, someone who is unfamiliar with robotics and autonomous vehicles. They were visiting San Francisco from Chicago, and were shocked to see the sheer number of driverless Waymo robotaxis.

They rightfully noted that San Francisco must be among the most difficult environments in which to test, and "wouldn't it be easier to try this first in a small town?" followed by "but I suppose this really tests the capability of the taxi."

I think this was an astute observation around the complexity of a dense urban environment. After thinking about it, though, I realized they missed an important point: San Francisco doesn't just test the technical viability of a Waymo robotaxi, but also the financial viability.

By operating a fleet in SF, Waymo can start to stress test the unit economics in urban areas, where 83% of the US population lives. As a bonus, they can also test the robustness of the engineering as well.

What Frank Sinatra sang about New York would most definitely be true for robotaxis in San Francisco: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

Adam Rodnitzky
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Location

San Mateo, California, United States