A self-driving service designed for the cities we love.
YC Winter 2014 · Accepted · Read the original on getintoyc.com →
When Cruise applied in Winter 2014, the company was two weeks old and the idea was modest: a $3,000 kit that bolted onto a car you already owned and automated 90% of the driving. “We still leave the trickiest 10% up to you,” Kyle Vogt wrote. The competitor he feared most was Google.
The kit was a wedge; the real bet was full autonomy. GM bought Cruise in 2016 for over $1 billion, then spent more than $10 billion building robotaxis. It worked until it didn't. In October 2023 a driverless Cruise dragged a pedestrian about 20 feet in San Francisco; the company withheld footage, regulators pulled its permits, and Vogt resigned weeks later. In December 2024 GM cut off funding and folded what remained into the parent company. Layoffs took half the staff in early 2025. The robotaxi business is gone.
The application even names the trap: “this is a capital-intensive business.” Vogt now builds household robots at The Bot Company, reportedly valued near $2 billion with nothing shipped. Read the version where the trickiest 10% was still the customer's problem.