Zoox CEO Aicha Evans

Can we get in? Of course you can. All right there, it is okay, so comfortable. That's what we want. We don't want you to think about driving. This is why it's not a car. Hi. Everyone, I'm Emily Chang and welcome to the latest edition of Bloomberg Studio. At one point out today, we're taking you to the Zoo's factory floor in Fremont, California, where they believe they're building the

future of transportation. You're listening to CEO Aisha Evans, one of the top ranking black women in Silicon Valley who grew up in Senegal. After twelve years working her way up to the top ranks at Intel, she took a leap into the startup world to join Zooks with a goal to transform ride hailing as we know it. Just a year later, she sold the company to Amazon for one point two billion dollars. How does Zouks fit into the future of ride hailing and Amazon? Could a Zooks

deliver your Amazon packages one day? Here's Evans view of the road ahead on this episode of Bloomberg Studio. One point out, I should have so great to be here with you. Thank you for coming and thank you for having me. You came to Zooks as CEO and over from Intel, and just a year later you sold it to Amazon. How did that happen so quickly? It was a journey. Um, it takes a lot of capital to um takes this endeavor all the way. It's a it's

a worthy one. And um, when we looked at the ecosis done, when we looked at everything that was going around, we had to decide whether to stay private or whether to get a long term oriented partner like some of our fellow travelers. And then the pandemic hit. That brought a lot of clarity, shall we say. And so the opportunity presented itself and we went for it wise, Amazon

the right fit. First of all, they're a great company. Uh. They have created both octogonal and adjacent multibillion dollar businesses. They are long term oriented and very purpose driven, so that matched our ambitions. They've never owned a car company, though, Yeah, but we're not a car company exactly. We're a right hailing company. Talk to me a little bit about how you got to Silicon Valley. Your story is not the story of a typical tex EO like Jeff Bezos or

Eddie Jassy. Tell us about your upbringing. I was born in Senegal, West Africa. Uh. My parents, I thanked them to this day. UH sort of made school um an implicit expectation. It was an up for discussion. Very early on. I showed an aptitude and interest uh in math, physics, not so much in biology and in building things. Uh. And so they cultivated that. And then I bounced back between Paris and UH and Senegal, learned a lot about what technology does to people's lives, uh, and what it

makes possible. I literally had a contrast every few months. And so computers were coming online, not the Internet, but what the Internet was going to make possible was also coming online. The US was to the place to be to study that. Then basically um got jobs in the industry and eventually ended up at Intel in Importland. Through that started interfacing with Silicon Valley, and then zooks came along. I heard a story about you kick a phone in

order to talk to your friends long distance. Did that really happen? Oh? Yeah I did. I always had a double life a little bit in terms of family friends in different ecosystems. I still do to this day. And so back then it was landlines, it was expensive and my dad isn't was intellcommunications, so if he was not confused, so we had a rotary phone, I'm dating myself and he locked it, but obviously I figured out how to still make the phone calls. Who were role models back there.

I mean, it's so hard for young people, especially young girls, to see themselves in the tech industry. Um Mary Curry was and still is a role model. UM. In France, you study philosophy and a lot of the philosophers are also mathematicians, so they will role model. And they also forced you to think. You worked your way up to chief strategy officer at Intel, and it was a difficult time for Intel. Intel was kind of losing its way.

What was it like working there at that time? It was a difficult time in the sense that anytime you're successful, you earned the opportunity to talk about what's the next phase of the journey? And I was in the middle of that. But it was also fun. I learned a lot. What was it like going from an established brand name, storied tech company like Intel to a startup like Zooks. I assume there are major differences in culture and execution there.

It was quite an awakening. Uh so at Intel, I was a little bit known as uh, not a rebel, but um somebody who questioned things and who maybe did the normal Oh my gosh, you know was too slow? Is this or that or the other? An agitator of sorts, an agitator, yes, a change agents. I think it is the elegant way of putting it. And so al right, when I arrived at zos, yes, it was fast. Uh

it was. We were making decisions quickly. But from an infrastructure standpoint with I was like, whoa, maybe there's a reason for infrastructure and so, but I embrace the journey and said, okay, we have to build one. When you're doing what we're doing Uh, it's not just about the technology. You have to think about the steps to get into market. You also have to think about building the company so

that it's ready when you scale. If you wait until you need to scale to actually build the infrastructure, bad things happen. What's it like being a leading black female executive in such a white male industry. It depends. I don't wake up in the morning thinking I'm that. I wake up in the morning thinking I'm Asha. I've got stuff to do, meetings, decisions to make, kids to take care of, making sure then is ready. Obviously in the moment,

sometimes I think about it because you look around. But I try and turn it into an opportunity because that it's just how I have one on ones with myself and how you think about it and how you show up it's important. So I try and tell myself that means that I'm bringing a perspective that nobody else has and that's additive. And then I try and also figure out a way to have what I call an inclusive environment where I see people's point of view and they see mine. H and I try not to get angry

when it manifests itself in annoying ways. What are the obstacles that you've overcome to get here. I think that often people assume, both from a gender and uh sort of ethnicity standpoint, that it's not normal to be here, and therefore maybe you've got a discount, when it's often the opposite. You have to try much harder than than others. I've had to work on sort of how I receive information when or how I really I ideal with behaviors that are not acceptable and sort of learn when you

take the high road. I've had to uh find my voice and not be afraid of it and use it. Are you pleased with the change you've seen or has it not changed fast enough? I can't be pleased. I mean, I'm pleased that there is change, but absolutely not. We have to do a lot more as an industry. Why isn't it changing faster? Why don't we see more people like you in positions of power? Well, I think that's a complicated answer. I think it starts very early on.

I have a son who participates in Lego robotics, and we had some observations and kids are what seven eight and you already see differences. I think also from a social standpoint around middle school when there's a transition for girls, maybe having a support system to stay in math, demystifying it,

teaching it differently. And then as people come up the ranks, making sure, especially for women, making sure that we have a support system around them so they can traverse through some of the some of the phases like for example, marriage and our birth and so on. You're building a ride hailing service, not a car. Why is it important to have a woman in the room, people of different races in the room. I'll give you a story. We were discussing pick up and drop off, and um, I'm

the only woman in the room. Yes, I'm always in jeans and what have you, but occasionally I dressed up and have high heels on. We're wearing high heels today. Yep.

I made a comment when you arrived, right, and so I was like, okay, we have to think about it from that standpoint, because if we're giving right to customers in San Francisco, for example, on a Friday evening, on a Saturday evening, maybe some folks have heels on, and maybe we need to think about the pick up rages because expecting them to go up hills in you know, high heels, probably not a good idea coming up. How does zooks out maneuver Cruise and weymo in the autonomous

ride hailing race. We'll be right back. Let's talk about the competition. What is Zooks's edge over GMS crews, Google's way now, and if you could level with us, what's their edge over Zooks. I look at them a little bit like fellow travelers. Yes, we competitors because we're in the same space and we're going after some of the same things. But this is a big industry. It's not going to be a winner take off. Second, it's a safety critical product and therefore I think it's important to

lay that groundwork. Now. Having said that, I would say one of the big differences is that we are going straight to what we think is the ideal product to provide rights to customers. We are not here to enhance your driving experience. We don't even want you to think about driving. So the customer experience is built in such a way that you're here to be transported. You have an app which you already know how to do today.

You have an app where you say I want to go from point A to point B, especially in dense urban environments, think downtown San Francisco, and we show up and we pick you up sliding doors, you step in a little bit London cab inspired. We don't ascribe to taking a car that was architected designed for a human driver and then adding sensors and compute to it in order to make it fully autonomous. What about Tesla which is right down the street. Our Tesla and Elon must competition,

fellow travelers, this is Silicon Valley. We are, you know, paid tribute to disruptors. Having said that, we're not exactly in the same business. We don't sell a car to people. We saw a right to people. Our customers are not drivers. There are writers, and therefore we use the same types of technologies, but they are in the car selling business. So how does Dukes fit into the future of Amazon, Well,

that story is yet to be written. First of all, we uh, we hope to deliver on the promise of a new segment and uh sort of a big business uh and be one of those in the tradition of of Amazon. We know there's a world of possibilities, but I tell everybody, we first have to earn it right before we talk about sort of synergies and possibilities and opportunities together. Zero times anything is still zero and it

will be for a long time. So we're focusing on building our business, getting to market, and then there's a myriad of possibilities of things we could do together. Zoo's gonna be dropping off my boxes? Is that what I should expect potentially, if that's the right thing to do and if it makes sense to do so. But first we're going to make sure to take you everywhere you need to go without having to worry about parking, having a car and so on. What's am I having Amazon

as your boss? It's been good. We're an independent subsidiary of of Amazon, so yeah, they are involved. We agree on what's going to happen, why it's going to happen. How often did you talk to Jeff Bezos or do you talk to Andy Jassey or maybe it's Dave limp Um. I don't talk to them that often. I mean we have a monthly business review or quality business review, but no, it's not like I'm besties with them and we're on the phone and wrapping and channing. Now, well, you must

know what their expectations are. What is Amazon expecting of zoos execute get to market scale, and do you have the funding to do that? GM? Google very well funded competitors or fellow travelers. As you say, are you getting what you need? Yes? More than what I need. I'm funding is not something I even worry about. So what's it like to operate in that environment where money is

not an issue? Well, I mean you have to be careful, right because you also don't want to be a drunken sailor and be like, oh now I have You still have to be a very disciplined You have to manage the phases of the business. We're like, okay, how do we execute? How do we make our mouthstones? How do we get to market where things organized properly? How do we hire? How do we retain and so on and

so forth? How do we stay mission driven? The public seems to have lost interest in waiting around for self driving cars. I wrote in Google self Driving Car in and I'm still waiting to be able to buy or just ride a self driving car on demand? Why is it taking so long? I think? In self driving, first of all, the opportunity is so clear, um, the so the beach is so broad. We forgot that bigges things do start small. One second, it's a hard problem to solve.

We talk a lot about safety, uh and we talked talk a lot about human error when it comes to driving, but we also forget that collectively, at least in the United States of America, humans collectively drive a hundred million miles before having a fatality. That's a lot of mouths. So humans are also pretty good. And the thing humans are good at, which is hand I call it exception handling. We all know how to drive. If we're all fully autonomous,

would be deployed already. But we're driving amongst human and you have to deal with so many little scenarios. There are so many things that you've been learning about driving since births and codifying that using AI sensors and computers is turning out to be a lot harder. Last, but not least, it's a safety critical system. None of us should deploy until unless we have closed loop evidence that we're safe. So what is the a I need to learn how to do at this point? What are the

challenges left to solve? It needs to know how to deal with unexpected things as they as they happen, And is that possible that it can. Can I learn that? Of course it's possible. I mean I'm one of I'm an optimist when it comes to technology. I started in wireless, so you have to think from switchboards all the way to today. Quite a journey. Um, I'm fascinated by a flying airplanes. The right brothers. If they were trying to solve what is being sold in aviation today, they wouldn't

have tried. We we just let let it marinate, let it take its time. The algorithms will get better. Uh, compute gets better all the time, censors get better all the time. It will happen. What about security challenges. We've reported on how Tesla's have been hacked. So you have to design security in your into your product from the beginning. And for us, we look at all the scenarios of

what could happen from the security standpoint. Now, these these robots or these robot taxes are also recording all the time, so they sort of know what's happening inside of them and around them. So that gives us a little bit of a of an edge. And then you look at access. But this is something you just have to pay attention to understand what's going on in that world and make sure that you design against it still to come. Aisha Evans shares her outlook for Zoux's future and her favorite

guilty pleasure. How many rights have you taken? A lot? Actually, it's not fair, right, I take a lot of rights, both in our L three testing fleet as well as in the ground up robotaxi. So when you take a ride, what's your report like generally afterwards? Well, okay, so two different things on the test fleet because and this is a big difference between us and our fellow travelers. I mean our L three fleet, the Toyota Highlanders that are

outfitted with the same sensor, architectural placement and compute. They are purely engineering test vehicles. So when I it's called drive review. When I take a ride, it is with understanding what progress we're making, what issues were still having. I'm fascinated the scenarios we can't handle, how fast was teleopts able to step in, and so on and so forth. So then I have a long report and the app and this and that. When I'm in the robot taxi,

it's more like I'm excited. I'm usually giggly. Uh. And then after five minutes on board and I'm on my device, which is what you want? How is it navigating supply chain challenges? Has the chip crisis impacted you? Yes, it has, It's impacted everybody. Um. Look, first of all, some things are just more expensive than they should be. Uh. Second, but you accept that it's the same for everybody. You have to get a lot more crisp around your needs

because lead times are longer. And uh, that's really when it pays off to have had a good relationship with your suppliers and treated them as partners so you can talk about your problem statement and arrived to solutions. But it hasn't like slowed us down. It's just been an extra vector to manage buber and lifts. Seemed like they would be obvious partners, could be talk to them. We in this industry, there are no secrets, and we're all friends.

We all talked to each other at some level on another so yes, we all have talked to each other. Who do you imagine would be your first customers? Well, first of all, Las Vegas. We've been public that that's our our first lunge. I call it a sort of affectionately, a one street dance urban environment. How's that with a

lot of demand. Uh And then we really think that in starting at least at the beginning, big cities that have a very dense, uh urban sort of landscape where people are going to work, people are going to museums, people are going to restaurants, they don't want to worry about parking, we think that will be the first customer. So commercialization is on the horizon in Las Vegas and

also San Francisco that would be next. How do you stay motivated on that road to commercialization given that there are still, as you say, these hard problems to solve, because every day literally either something happens in terms of progress, and it's really important to not just look at the ultimate success. But I call it like kind of along the way, the little celebration. I mean even when I do drive review, yes I have a long list or

you know, what about this? What about that? But the vehicle will do something new or something awesome, and you're like, oh my gosh, you go awesome. So there are so many things that happen on a daily basis, weekly basis that you see advancement. I talk it's like climbing, right, It's like you get to a certain element or certain place. You appreciate the journey, You turn around, you look down, you see what you've done, and you're like, all right,

let's go for the next week. So as you put points on the board, what does a sha Evans see as the future of zoos? Do you see a global mobility giant or do you see something more modest? I see I want and I hope to lay the foundation for a global mobility giant with our about human being need transportation everywhere. It opens up access to economic mobility, it opens up access to knowledge, it opens up access to inclusion, uh not to mention safety, the environment and

frankly humans, which is too valuable to spend. Also four hundred billion hours worldwide driving and we think that this is at the center of that puzzle. So that is the goal. All right, so we're gonna do this is a little rapid fire section now. Um so just quick answers um what a zooks stand for? The word zooks is basically a marine um uh sort of species that is solar powered and self moving in the ocean. Interesting. Best piece of advice for your twenties, take a shell pill.

It'll be okay. What about your forties? Enjoy the journey you've made it. Um. I hear you're under restaurant at some point. Is that true? I confuse the love of cooking and running a restaurant. What's your favorite thing to cook? Chebujin which is a Senegalese dish. Biggest guilty pleasure? Trashy books? What bucks not telling? Um? Speaking of fellow travelers, what's your favorite travel destination? Hawaii? Me too? Which island Hawaii? I'm from Hawaii, Kauai? All the way last TV show

you binged? I'm in the middle of it. A bridgeton. What's your view on work life integration? I don't use the word balance, work life choices, setting expectations on all sides. How do your kids fit into your life? They are everything? They are the beginning and the end. Our driver list future is always right around the corner or ten years away. Give us a realistic timeline. When can we ride in a zooks? A lot of people ask me, when can I tell my kids they can't have a they shouldn't

get a driver's license? And I think it's going to be probably my kids kids. Arguments for and against going public against uh, definitely focus UM. The quarterly pressure is something I understand and know, and this is a long term journey, so focus is important for it seems to be everybody's dream in this valley. Is it yours? No? No? My My My dream is to uh to get this uh, this robot taxi out there and to see it delivered. The promise that I know it will. Is Zook's going

to be on public roads this year? I don't know. We'll have to see what about ten years, what a success look like for Zoos in ten years several cities and there I say, Hey, I'm gonna zooks my way over there, Asha Evan's see Jos. Thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you my pleasure. I appreciate you coming over. And that's it for this edition of Bloomberg Studio. At one point out thanks for joining us.

This episode is produced by Lauren Ellis, edited by Brian Carter Gainer, and executive produced and hosted by Yours truly Emily Jang. We'll see you next time.