I'm not gonna waste my best years on on a company that will not gonna take off. So let's set measurable goals for every stage of the company. And I wanna be very frank with you. If we're not gonna make our goals, I'm not gonna early gonna stay. This is Kristin O'Brien, Managing Editor at NFX. Today, partner Gigi Wise gets together in Israel with Nera James, CEO of Moveit.
Moveit is the crowdsourced transportation app that beat Google Maps and was acquired this summer by Intel for $900,000,000 over zoom. Nearing Gigi uncover how founders should think about setting KPIs, frameworks for thinking big about your market and company and what the future of transportation really looks like. This is the NFX podcast Welcome, dear. Thanks for coming to our podcast. Thank you for having me. Congratulations on your order.
It's only been a few months since Intel acquired, move it. Let's go back to the beginning. And now, you know, with an tens or 100 of millions of people using move it, the idea looks very, very logical. But at the beginning, I'm sure that wasn't, as simple. How did you ever get with the get up with that idea? I mean, how did it all start? So so the story is pretty awkward. Then, it's it's not just a simple situation where I I felt the pain and I decided to solve it.
So it actually started over our trading for a marathon in in 2011 where my running buddy who is a public transit engineer who plans, you know, railroads and and roads told me how much public transit users are underserved. So the problem was defined by him, and then he said that he might have a solution that requires a lot of information. When I looked at the problem, I figured out that, you know, it's a huge problem. There are eight billion people around the world and only 1,000,000,000 cars.
You can definitely they understand that most people around the world, use other means of transportation than driving their cars, but at the the time, 2012, only 15% of the large cities around the world had any information in a digital way about, alternative, mobility, like public transit. I figured out that there's a huge problem with information. If you ask people what's the biggest problem of their mobility, on a daily basis, they would say information.
This is how I started when I saw the problem. I wasn't sure that I can solve the problem, but I figured out that if we would be able to solve the problem, it's gonna be huge, and that's how everything started. Basically, we we took Tel Aviv Metropolitan area as our first beta And we didn't have any digital data about the lines and and stops and schedule back then. We had to build it ourselves since Ministry of Transport in Israel.
We're not willing to share this information with us, which was a a great favor because we figured out that we will have to do it. That that could have killed the company. Right? Yeah. What we figured out that we'll have to build it, ourselves anywhere around the world, which is another lesson learned for young entrepreneurs. I mean, don't count on on on business development. That's your way to get things.
And then when we built it, we went to our friends at ways and asked them what would be, a benchmark to success and they told us that 6 month, no marketing efforts, they they were able to bring about 50,000 people to the platform. So I set that as my, goal. And after 6 month in one day, we had a 100,000 users. And then I figured out that people need the information. People use it quite frequently. And we have a huge problem of scale. So that's how everything started. That that's really cool.
And, you just said that, that not getting the data, which I think at at the time, the common assumption was that over time, all bus operators and everybody, everybody will have a GPS. The data will be available anyhow. You don't need any additional sources you went the other way completely and you basically built in a consumer based, a user based, network of data, which creates a really strong data network effect for the company.
I mean, how how much did you guys think about it originally, or did it just evolve into that? And, how strong is it? So, honestly, you know, it evolved through a process, and and I I wanna continue the the story.
And when we figured out that we, you know, we spend about 4 to 5 months just building the static data, not even the real time data of Beller Aviv Metropolitan area with with Like stations and Like, bus stops and lines and and and routes and and schedule, plan schedule, we figured out that if that's gonna be the time that will take us to bring any new city to the platform, you know, it will take years because there are, like, 5000 large cities around the world.
And and, you know, if you need to spend 4 months just building data for every city, that's not gonna work. In the same time, we we faced another problem, completely different problem because when you open an app, you open it in a country level. So the next city we opened was Madrid, and we opened the app in Spain, and everybody outside of Madrid James us a ranking of 1 star out of 5 because they were insulted that we have not provided them data in their own city. That that that's very painful.
So we had we had to problem both. We had to solve both problems, you know, getting the data quickly, but also make sure that people will understand why we don't have data. Yep. So my cofounder, who is 15 years younger than me and way more naive, said, why don't we just put the tools of building the the transit data that we've created for ourselves over the web and ask people to join us.
I was quite skeptical, to be honest, saying why people would do it, but when we combine the two problems, when you opened the app in a city where we didn't have, solution. We apologize for not having the data, but we also offered people to volunteer and help us build the data. So two amazing things happen. 1, people you know, Beller like, angry at us because, you know, they understand the process and and they couldn't give us one star because we offer them to help.
So if you are not willing to help, at least don't have those. Yeah. So that's one thing that happened. They stopped giving us one star. The second thing is, and that's an amazing story around the world. 1% exactly 1% of the population. We're willing to actively send us an email and volunteer. So today, we have more than 800,000,000 users and about 8,000,000 users, volunteered to help us. Another secret is only 10% of them were useful.
The rest was just good people that try to Beller, but they were not skilled to help us build the data. But if you think about a a workforce of 800,000 people around the world today, that were qualified to become editors, that's amazing. So we built the data based on editors that actually spend time in front of their computers How how much does each one of them spend an average? Like, tens of of hours a month. And they continue doing that over a period of time? Absolutely.
You have to understand that transit data is way more dynamic than, cartographic map or a road map. Sure. So every week in every large city, they change locations of multiple stops, schedules changes. So that community is is doing great job, not only in setting up a city, but mainly maintaining the transit data in the city. So What kind of recognition are they getting? So they just get recognition, within the app. We used to send them t shirts in the beginning, but after 2000 800,000 t shirts.
Is it on the But after two thousand people, it became too expensive. So it's mainly, a written recognition on the app and, giving them different ranks of, you know, Pete manager, region manager, country manager, and the highest rank, by the way, is an ambassador.
Okay. And if you think about it, we got even extra bonus for from these ambassadors because, you know, in in countries and cities where we're not have we do not have any people on the ground, and we don't know the language, like, I don't know, Malaysia, these guys are representing move it and going back to the transit operators and ask them to provide us with access to their car fleet management so we could have real time information for the buses.
So that actually solved the other problem out of about 7500 transit operators that we represent their data, more than half gave us access to the car fleet management. So we could give a true real time information based on GPS is on the buses. And that's way beyond, you know, Google Maps, it's 5, 6x more transit operators that, provide us data than you have on Google Maps today worldwide.
And when you looked at it at the, I mean, you're already clearly or the winner in this field and you're you're past critical mass. But at the time, earlier on, and when it comes position was around. Do you feel that it's the data that made you win? It's the app. It's better service. What what made you win? So at the end of the day, I think it's it's the user experience combined with the accuracy of the data. If you think of a of a solution like moving, which is utility.
We targeted data commuters. At the end of the day, data commuters are pretty, much aware of how they get to their destination based on the the trip planning, but, you know, way more focused on accuracy, the real time information, and service alerts and all kind of information that save their day if something gets, something goes wrong in in in in the same day.
So at the end of the day, what we figured out that people use movie more than any other app because of the user experience and the accuracy of of the information. We couldn't allow our app to be less user friendly or than than any other app, but in the same time, it's not enough. You have to provide people real value in order to create, organic growth. And the real value is the accuracy of the data. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's not just the accuracy. It's comprehensiveness.
If you think about it in in a city like, Barcelona, there's not only the local transportation. There's a long, long distance trains that get into the city still have 5 to 10 stops in the urban area, which people are using as part of their urban mobility. If you do not integrate this information, into their daily, trip planning, you're missing part of the service that people would expect to get. Yep. It has to serve people and generate value to people.
And, over the years, was it the consumer data these ambassadors that Beller you that eventually got you to also get the company's data? In many aspects, yes. But, but it's a combination. It's a combination of building tools around these, editors and make sure that we can verify the accuracy of the data We do a lot of, cross tests to make sure that the data is correct. So it's a combination between, the contribution of the community and the tools that we have built.
Oh, but the company was very, very focused on user first. Yeah. Means, let's make sure that our users get the most value out of the app. Yeah. It's kinda amazing because, your biggest competitor was Google. Right? Yes. And and, you know, Google was there on the phones to start with Google is there with the data that started with, and you guys still managed to capture people's imagination more and allow them to participate and contribute data.
Which eventually got you to have much better data than Google. Yes. Absolutely. And and I think it's it's all about, you know, when people ask me about that, I said out of the 800,000,000 users about 75% or 80% are Android users, which already have Google Maps preloaded on their device. So people Beller to download, move it and use it, then it's all about the extra value you're getting.
But it wasn't it it wasn't immediate and it wasn't easy because if you think about it, it's a utility with with no viral effect because, you know, the fact that you're using move it does not require you to invite somebody else to use it. So Yep. The only growth effect is is good word-of-mouth, effect in a lot of partnerships and and and marketing, work. All of our growth is is free of investment. We do not invest cash and user acquisition at all. Yep. It's completely organic.
That's for quite impressive. And so today, you are the number 1, public transportation app in the world, and I know you started, little bit of monetization around the setting tickets or and you have the carpool. So tell me a bit about the future. I mean, when when when do you guys become a full blown marketplace of transportation services? So it's already happening.
Up to January 2018, we were a free app, but we started to generate revenues two two and a half years ago, and we're looking at ourselves now as an urban mobility app and mobility as a service platform. We decided that we we don't wanna charge our users anything, we would just like to provide in more services where we can make money out of.
We generate a lot of data we collect about 6,000,000,000 data points a day from our users completely anonymously and generates a lot of analytical, maps for cities to understand how people move within the cities. We sell this information. We license, transit data information to companies like Microsoft, we provide the data for Azure Maps and Uber. We found significant different sources of revenues to the company prior to the acquisition, and it's it's still growing.
In in a way, we're not just serving public transit users. Today, in the last 3 years, we aggregate almost any mean of transportation within the city to move it and we developed a full blown, multimodal trip lining, which also includes the ability to drive your car to the nearest exchange point, which can be a train station, park your car, and continue with public transit altogether. Eventually, that's the future.
That that is exactly what people looking for a full multimodal solution that will combine 1st mile, last mile, and mass transit, to take you to the center of the city. And in that regard, do you see eventually, the movie to have being the one app you need where you're gonna also be able to book everything else or do you think that you'll have to go from the move it up to other apps in order to buy your tickets or or reserve your ride?
Yeah. We definitely wanna be, the platform, but we understand that we will have to compete with alternative platforms. But if I look at the user experience, again, the next step the next level is to be able to get a full experience door to door with one app and one payment source. And in order to provide that, we're partnering with a lot of micro mobility services and ride hailing services, but the most important partnership we have just signed few weeks ago is with Cubic.
Cubic is, the largest, US Fair Collection company. 70% of the transit fare collection is going through cubic, systems in all of the large cities in the US starting from New York, Boston Chicago, LA, San Francisco Bay Area, the Clipper Cards, Miami, Atlanta, and we're developing together with Cubic a unified platform for public transit payment, where in other cities, as well, the provider, the the technology providers will be able to use this platform and eventually provide the users, a
single or a single point of payment for all services together. If you think about it, people would like to pay for transportation the same way they pay for their phone cellular bills. I mean, just consume it. Don't worry about it. We'll charge you by the end of the month, and we're probably gonna do it in the most efficient and optimized ways. So that's the next step of of urban mobility where there are so many different options to pay for transit.
It it's kinda amazing that Israel has become a superpower of mobility startups. Right? You know, we have, you know, the way they mobilize at the top of it with their, you know, whatever 17,000,000,000 acquisition. You got with whatever their number is above a 1,000,000,000 in ways and with via and with Pete, how come a tiny country like us that basically has 1, you know, let's face it. 1 of the worst transport systems in the world has become, you know, a mastermind of, of, mobility services.
It's just my 2¢. I mean, it starts with the fact that you've mentioned it. We we do not have a good system here. So the challenges are clear and and people would like to solve problems, and and that's where it starts. But the true answer, I think, relates to the fact that all of the companies that you've mentioned started with, a global vision in mind.
So we, in particular, in in transit, it's so hyperlocal and it's so, I would say, Beller regulatory controlled, that you have to think globally and create a very robust infrastructure to serve multiple cities, multiple countries, which makes all of us successful. So if you think about the problem to begin with, as a global pro as a global problem and you prepare yourself and build your infrastructure correctly, then you aim very high.
You aim to concur, you know, the the world and not just a a city or a country. And that what franchiate, I think most of the companies that you have mentioned, we we thought global in in the first place, and it's mainly because Israel is such a small market that nobody James. Yeah. So that that's pretty much why I think, these companies were successful. And there is some ties actually between you guys in ways. Right? Yeah. So so that's another story for for young entrepreneurs.
I mean, when we started moving, I already knew the the waste founders very Beller, and I offered I suggested my co founders to go and and consult with them. The first reaction was let's not do it. They're gonna steal the idea. But when I explained to them that the founders of ways are very smart.
So they either thought about it before they're doing it, and we don't know, or they decide not to do it, and we can also learn from that They agreed and and we went to talk to the Waste founders and we figured out that, they thought it's too complicated and they wanna be They wanna focus on on the driver's world, and it also gave us a little bit of of feedback about the challenges that we're facing. And then I asked non boardin to allow where we live in to join our board of directors.
And since then, we got a lot of insights from ways that helped us setting, you know, the the benchmark for growth or world, focus, in in in different areas. That that's very interesting. Many James, I I tell the story of how, having on your Pete somebody that knows what KPIs you need to just strive for James you month on month on month.
I remember, you know, in one of the, you know, one of the games companies that I found that many years ago, just being able to get to the KPIs of others without understanding how they got there, but just knowing how good looks like, knowing how, you know, what do you need to see as retention, what do you need see as engagement has saved us so much time because otherwise, you can just either be really good and continue working on the wrong things or be really bad and think you're good.
And, that just saves you month on month. KPIs are gold. Absolutely. And and I wanna share another anecdote. When I joined my 2 cofounders that move it, they actually invited me to join a a and and become the 3rd cofounder, and and they asked me to be the CEO. I told him God, is that's my best years, and I'm not gonna waste my best years on on a company that will not gonna take off.
So my only request for you is let's set measurable goals for every stage of the company, and I wanna be very frank with you. If we're not gonna make our goals, I'm not necessarily gonna stay. And that's that's so important, and and and he actually drove me to raise my B round from Sequoia in the US. I I really wanted out for Flint to to join our board of directors Alfred were were involved very in very early days of Uber and then Airbnb and house and and DoorDash.
And, of course, was part of you know, Zappos and and Alfred was able to bring me benchmarks that he saw at at, Sequoia. Company. Yeah. That was really insightful for me in in in the way exactly the way you say to understand. Are we good? Are we excellent or are we do we suck in in something? Yeah. And, he definitely impacted, our way moving forward in in multiple areas. So let's talk a little bit about the future of mobility.
I mean, know, we've had a chat before about how future mobility would look like with regulation on one hand, the need for, for mass transit rather than just private cars. And so on. How do you and and today with, you know, with scooters and, you know, flying cars soon? Who knows? How do you see the the future of mobility in cities kind of based on your point of view, which is probably, you know, you you see what's happening more than anybody else with all the data you have?
And so one thing is for sure to me, at least, is that we're not gonna end up with one mode of transportation. So it's not gonna be that once autonomous vehicles will be a production mode, everything will be autonomous vehicle. So just to make sure we're all clear, I mean, one rail can transfer about 30 thousand people an hour where different cars bumper to bumper, even if it's autonomous can convey 2000 people an hour on a lane on and and the infrastructure is very limited.
So I clearly see that the future is based on multiple, means of transportation that will have to, mash into each other and and and people would be very demanding to become a a smooth experience. Otherwise, you know, it's gonna be a massive of of private cars. So regulatory force will have a lot to do with it by restricting areas to public transit only or autonomous vehicle only. And we see today more and more cities that starting to bid for, shuttle services last mile services.
And we're talking about transportation on demand, which is a mix between a fixed route shuttle and and and a ride hailing services, but we're talking about form factors of Beller seaters. So at the end of the day, it will have to be a mix that will be regulated in multiple ways, you know, James and also restricted areas by the local transit authorities. And this mix will have to work in a very, synchronized way. Yeah. It's it's the handovers. It's gonna be the toughest. Right? Absolutely.
I mean, if if you get a trip plan that tells you to drive to the train station and you arrive to the train station a minute after the train left. The the trip's already worth much. Exactly. And you have to wait 30 minutes. That's a nightmare. Or if you go to the train station, but there's no parking air, spots for you, it's another nightmare.
All these small things has to be synchronized in order for you to be able to experience a smooth ride, and people would like to have certainty when they leave home. So driving your cards clearly certain. I mean, you drive your car. You have air condition. You listen to your music, but the only uncertainty is the traffic. In multimodal trip planning, the level of moving or the number of moving parts is so much higher that the future of mobility will have to take care of it.
So, basically, what you guys are doing, which is planning the entire trip is the key to streamlining future mobility. Absolutely. But it's also involved with a lot of effort coming from all different companies. I mean, Uber will have to patch their cars based on when exactly you expect to arrive with the train. And, you know, the car or the car with a driver or without a driver cannot park there for 20 minutes to wait for you. It has to be fully synchronized.
So this is what we're working on today, and we're trying to build together with the multiple players, around the world. I I'm sure that people are kinda curious on how do you think COVID is gonna impact mobility. I mean, I I know that, you know, many bus services have stopped, and, you know, or limited to less people on the bus, which is clearly difficult because you guys now need a new data point, which is, will there be room on the bus for me if it's limited to fifteen, twenty Pete?
Assuming that COVID stays with their for a few more years. How do you see this impacting mobility? It just adds another layer of information that will have to be provided to the users. We're starting to work on that with multiple transit operators that put, passenger counters on the buses, and they transmit this information and make this available to people. But but also I think that it really gonna impact so many other things.
I mean, working in remote, from from home, will impact, some of the level of usage of transit. It's it's a much bigger question that just public transits. And, you know, that that leads us clearly to the question of, autonomous vehicles. You're now part of, you know, the largest power group of autonomous vehicles with Mobiline. When is this happening? I mean, your perspective, what's required for that to really happen and would it happen in the coming few years?
And will this change everything like everybody thinks? So I'm I'm not, you know, exposing any information that we're not exposed before. So, Professor, I'm Anshashua, the the head of of of this business at Intel, senior vice president at Intel, and leading this whole effort already announced that in 2022, we're gonna run multiple production services of autonomous transportation on demand services. One will be in Tel Aviv. There's one in the US, at least one, if not 2.
And then one in Korea, one in Japan, and one in in Paris. So we're looking to operate it in a production mode in in less than 2 years, which means that we're already running some tests today, with the vehicles and with the whole experience of planning a trip, calling a car, pick up and drop off Flint in multiple places, So we're definitely doing it right now in, let's say, internal tests with mobile employees, but this is gonna be production in 2022 in places.
It's still not gonna be a massive part part of of of the market. And I would definitely expect they will take years before this is going to be one of the most used, services. Regulation is still a big question, and it's it's hyper local, so regulation are very different between countries. So we'll have to see how that evolved in parallel.
If you're, you know, if there are founders listening to us that want to create a startup in mobility, what what are kind of the big themes that you think, would still are still open for disruption, but still ripe for disruption where people could focus on on trying to reinvent some of the things that I ran.
I think that there's a lot of challenges in operating fleets, you know, fueling cars, cleaning cars, you know, when we think about it, if we really believe that 100 of 1000 or millions of of vehicles will be autonomous. There's there's gonna be a lot of challenging challenges in operating the fleet. They're gonna drive themselves, but they're not gonna clean themselves. Exactly. So so there's a lot of, additional services that will be required in order to operate fleets.
I think that's one area, probably already several companies are dealing with it. So the level of, cyber security for the for the vehicles. It is also important entertainment within the cars. Other additional services in in the cars can be very interesting, services moving forward. Yep. I I agree.
I think that, you know, the mobility sometimes feels as if there's really no more room for startup innovation, but I think that the major changes that we're gonna see are are opening really huge opportunities for new companies. Yes. Let let's take a few minutes to talk about your entrepreneurial experience because you're not, you're gonna, you know, you're you're kind of my age, which makes us, not as young as we used to. Not not as young as we used to be.
And, you founded a few companies before, and so and then became an investor also and then came back to to be a founder. What was different this time? It's it's my 3rd startup, I have to say, by the way, my the second one just had an exit about 20 days after. Yeah. That was that was a nice closure. I was part of another $360,000,000 it, in a totally different field. Right? It's a semiconductor company.
So I think in movies, I came with so much more realism to the game means, setting measurable goals, thinking really big. You know, my understanding was that making a $300,000,000 company or a 1,000,000,000 plus dollar company takes the same effort. Yep. And it's it's it takes almost the same time. And you better be on the 1,000,000,000 plus rather than the the hundreds of millions and, it's easy to say, but the implications are that you have to think big.
You have to understand that the total addressable market has to be very large and you have to attack a much bigger market than if you wanna create a niche company. That's one thing. The other thing clearly relates to fundraising. And and 2 important things that I've learned is 1, you never raise enough money if you have very large dream. So take money whenever you can. That's that's a cliche, but I think it's really How much money did you guys really move it?
We have raised a $130,000,000, and we ended up with spending a little bit less than a 100 before the acquisition. Is there any point that you were missing money? No. Not in moving. I mean, in my previous companies, absolutely. Yes. But I think I I went up and raised money always, like, 2 years before I really needed it. And, that's really important understanding what are the inflection points that allows you to raise money.
But in the same time, I wasn't really, argumentative about pricing or valuation. It was all about at the end of the day. I didn't try to optimize the valuation. Yeah. I really tried to optimize enough cash for the company to run moving forward to the to the next milestone. That that was one important thing. The other thing about that relates to who I would like to work with. You know, you can divorce your wife, but you cannot divorce your investors almost at all.
And it means that, you know, and I'm I'm still with my wife for 30 years. So it requires that we as entrepreneurs really need to do due diligence about who we're going to partner with. It's a very long journey, and you want your partners, the investors, to be really align with with your vision. And otherwise, you know, it's not just money. You know, money can make things very complicated.
So for me at at moving, I was so much focused on not only how much money I raised, but also who is gonna invest in the company and who exactly is gonna sit on my board I think it helped. You know, the early stage investors were the ones that kept me running forward, and they were the most involved in the acquisition. So it just tells you that I've picked the right people.
And and so do do you think that when you think about your investors, the main thing is their strategic alignment I don't I don't know if if we can call it strategic alignment. It's it's about, you know, understanding if if they they're willing to help you pursue your dream.
Okay. And if they have a long enough patient to see you are pursuing this dream and they're not forcing you to change directions all the time you know, if they believe in what you're doing, they should let you run and support you. And, I think it's it's crucial. And when when you think about started moving. You started it as a third time founder. What what were the, you know, the benefits of being a multiple time founder in creating this and what was the biggest pitfall?
The one thing you feel that you might have done wrong because you're a multiple time founder, or you almost made wrong because of that? So so the benefits were clear. I mean, when we came to raise the a round. I got 6 Pete that compete were competing on the deal even though they were not sure exactly what we're doing. So That that's a great advantage. So the the first round was was very quick and and and I also tried not to spend unnecessary time on on terms and stuff.
I I could do it very quickly. The pitfalls, I would say that sometimes you think you've seen everything and you know everything. So I almost told my cofounder, forget about the community. I mean, it will never work. So one of the things that I've learned from that is even though you believe that you're very experienced, you should let people have a very long leash within your company to do crazy stuff. Even if you're not sure that it will work, don't always trust your experience.
You know, let people try crazy stuff. Almost when you're sure it's not gonna work. And and we I almost missed this. And that was that was crucial to movie development. Yeah. We have a We have a playbook for 2nd time founders where we list all all the pitfalls that we think they will fall into to help them avoid them. And clearly, they usually don't avoid them that, like, we all do.
But one of them is clearly not to think that, you know, everything, and therefore, not try not try things, which is what you always do as a first time founder. And then as you become more confident, it's, easier to fall in that, in that field. There's something in the field that I've been there before. I can tell you where it's And and in many cases, you're right. But in some cases, when you're wrong, you can miss a huge opportunity. And Yes. The balance is very delicate. So I agree completely.
So on the more kinda, you know, funny thing, you you guys negotiate a $1,000,000,000 deal remotely, right, I mean, how do you do that? I mean, I've done a bunch of these $1,000,000,000 deals, but it always included dinners and looking people in the eye and yelling and walking out of the room, you know, do you? Do you shut down Zoom when they upset you? What do you do?
Yeah. Well, so first, just to make things clear, I mean, from from the first call discussing the LOI to the signing and closing, there was not even one face to face meeting. Everything, including the due diligence, there was not even one face to face meeting. It was all happened starting, 2nd week of, March and ended up in, May 4th. So not even one meeting.
Going back to your question, there's it's much more difficult to walk out of the Zoom room, but but, yes, that's That sounds like you do more or less. That was that's what you do, but we we we didn't really needed a lot of these things because most most of the things were closed over the phone and 2 very important phone calls set the whole deal. 1 is a phone call with, for mobile that set the deal terms.
And, you know, we did have some arguments about it, but we could find a way to, to compromise on that. And the second phone call was a long phone call that I had with, Bob Swan, the CEO of Intel who convinced me that even in this crazy period of time, I took a huge risk to get into this deal because we missed, an investment opportunity as an alternative, they're serious about it, and they're looking seriously at the long term vision, and and they're not gonna be it from the COVID 19, situation.
Both calls, convinced me to take this huge risk and get into this, deal But the the flip side of it, if you think about it on a serious note, I mean, people were available 247. You are at home. You have nowhere to go. Nobody travels. You can say that you cannot reach people because you you they can join the meeting in their James, and, it's actually taken five clicks between meetings. You don't need to go to another building. You don't need need to drive.
So it becomes way more efficient in that aspect. For the due diligence and, and closing the deal. So the the time frame was 60 days. We closed the deal in 42 days. That's very impressive. An off question. You guys, have chosen to start the company not in a very typical place in Israel. This is a not in Tel Aviv, not in New Jersey. Yeah. This is a question that comes up also a lot in the United States. I mean, do I, start my company and, Austin, Royce started in San Francisco.
And, I think that also right now with COVID, people are think starting to think about it a bit differently. Compared to what it was before. So what made you choose that? Did it have any negative impact on the company and and would you see that now with COVID, this is gonna become a bigger trend of top companies starting elsewhere. Well, let's put it in proportions. We are, like, 10 miles out of Beller Aviv. It's not like the the distance between Austin and the Bay Area.
Yeah. But he's but he's ready to treat it as if you're a hundred miles. Yeah. So so the reason we put the office there is because it's it's just one a half miles from my house. That's a good reason. The only privilege that the CEO can have, the rest is just chores. But seriously, people ask us, we didn't have any problem to attract talent. And I think it relates to the story you tell and the vision people sees in you and and I believe that now working remotely, it's even gonna be easier.
People can be spread all over. And as long as you pick the right people the right talent. They can work either at the office or remotely with the same level of efficiency. We did not send any employee to unpaid vacation during the COVID 19 situation, and we're even hiring now more and more people.
So we keep the level of efficiency almost as high as it used to be before without the face to face meeting, although it's challenging, but, I do believe that we will see a trend of companies starting to build their offices in in a more remote areas. It saves a lot of money and, it makes the company very more efficient in a way of travel.
Yeah. One last question, you know, when you look at your experience, and, you know, I'm gonna ask, you know, stupid question, but what's kind of the the one core belief that you have about entrepreneurship that you think young young founders can enjoy and learn from. The one that is kinda not the what everybody thinks they're like, what's unique in your thinking? So one advice I received more than 20 years ago, goes with me all the time.
I mean, was in in a conference where the the guy that was, like, 100 C, young CEOs, and and the guy asked who has children, everybody raised their hand, and you can't look at your child and say that They're ugly. They're ugly. And it's it's but he said, but you can look at your startup and and and say, you know what? It's ugly, but I can fix it.
And if I if I need to think of one thing that I always try to be honest with myself as I look at my startup and said, where exactly I think it's ugly, and you can fix it. But if you you don't have this ability to look inside and said, you know what? We are ugly in this situation, or we're not performing, well, it's very difficult to to fix it and and your startup is not your child. You can look at it in a in a more objective way. And the way to do it to my perspective is to measure everything.
And if you measure things and you compare it to the standard or to the standard that you want to be in and you're not there, don't try to find excuses. Try to understand why you're not there. And that's the most important tip I gave myself and I give others. Thanks. That's great. David, thanks so much for being with us. And I'm sure you're gonna continue conquering the mobility world now with from within Intel.
I can't wait to you know, get my autonomous taxi in the movie app, and be handed over to another transportation team. Thanks so much. You're welcome.