Austin Russell (Luminar) - Behind the Scenes of a Mega-Unicorn

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Stanford eCorner

Journey, Startups, Education, Stanford, Culture, Strategy, Stanford University, Entrepreneurship, Business, Life Lessons, Thought Leadership, Creativity, Etl, Challenges, Leadership, Innovation, Founders

4.4 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Austin Russell is the founder and CEO of Luminar, the 27 year old global leader in automotive lidar hardware and software technology. Under Russell’s leadership, Luminar has developed the first lidar and software technology capable of power producing autonomous vehicles, has amassed over 50 commercial partners including the majority of the world’s largest automakers, and went public on the Nasdaq in December 2020 with a current market valuation of approximately $7 billion. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer Ravi Belani, Russell explains how he put his company on the path to enormous success through unconventional choices and a strong core mission.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Who you are defines how you build.
0:05.0	This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader series.
0:09.0	Brought you by Stanford E-Corner.
0:13.0	Who you are defines how you build.
0:18.0	Welcome Stanford and YouTube communities to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders
0:25.6	Seminar, brought to you by STVP, the Entrepreneurship Engineering Center in the School of Engineering at Stanford,
0:32.6	and Basis, the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students. Today we are thrilled to have Austin Russell here to ETL.
0:42.3	Austin is the 27-year-old founder and CEO of Luminar.
0:48.3	How many people have heard of Luminare?
0:50.3	Oh, fantastic. Okay, so as you guys, as many of you already know, Luminar is a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company that makes LIDAR sensors, hardware and software sensors for the automotive industry. LIDAR, as you know, is an amalgamation of two words, light and radar. It is using potonics and optics for 3D visualization and analytics and intelligence.
1:14.6	Now, before I give Austin's formal introduction, let me explain why I am so excited to have Austin here with us today.
1:22.6	As you guys may know, the essence of entrepreneurship, the definition of entrepreneurship comes from Harvard Business School Professor Howard Stevenson.
1:31.3	He's generally the one that people use when they're citing academically.
1:35.5	And he defines entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity without regard for resources controlled.
1:42.6	Or said another way, it's about pursuing opportunity unbridled by constraints,
1:48.0	where really the vision is your currency and your energy source to overcome obstacles that might be in your way.
1:56.0	And true entrepreneurs can unlock locks and overcome challenges that others can't,
2:00.0	and they're usually
2:01.1	driven by a vision that transcends the obstacles in front of them. For me, Austin is a quintessential
2:08.2	modern-day entrepreneur, and it's not just because his pursuits are entrepreneurial,
2:12.9	it's because his pursuits are deeply contrarian, and in the pursuit of that, the entrepreneurship side stands out an even starker relief.
2:22.1	So let me just set the stage for that as I introduce Austin.
	...

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