This is an interesting purchase for Amazon on a number of levels. Obviously they have a huge delivery fleet that could benefit from self driving vehicles. And a giant company like Amazon must love an opportunity with an enormous addressable market such as this one.
But the timing is interesting too IMHO. Amazon played the long game a little bit here and waited until self-driving technology was in the "trough of disillusionment" [1] to pounce on a promising startup. It saved itself billions of dollars in the process, let some of the pretenders fade away, and gave itself better odds of success.
Self-driving tech is still a slog though, and success is not guaranteed by any stretch. But I give them kudos for this.
But the timing is interesting too IMHO. Amazon played the long game a little bit here and waited until self-driving technology was in the "trough of disillusionment" [1] to pounce on a promising startup. It saved itself billions of dollars in the process, let some of the pretenders fade away, and gave itself better odds of success.
Self-driving tech is still a slog though, and success is not guaranteed by any stretch. But I give them kudos for this.
[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hy...