will.i.am & Austin Russell: Mute the hype, amplify the product
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2024
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the biggest strikes against the tech industry is too much noise and not enough signal. But does it always pay to "show, not tell," — even about the most innovative of products? Austin Russell of Luminar Technologies believes so. At just 17 years old, Austin created revolutionary tech that would unlock autonomous driving in the future, and make safer passenger cars today. Almost as startling is how he kept his breakthrough close to his chest for five years — carefully choosing trusted team members, mentors, and industry partners before revealing his tech to the wider world. In this special episode guest-hosted by master hype-ologist will.i.am, Austin sheds light on his quiet approach to scaling, and the importance of letting the technology speak for itself.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi listeners, it's Reed. You're about to hear a special episode of Masters of Scale. |
| 0:07.0 | Our guest is Austin Russell, co-founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies. |
| 0:12.8 | His company develops autonomous driving technology |
| 0:15.8 | for companies like Volvo, Mercedes, |
| 0:18.0 | and over 50 commercial partners. |
| 0:20.1 | But we have another guest. |
| 0:21.9 | I'm thrilled to introduce our guest host, Will I am. |
| 0:26.3 | Will is no stranger to Masters of Scale. You might remember his own episode on how to make it epic. He also kicked off our two-part show |
| 0:36.2 | with President Barack Obama. You can find both in our show feed. Will is known |
| 0:41.8 | Austin for a while and he's the perfect guide to take you |
| 0:44.9 | through Austin's story and to share a theory of scale you can apply to your |
| 0:49.7 | entrepreneurial journey. Now on with the show. |
| 0:53.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. |
| 0:55.0 | You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 1:01.0 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of |
| 1:05.2 | Masters of Scale. Well I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding |
| 1:10.0 | into its own feed. We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent |
| 1:15.2 | issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. So search for rapid response |
| 1:20.6 | in your podcast player and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 1:25.0 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 1:27.0 | I had a stance, right? It was called the B-boy stance. |
| 1:31.0 | Back in the 80s, artist started off rapping on the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WaitWhat, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WaitWhat and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.