07-29-2026IMPACT COUNCIL

I build self-driving trucks. Don’t build a self-driving company

AI is good enough to run your company, which is exactly why you shouldn’t let it.

[Photo: Getty Images]

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Right now, investors are overrun with pitch decks promising companies that run themselves. Agents work the operations and the AI layer does the managing. The pitch promises a startup will hit a billion dollars with 12 people and a swarm of bots. The premise is always the same. Humans are the bottleneck, and the machines are finally ready to take them out of the loop. While I should be the last person to argue against self-driving companies, I can’t help but be truthful: Driving a company is nothing like driving a truck.

The important difference is the destination. A truck always has one. You know the address before you turn the key, and the whole job is getting there safely, on time, and in a cost-efficient manner. A company has no such address. Where is a company supposed to be going? That is just a slighter version of the oldest questions we have: Who are we, where did we come from, and where are we going? The going........

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