'Store closing' sale launched at Parachute's only Twin Cities location
Another retailer appears to be leaving The Galleria, with home essentials brand Parachute set to depart three years after opening its doors.
Signs advertising "store closing" discounts were spotted at the store on Thursday.
The store was the first location in Minnesota for the California-based chain and it was also the largest in the company's history at the time. The retailer quickly gained a cult following for its bedding, and grew to include bedroom, kitchen, bath, and baby accessories.
News of the closure comes as several other high-profile tenants have left The Galleria to go across the street to Southdale Center. High-end retailers David Yurman, Tiffany & Co, and Louis Vuitton are making the move to Southdale's new luxury wing, which opened on June 12.
Parachute sells goods online, and has brick and mortar locations in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Texas and New York.
This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.
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New York Post
28 minutes ago
- New York Post
Here's why delivery drones may soon become the new standard in the US
Delivery drones are so fast that they can zip a pint of ice cream to a customer's driveway before it melts. Yet the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved commercial home deliveries with drones, the service has mostly been confined to a few suburbs and rural areas. Advertisement That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator's line of sight and therefore over longer distances. 6 The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator's line of sight and therefore over longer distances. AP A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers and certification as an air carrier to deliver packages. Advertisement While the rule is intended to streamline the process, authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households. Walmart's multistate expansion Walmart and Wing, a drone company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently provide deliveries from 18 Walmart stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, they expect to expand to 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa, Florida. Advertisement After launching its Prime Air delivery service in College Station, Texas, in late 2022, Amazon received FAA permission last year to operate autonomous drones that fly beyond a pilot's line of sight. The e-commerce company has since expanded its drone delivery program to suburban Phoenix and has plans to offer the service in Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, and Kansas City. 6 Authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households. AP The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade. Drone maker Zipline, which works with Walmart in Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, began making deliveries to hospitals in Rwanda in 2016. Advertisement Israel-based Flytrex, one of the drone companies DoorDash works with to carry out orders, launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017. But Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said drone delivery has been in 'treading water mode' in the U.S. for years, with service providers afraid to scale up because the regulatory framework wasn't in place. 'You want to be at the right moment where there's an overlap between the customer demand, the partner demand, the technical readiness, and the regulatory readiness,' Woodworth said. 'I think that we're reaching that planetary alignment right now.' 6 The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade, with companies like DoorDash that launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017. AP Flying ice cream and eggs DoorDash, which works with both Wing and Flytrex, tested drone drop-offs in rural Virginia and greater Dallas before announcing an expansion into Charlotte. Getting takeout food this way may sound futuristic, but it's starting to feel normal in suburban Brisbane, Australia, where DoorDash has employed delivery drones for several years, said Harrison Shih, who leads the company's drone program. 'It comes so fast, and it's something flying into your neighborhood, but it really does seem like part of everyday life,' Shih said. Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane. Advertisement Walmart said the top items from the more than 150,000 drone deliveries the nation's largest retailer has completed since 2021 include ice cream, eggs, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. Wing's drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds. Advertisement They can travel up to 12 miles round-trip. One pilot can oversee up to 32 drones. Zipline has a drone that can carry up to 4 pounds and fly 120 miles round-trip. Some drones, like Amazon's, can carry heavier packages. Advertisement Once an order is placed, it's packaged for flight and attached to a drone at a launch site. The drone automatically finds a route that avoids obstacles. A pilot observes as the aircraft flies to its destinations and lowers its cargo to the ground with retractable cords. Risks and rewards of commercial drones Shakiba Enayati, an assistant professor of supply chain and analytics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, researches ways that drones could speed the delivery of critical health supplies like donated organs and blood samples. Advertisement The unmanned aircraft offer some advantages as a transport method, such as reduced emissions and improved access to goods for rural residents, Enayati said. But she also sees plenty of obstacles. Right now, it costs around $13.50 per delivery to carry a package by drone versus $2 for a traditional vehicle, Enayati said. Drones need well-trained employees to oversee them, and can have a hard time in certain weather. Drones can also have mid-air collisions or tumble from the sky. But people have accepted the risk of road accidents because they know the advantages of driving, Enayati said. 6 Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane, according to reports. AP She thinks the same thing could happen with drones, especially as improved technology reduces the chance for errors. Woodworth added that U.S. airspace is tightly controlled, and companies need to demonstrate to the FAA that their drones are safe and reliable before they are cleared to fly. Even under the proposed new rules, the FAA would set detailed requirements for drone operators. 'That's why it takes so long to build a business in the space. But I think it leads to everybody fundamentally building higher quality things,' Woodworth said. Others worry that drones may potentially replace human delivery drivers. Shih thinks that's unlikely. 6 Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. AP One of DoorDash's most popular items is 24-packs of water, Shih said, which aren't realistic for existing drones to ferry. 'I believe that drone delivery can be fairly ubiquitous and can cover a lot of things. We just don't think it's probable today that it'll carry a 40-pound bag of dog food to you,' Shih said. The view from the ground in Texas DoorDash said that in the areas where it offers drone deliveries, orders requiring the services of human delivery drivers also increase. That's been the experience of John Kim, the owner of PurePoke restaurant in Frisco, Texas. Kim signed on to offer drone deliveries through DoorDash last year. He doesn't know what percentage of his DoorDash customers are choosing the service instead of regular delivery, but his overall DoorDash orders are up 15% this year. Kim said he's heard no complaints from drone delivery customers. 'It's very stable, maybe even better than some of the drivers that toss it in the back with all the other orders,' Kim said. For some, drones can simply be a nuisance. When the FAA asked for public comments on Amazon's request to expand deliveries in College Station, numerous residents expressed concern that drones with cameras violated their privacy. Amazon says its drones use cameras and sensors to navigate and avoid obstacles but may record overhead videos of people while completing a delivery. Other residents complained about noise. 'It sounds like a giant nagging mosquito,' one respondent wrote. Amazon has since released a quieter drone. But others love the service. 6 Masslie Arias, of DoorDash, prepares to load a delivery package on a hovering drone Thursday, July 31, 2025, in Frisco, Texas. AP Janet Toth of Frisco, Texas, said she saw drone deliveries in Korea years ago and wondered why the U.S. didn't have them. So she was thrilled when DoorDash began providing drone delivery in her neighborhood. Toth now orders drone delivery a few times a month. Her 9-year-old daughter Julep said friends often come over to watch the drone. 'I love to go outside, wave at the drone, say 'Thank you' and get the food,' Julep Toth said.
Bloomberg
30 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Wealth: Lee Ainslie
00:00 Throughout our 31 year history, we've been very focused on shorting individual stocks that we believe will underperform the market and add value through that underperformance. That ability to have a fresh perspective take in the new information, even when things aren't going the way that you'd expect her to hope is going to impact virtually every industry we can think of. The ainslie's path to the hedge fund world was anything but conventional, with no early ties to finance. He set his sights on business and applied to Stanford. Luckily, they said, Leave. We don't share your interest in our attending Stanford Business School, so I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Director of Missions of Stanford. That rejection led Ainslie to the University of North Carolina, where he crossed paths with legendary investor Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management and one of the pioneers of the hedge fund industry. Ainslie was among the first tiger cubs joining the firm as a technology analyst. It wasn't long before he decided to forge his own path. It was a Friday, he said. I was crazy. It was a subtle way to put it, had some other adjectives involved, and I came back Monday morning and told them my mind had not changed. In 1993, at just 28 years old, Ainslie founded Maverick Capital with backing from the Wylie family and a belief in deep fundamental research for simply trying to understand the dynamics behind different stocks. Identify those that we think are long term winners and long term losers. Today, Maverick manages more than $10 billion across both public and private investments. And while the hedge fund world has evolved significantly over the years, Ainslie's disciplined approach has remained constant. That ability to have a fresh perspective, even when things aren't going the way that you'd expect her to hope, really a critical part of the business. Ainslie has embraced innovation, including AI, but still sees steady leadership and deep moats as the key to enduring success. I've always felt good management team delivered good surprises and bad name teams deliver bad surprises from Tiger Cubs and maverick founder. Ainslie has built a firm and a legacy grounded in research discipline and having a long term view. First of all, I'm a very competitive person and I see the scoreboard every hour and it's one of the few jobs where you know exactly how you and your team is doing. Secondly, it's one of the few jobs where I get to learn every day. So when people think of hedge funds, they often think of very complicated algorithms and people trading every hour on the hour, every minute on the minute. You have built a hedge fund that's very successful, but it tends to hold on the stocks for very, very long periods of time, which is different than some of your peers. So can you explain your investment philosophy? Well, the term hedge funds has obviously come to represent a wide range of different strategies. Many ways to skin a cat, and you're correct, many use a lot of exotic instruments. Many are very trading oriented. By contrast, we've always thought of ourselves as investors. We're simply trying to understand the dynamics behind different stocks, identify those that we think are long term winners and long term losers, and then hopefully recognize discrepancies between our views and the views of the market and to take advantage of those. And so to do that requires a great deal of intensive, fundamental research, which doesn't really lend itself to a lot of turnover or a lot of trading. But we really want to get to know our companies quite well. And to your point, we typically are pretty long term holders. When you buy a stock, you typically hold it for three years or so, something like that. Well, the average ends up being a little over one year. If you look at one of our largest positions today, we've owned it for eight years and indeed we first bought it in 2000, have owned it for the majority of the time since 2000. So our core holdings end up typically being multiyear holdings, but there are a lot of shorter term investments as well sometimes because you recognize you've made a mistake, sometimes because others see that some of the qualities that you're excited about the stock in the first place. And so that difference in what you view as the value with the market view, the value has shrunk to the point you think there are more attractive opportunities elsewhere, but you also short stocks as well, which is more complicated than buying long, I think. But tell me why you short stocks. Does that make it more difficult to talk to CEOs when you're shorting their companies? So in our core hedge funds, we try to maintain a balance of long and short investments for our hedge fund. Shorting is a really important part of that strategy. It can be more challenging for a few reasons. You're absolutely correct. Management teams are a little less excited to talk to you. They think you're shorting their stock. Unlimited losses versus the long side. The worst I can do is lose 100%. On the short side, you can lose a multiple of your investment. You're never writing your winners. On the long side, I'm right. That position becomes larger. On the short side is when I'm wrong, that position becomes larger so and I can go on. So there are a lot of challenges shorting stocks, and I think that's one of the aspects of Maverick that has distinguished us from many of our peers is throughout our 31 year history, we've been very focused on shorting individual stocks that we believe will underperform the market and add value through that underperformance. And as a result of maintaining that balance, we really have not had a lot of correlation to the markets over time. Now, as we talk, the big, beautiful bill has passed Congress and the president signed it. How does that affect you one way or the other? Do you really care about things in the big, beautiful bill or really you're not a macro kind of investor. So inflation raid, interest rates, the value of the dollar is not a big deal to you. Is that fair or not? It's certainly fair for the large majority of the time again. But by being hedged and thinking about our factor biases, etc., hopefully we're not really influenced in a significant way by those macro variables. Having said that, there are periods of time where those macro variables are extraordinarily important to the stock market into individual stocks, the financial crises, inflation and rapid rise in rates and 22 discussion of tariffs, I think it'd be really hard to invest and just have your head in the sand and not understand the ramifications of that. Do you mostly invest in the United States or do you actually invest a lot outside as well? We've been international investors from from day one. Indeed, if you look at this year, emerging markets has been the biggest driver of our returns. So as you look at the US economy today, we're not in a recession, unemployment's low, inflation is coming down. Do you have a big worry about the US economy? Certainly a worry. I don't. I wouldn't say I think it's likely. There are two individuals, Ben Silver and David taken Shinseki, who had been in charge of running the public bond for over four years. Now they are a little less concerned than I am about the impact of tariffs. I still have in the back of my mind that we could see the double whammy of both a slowdown in growth with some inflationary impacts as well. But we'll have to see how that plays out. So when you're looking at a company that you want to buy and the staff comes in and recommends it and so forth, one of the key things you're looking for a good CEO, a kind of moat around it. So there's not a lot of competition, let's say, that can overcome the company. What are the things you most look for in a company you're going to buy long on? So at her 30th annual meeting a couple of years ago and at the annual meeting, we showed some of our very original presentation we put together back in. In 94. While we worked really hard year in and year out to improve our abilities, what we're looking for in different investments or investment strategy has been very consistent throughout. Yes. Moats We're trying to think about different secular trends that should persist competitive dynamics among different companies. The quality of management teams and I think this is one area we probably put much more emphasis on meaning. I've always felt good management team delivered good surprises and bad management teams deliver bad surprises. And that really that's that's endured. Looking for those characteristics has served us well for a long time. So the hardest thing in the investment world I often think is admitting a mistake. At what point do you say we made a mistake and we're getting out? How long do you give it before you say this isn't working? I really think that's one of the most critical differentiators between great investors and just mediocre investors. Because on one hand, you have to have confidence in conviction. In all the work you've done, the decision you've made, that if you have a little stumble here and there, if you immediately are selling out, you're never really going to fully realize the depth of potential long term success. And then on the other hand, if you're stubborn and you refuse to admit I'm wrong, the more that you know, you continue to think, the more controlling and I'm always right, then you'll get caught in some very, very difficult positions over time. So that ability to have a fresh perspective take in the new information, even when things aren't going the way that you'd expect you to hope and to really understand from this price point today is just going to be one of the most compelling investments or not much easier said than done, but really a critical part of the business. So the hedge fund world, since you've first joined it with the Julian Robertson and since you started Maverick, how has it really changed? When I first was at Tiger, you know, having a two martini lunch was a pretty, pretty common experience for the older crowd. I think you showed up in the mail, so it was a much less competitive, slower period for for in the investing world. Starting a hedge fund today, I would argue, is much easier because back in 93 when we started, there were a lot of things we basically built from scratch and people just did not have these systems. And the fact I had a background in technology and engineering was very helpful today. The drop of a hat a prime broker can boom, put on your desktop, sophisticated risk management systems, all the trading systems you need, etc., etc., etc.. Having said all that, I would argue being successful today is much more challenging because the world is far more competitive. So artificial intelligence has come along and everybody's excited about it. Though people five years ago barely knew what it was. Is there something you think might succeed Artificial intelligence as a next best thing that people are going to be excited about in the investment world or something else in the technology world in the next five years or so? The day the iPhone was introduced, Nokia and Apple both had market caps of $80 billion. Five years later, Apple was 400 billion. Nokia was 20 billion. So 20 fold difference. That's just one small example of the impact innovation can have. Air is going to impact virtually every industry we can think of. So when I think of the next steps, they actually, in my mind, will be driven. I think robotics will be a very real, very pervasive part of our lives. Something without self-driving cars or something doing your laundry. A lot of this is require energy in abundance. It is virtually free, but I think the rate of change is accelerating and it's almost hard to imagine where we would be in ten or 20 years. It was a Friday, he said. I was crazy. I had some other adjectives involved and asked me to consider it over the weekend, and I came back Monday morning and told him my mind had not changed. Let's talk about your own background and then how you came to start Maverick. So where were you born? Born in Alexandria, Virginia, outside of D.C.. What did your parents do? My father was a teacher, and eventually, as the head of two different schools, my mother was an accountant. So you went to college in Virginia? I did. At the University of Virginia. Correct. And then what did you do after you graduated? I was an engineering student undergrad, and I went on to be a consultant on the technology side right after college. And then you decided to go to business school? I did. And you applied to Stanford Business School? I did. And what did they say? Luckily, they said, Lee, we don't share your interest in our attending Stanford Business School. I say luckily, because as a result, I went to University of North Carolina for business school. There I was asked to work with a board on a couple of different things, and there was a board member named Gene Robertson who ran the Tiger Fund at that point in time. Tiger had not really hard business for students. I had developed an interest in stocks when I was in eighth grade, and it was still my my hobby at that point in time. So, Joy, I spent a lot of time talking about stocks. And for me, it was like talking about basketball. Michael Jordan I just thought this was so amazing, but it never really crossed my mind. It could be a job opportunity. As a matter of fact, I had accepted a job to go work at Goldman Sachs in about two weeks. After that, I got a phone call from Jordan asking if I would consider working there, which I ended up doing. And to me that was one of the great breaks in my life. So I owe a great debt of gratitude to the director of missions of Stanford. So he went to work for Julian Robertson, who was a one of the leading hedge fund people at a time when there weren't that many hedge funds. So what did you specialize in there? Well, the first three months I was a journalist and spent a lot of time on consumer and retail. But after a few months, they asked me to lead the technology investing efforts. And so the rest of my career there was focused on tech. And did you have mentors there to help you? There's a guy named Steve Mandel who so a very good friend. He joined Tiger just a couple months before I did, but I was coming out of business school when he had already been Goldman for eight years. And he took me under his wing and I got that promotion to take over the technology sector rather quickly, which is really on the advice of Steve to join. So Steve's another person in a great deal, too. So after three years there and you're doing well, presumably Julian likes you. Steve Mandel's mentoring you, You go to Julian and say, You know what, I'm going to start my own hedge fund. What prompted you to leave after just three years? It was a Friday. He said I was crazy. It was a subtle way to put it, had some other adjectives involved and asked me to consider it over the weekend. And I came back Monday morning and told him my mind had not changed. And that was a really tough conversation, has joined, had been incredibly generous, kind, gave me this great opportunity. But really in hindsight I was a little naive and probably a little arrogant, and I had probably a little more confidence I should have in my abilities to succeed. But thanks to a family called the Wiley family, Sam and Charles Wiley, they were willing to back me and gave me an opportunity to start something all my own. So at Maverick today, are you responsible for every investment decision? Do you have to approve every single investment decision that's made? So I gave up day to day responsibility on the public side about 13 years ago. And for the last four plus years, Ben Silver and David Jetski have had those responsibilities and they did an amazing job. On the private side, Early stage investments have been led by David Singer for the last 20 years, and Maverick Ventures is our second important business. And then the third business today is Maverick Silicon, which is a fund that will focus on late stage or is focusing on late stage private companies trying to address the insatiable demand for compute infrastructure. And that's led by Andrew Hoffman. So those individuals making all their day to day investment decisions. So today your job is to oversee your professionals, but do once a week to review the portfolio and say, this is good, this is not good, or how do you oversee this? We have in-depth discussions. We officially meet every two weeks on the public side, and I'm not shy to weigh in and give you advice when I think there's something that we may want to think about twice. But again, a great confidence and respect for those individuals and don't really want to be over their shoulder nit picking day in and day out. Parents are often concerned these days that their child won't get a job at places like Maverick or Google or Goldman if they don't major in a STEM. Subjects science, technology, engineering, math. Do you have a view that it makes a difference what your major and before you hire somebody, I think five years ago or three years ago, I would have said STEM is something you really need to give serious consideration to. I think is changing that. You know, in a lot of the disciplines that are very helpful from a STEM background age probably already doing quite effectively. As a son of an educator, I've been involved a lot of different schools. I've been very proactive in working with schools, making sure they're not fighting. I don't make it illegal. You're now I'll use it. On the contrary. Teach them how to use it. Embrace A.I., because the folks coming out of college now and over the next several years, if A.I. is not a tool that they're very comfortable with and they're not able to add value in other ways. They're going to have a tough career. So I think the world is changing quickly in this regard as we speak. I think we'll be at the point at some point in the future where A.I. itself will make the investment decisions for hedge funds like yours, where you won't need as many people. You just rely on some kind of A.I. or you don't think we're going to get there any time soon. So again, hedge funds means a lot of things. So I think it depends on the strategy a bit. And one of the reasons we've always been very equity focused, whether it's private or public, is obviously that that's the very end of the value stack of the enterprise value. So little changes in enterprise value can be big changes in the equity and the companies run by people. And so understanding people, their motivations, their integrity, the quality of their decisions, etc. is such a valuable skill. And I would argue that is going to be the last frontier where humans will still do marginally better job. Back to your question. I hope that's true for ten, 20, 30 years, but I don't think will be true forever. A very competitive person. And it's one of the few jobs where you know exactly how you and your team was doing. I get to learn every day. What are you looking for in young talent that comes out of business schools or has been already at another hedge fund? I'd say a few things, and some of these are probably a bit obvious, but sense of dedication, competitiveness. Obviously, you need to be rather bright. Emotional consistency, we call it. So the highs weren't that high, The lows weren't that low for us. A team orientation and interpersonal skills are really important, and so Maverick has a much stronger team culture than I think many hedge funds. And we we succeed or we don't succeed as a team or not really focus is on an individual's contributions in the investment business. If you're right, meaning I've picked a long that outperforms market or short that underperforms market 55% of the time you're now one of the best in history. That's as good as you can do, which by definition means you're wrong 45% of the time, even if you're really good. So suppose somebody comes to you and says, I like working at Mavericks, very nice, but I want to start my own hedge fund, not unlike what you did. You throw them out the door right away or you tell them not to do this or it's not that easy to do. Or what? What happens? Well, we always encourage folks to be very open with us, whether they're thinking about starting their own fund or going to a competitor or whatever it may be, just because, A, the earlier they tell us, the more we can prepare for a potential departure. But more importantly, it really gives us the opportunity to give them so hopefully valuable feedback. I've had discussions where people have laid out an opportunity, you know, stand up and hug them and congratulate them. I'm excited for them. I've had discussions where I've said, Oh gosh, you don't really understand what you're yourself into here. Let me walk through. Someone does want to potentially start a fund. I certainly understand that. I went through that myself and will try to be supportive. I root for my quote unquote competitors and certainly someone that's leaving Maverick. I'm going to do everything I can to help them be successful. So if somebody asks you what is the most common mistake that investors, average investors make, what would you say that is the world has become? And I think this is really true on the professional investment side in the world of pod model multi Strats, most of those investors have very, very short time horizons and they're very worried about my performance today and this week, which makes it really difficult to take a step back and think about where is the world going to be in five or ten years and how is this stock going to fit into that. And then secondly, you mentioned a bit earlier just underestimating how important management teams are. You can have a great stock with great fundamentals, great competitive advantages, a deep moat, etc., etc., etc.. But you put in a poor CEO who makes bad decisions already in capital allocations regarding how he promotes managers, others, etc. etc., etc. that you may have a very bad message on your hands even though the fundamentals were in your favor. What is the best investment advice anybody ever gave to you? So two things keep sort of be repetitive, but the importance of management, that was something that Julian really harped on. But secondly, just the importance of integrity. So when you're building relationships with the people I work with, with brokers or on Wall Street, certainly with management teams, perhaps most important, our investors, if you're not constantly conducting yourself and that's not true for me, but every member of a firm with the utmost integrity and thinking about the ethics of every decision you're making, that that doesn't really work in the investment business, your career will be a short one. So if somebody said to you, I got $1,000,000, I'm 30 years old, I don't really have to have a current yield, I'm happy to take some capital appreciation risk. What would you recommend somebody do with $1,000,000 or with $100,000? I think on the long term basis, you certainly want equity exposure. I personally think a little bit about it earlier with hedge funds. Likewise active management on the long only side, there are a number of active managers that can do quite well and I think outperform the market over time. Majority do not. Therefore, if I'm investing a small amount of money, are probably looking to index fund and I think a lot of has to do with your risk tolerance, your age, your future needs of that capital. To what degree it's an a more conservative fixed income strategy versus equities. What's the future of Maverick that you intend to run it as you are now for the next ten years, 20 years, you're going to expand it? Well, I'm certainly hope my role for at least ten years. We'll see. But make it 20. I'm very fortunate that we have we covered on this earlier, but three different business units, each of which are led by very capable individuals. And so they'll be in place for a very long time. I love what I do. I'm very engaged, I think, at golf, so I don't really know what else I would do. So I plan on being the seat for quite a while. This will sound corny, but, you know, collecting fond memories with family and friends is probably what I focus on more than anything else. What is the excitement that gets you out of the bed every morning to be a hedge fund investor? I'll say three things. First of all, I'm a very competitive person and I see the scoreboard every hour, and it's one of the few jobs where you know exactly how you and your team is doing. I get to learn every day about companies, industries, macro influences. I'm very fortunate, work with these really talented, nice people that I find stimulating and fun to be with.
The Verge
30 minutes ago
- The Verge
Tensor wants to be the first company to sell you a ‘robocar' — but who are they?
A new company is launching today that claims to have developed 'the first volume-produced, consumer-ready autonomous vehicle — designed from the ground up for private ownership at scale.' The company is called Tensor, and it describes itself as a 'leading AI agentic company' that's based in San Jose, California — but little information exists online about who or what may be behind this new effort. But according to a trademark application filed last April, Tensor is affiliated with AutoX, a Chinese autonomous vehicle developer with operations in the US as well as its home country. In its announcement, Tensor makes no mention of AutoX or China. The company says it's 'dedicated to building agentic products that empower individual consumers' and that the Tensor robocar is its flagship product. It also claims to have offices in Barcelona, Singapore, and Dubai. It's likely that AutoX spunoff its US-based team as Tensor to get around government restrictions on Chinese software in vehicles. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions about its affiliation with AutoX. According to a trademark application filed last April, Tensor is affiliated with AutoX, a Chinese autonomous vehicle developer with operations in the US as well as its home country. AutoX has been testing its vehicles in and around San Jose since 2016. It's not as well-known as some of the other autonomous vehicle startups in the US and China. The company was founded in 2016 by former Princeton professor Jianxiong Xiao, a specialist in 3D learning, computer vision, and robotics (who also apparently goes by 'Professor X,' according to LinkedIn). Since then, AutoX has nabbed several high-profile investors, including China's Dongfeng Motor Group and e-commerce giant Alibaba. In 2020, it partnered with Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) to launch a robotaxi service in China. In 2022, it opened a robotaxi operation center in San Francisco with the goal of launching a commercial service — though it has yet to obtain the appropriate permits to do so. For the permits it does have, the company appears to have filed its rebranded name with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Tensor is one of only six companies, along with Waymo and Zoox, with a permit to test fully driverless vehicles on public roads in California. Now it appears to be pivoting from robotaxis to 'robocars.' Tensor says its vehicle is 'the first and only L4 autonomous vehicle available for personal ownership.' It says it will launch in the US, Europe, and the Middle East starting in 2026. 'When the world shifts… how will you move?' said Amy Luca, chief marketing officer at Tensor, in a press release. 'We are building a world where individuals own their personal AGI agents, enhancing freedom, privacy and autonomy. With Tensor, we're introducing the world's first personal Robocar, ushering in the era of AI defined vehicles. This isn't a car as we know it. It's an embodied personal agent that moves you.' (Luca is the former executive vice president and head of social at Monks, a marketing firm based in London, according to her LinkedIn.) 'When the world shifts… how will you move?' In using buzz words associated with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, Tensor appears to be trying to insert itself into the hype-strewn world of chatbots and artificial general intelligence. After all, autonomous vehicles are so last decade. Tensor's robocar appears to be no slouch, either. It comes with an array of high-tech sensors, including '37 cameras, 5 lidars, 11 radars, 22 microphones, 10 ultrasonic sensors, 3 IMUs, GNSS, 16 collision detectors, 8 water-level detectors, 4 tire-pressure sensors, 1 smoke detector, and triple-channel 5G.' Of course, those sensors won't be cheap, though Tensor did not put a price on its future robocar. Several companies have designs to sell privately owned autonomous vehicles, but none have achieved that milestone. Tesla CEO Elon Musk keeps promising that the 'unsupervised' version of the company's Full Self-Driving feature is just around the corner, but he has yet to deliver. GM has also said that it will eventually sell fully driverless cars to customers. But there remains a thicket of cost and liability concerns that will need to be ironed out before any company can take that next from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Andrew J. Hawkins Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Autonomous Cars Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Transportation
