Podcast
Disruption Drive
Hosted by Hari Sripathi · EN
Welcome to your front-row seat to reimagining Mobility!
🚗✨ Join top innovators, engineers, and visionaries as we dive into the game-changing tech and bold ideas reshaping how we move, work, travel and commute.
Curious about how autonomous vehicles will revolutionize your daily rides? Wondering how AI is transforming factories, classrooms, and beyond? Or just want to stay ahead of the curve in a world of constant disruption?
Hit subscribe and buckle up—your journey to the future starts here!
16episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
A Robot Coworker on a Farm Near You (Kevin Leiter, COO Burro AI)
2w ago00:23:21Tap to summarizePhysical AI has often been explained as a story of labor replacement. My next guest isn't coming for the farmer’s job—he is building their newest coworker.The story of Physical AI has often been sold as one of labor replacement.But in the vineyards and raspberry fields, Burro is forging new paths - Autonomous systems that are rugged enough for the grit, affordable enough for the orchard, and smart enough to work side-by-side with a human crew.We are standing on the edge of a world where the best grapes you may eat depend on a robot having picked themThis episode on Disruption Drive, I am joined by Kevin Leiter, COO of Burro.AI to discuss the dirty, dusty, and brilliant reality of off-road farm autonomy.
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Parking the Autonomous Car (with Jim Gibbs, CEO Meter Feeder)
3w ago00:20:55Tap to summarizeWhile Goldman Sachs projects autonomous vehicles and robotaxis to grow at 90% CAGR, fleet experts generally agree the state of the art robot will be soon defeated by a metal kiosk on the curbside. The taxi cannot feed a coin slot and probably not download many consumer software that vary city to cuty- creating a very real likelihood of empty cars just circling around causing even more congestion while Municipalities lose money.My guest today is solving that problem - in the first week of April 2026, Meter Feeder delivered the first ever machine to machine, completely automated parking payment in the United States. I welcome Jim Gibbs, who is building the parking payments for the Future of Mobility
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Engineering the Open Road with Mapless AI (Jeff Johnson, CTO Mapless AI)
Apr 600:21:20Tap to summarizeWhile we chase the technological vision of Full Self Driving cars, millions of legacy driven vehicles already ply on our roads. Mapless AI isn’t waiting for a driverless future; they’re retrofitting today’s cars to be operated from afar, prioritizing resilient engineering and safe unit economics over integrated HD maps. My guest is working on turning existing fleets into remote-ready assets. He believes while giants build a new autonomous vehicle, a more pertinent task is the bridge to Autonomy for the existing vehicle. He is a Technology leader who has the stellar pedigree of the most important Engineering leaps in Autonomous Technologies: with leadership stints at Bosch, Apple and Uber ATG. And he is now a pioneer in Open Road remote access. Welcome Jeff Johnson, CTO of Mapless AI,.
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Silicon Meets Soil: Autonomy on the Farm (Tim Bucher, AgTonomy)
Mar 2900:23:42Tap to summarizeFor ten thousand years, the 'cutting edge' of civilization was tiny seeds with the promise of food sunk into the Earth. Farming is our oldest technology; it is the engine that created our calendars, our cultures, and our very survival. Today, we are standing at the very beginning of a digital revolution that promises to change the landscape of the earth as profoundly as the first plow. My next guest is perhaps the most strategic operator in automation because he bridges these two seemingly impossible worlds. He is also a veteran of the trenches of Silicon Valley. He has worked directly for the most impactful architects of our modern era: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell. But Tim is also a sixth generation farmer who carries the weight of Agricultural heritage in his blood. Tim Bucher is the CEO of Agtonomy, and he’s building the robots that will drive the farms of tomorrow.
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Bot Auto and the Profit First Playbook for Autonomous Trucking (Paul Lam, Bot Auto)
Mar 1800:28:47Tap to summarizeIn the autonomous vehicle industry, credibility has long anchored in safety. But while safety is non-negotiable, it’s also an intangible baseline to drive adoption. On the flip side, we see headlines dominated by miles driven and total revenue, metrics that often leave stakeholders wondering if the needle is being moved at all. Bot Auto has decided to bypass the vanity metrics to obsess over a single, measurable, tangible bottomline: Cost Per Mile. By building a 'Transportation as a Service' model, they aren't just aiming to be safer; they’re aiming to prove that the way to win the autonomy race is to make it both safer and cheaper than the status quo. Today, we're explore if this 'profit-first' philosophy is the key to unlocking true adoption. My guest Paul Lam, is CFO and Chief Strategy Officer at Bot Auto
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Building the Human Touch: Remotics Builds the Workforce for Autonomy (Sergio Oliveira, Remotics)
Mar 1100:19:18Tap to summarizeOn this podcast entirely focused on the massive Disruptions in Mobility, I always make it a point to ask: What does the "Human in the Loop" look like?My guest today is building the answer to that question. While the automation industries races to perfect Physical AI pouring Billions to make Technology smarter, Remotics is training the Human Behind it. In fact, they may be the first company we’ve featured that is guaranteed to create more jobs than they displace.Joining me is Sergio Oliveira, President and Chief Growth Officer of Remotics. His team leads a global service organization dedicated to implementing human intelligence at the very edge of Physical AI, ensuring that as machines move into our world, they do so with a human touch.
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Making Autonomy Work Where It is Needed the Most (Toby McGraw, Beep)
Mar 300:21:29Tap to summarizeThe traditional history of innovation follows a predictable script. New, transformative technology almost always starts as a luxury—a high-priced toy for early adopters. Eventually getting adopted as aspirational consumers surge. Beep flips that script. They take 'Space Age' technology of Autonomous Vehicles and putting it to work right now where it’s needed most: in our transit agencies, our universities, and our public squares. They are solving the 'clunky' problems of the 'Old World'—congestion, labor shortages, and accessibility—by making high-tech transit a public utility rather than a private privilege. I am joined today by Toby McGraw, Chief Revenue Officer at Beep and one of the foremost experts on Transport Systems
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Autonomy Begins Where the Roads End (Andy Sussman, Forterra)
Feb 2500:23:45Tap to summarizeWhile everyone’s looking at robotaxis on sunny boulevards, Forterra is busy where the asphalt ends. 🌲🪖 Forget predictable lane lines. We’re talking about "GPS-denied," high-consequence environments where "edge cases" aren't the exception—they’re the entire job description. From Defense to Commercial Heavy Logistics, Forterra is building autonomous systems for worlds where roads don't even exist and failure isn't an option. Joining me on this special is Andy Sussman, who leads Commercial Growth at Forterra. Andy’s career spans the trifecta of Trucking, Logistics, and Mapping (he even owns and sells ski resort maps—talk about navigating tough terrain!). ⛷️🗺️ He is exactly the person to explain why the future of autonomous fleets isn't just on our streets, but in the rugged frontiers where the GPS goes dark.
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Launch an Autonomous Car in One Day (Balint Pasztor, Diffuse Drive)
Feb 1700:21:03Tap to summarizeThe frontier to Mobility is currently blocked by a massive financial and technical bottleneck. Training an autonomous vehicle or any autonomous system on the infinite list of edge cases is prohibitively expensive and technically complex.And hence new market launches can often take more than a year. What if you could compress that entire year into twenty-four hours? I talk to Balint Pasztor from Diffuse Drive. Diffuse Drive is looking to bypass the physical data bottleneck through creating troves of photorealistic video replacing the grueling need for manual sensor processing.Could it just be the key to democratizing the AV industry?
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The Lifecycle of a Car (Hakan Dogu, ex-Renault, Renault Mitsubishi Nissan Alliance)
Feb 1200:36:08Tap to summarizeFor decades, the auto industry was obsessed with the moment of sale. You built it, sold it, and moved on.But the "one-and-done" era is dying. Today, the first purchase is just the opening actMy next guest is truly an expert on the Lifecycle of a Car. Hakan Dogu is widely considered one of the Top 0.1% of the most influential executives in the Auto industry. He previously served as the SVP Of Aftersales for the Renault group and the CEO of Renault Turkey and also helped form the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance where he pioneered the shift from volume to value. When Hakan sees a car, he does not see a price point, but looks at it insteas as a 15 year asset.
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