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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: As always, my focus is on exploring the intersection of

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Speaker 1: technology and business by having conversations with the most forward

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Speaker 1: thinking leaders. Throughout my career, I've covered everything from massive

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Speaker 1: parallel processing to advanced robotics, but what truly inspires me

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Speaker 1: are the stories of innovation and transformation. Today I got

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Speaker 1: to sit down and have a conversation with Cleven CEO

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Speaker 1: Sander Sebastian A. Gore, and his story went in a

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Speaker 1: different direction from what I expected. What if you identified

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Speaker 1: a technological need, not just a business imperative, but a

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Speaker 1: lofty goal that revolved around achieving significant technological innovation. And

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Speaker 1: then what if, in pursuit of this, you zeroed in

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Speaker 1: on a particular business case for the technology to serve

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Speaker 1: as your company's mission. I think it would be fair

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Speaker 1: to say that Cleven has followed such a path. But first,

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Speaker 1: what is Cleven. It's a company that develops autonomous and

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Speaker 1: teleoperated delivery vehicles intended to bring last mile solutions to customers.

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Speaker 1: Cleven developed both the hardware and the software needed to

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Speaker 1: provide this service and works with dozens of other companies

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Speaker 1: to create vehicles capable of navigating public roads safely and efficiently.

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Speaker 1: But these vehicles, while unmanned, aren't unsupervised. An operator can

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Speaker 1: monitor a vehicle or multiple vehicles from a remote center

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Speaker 1: of operations. To achieve this outcome, a lot of technology

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Speaker 1: needs to be in place, including a robust communications network

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Speaker 1: capable of sending information with very low latency. Clearly, Cleven's

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Speaker 1: methodology is made possible largely thanks to advancements in wireless communications.

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Speaker 1: I would chat with Sander about this and lots more

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Speaker 1: in a great conversation, But to get started, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to ask about Sander's own background, which would involve chatting

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Speaker 1: a little bit about planes. Sander, I want to welcome

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Speaker 1: you to our podcast, The Restless Ones. I'm very excited

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Speaker 1: to have you on the show. I'm curious how you

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Speaker 1: first got interested in technology in general.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here.

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Speaker 2: And I guess I started showing interest in technology actually

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Speaker 2: in the early two thousands when my dad introduced me

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Speaker 2: to airplanes, and I had the luxury to experience airplanes

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Speaker 2: and aviation and how they operate. What systems do airplanes

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Speaker 2: have on board? So I would say aviation showed me

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Speaker 2: the way what technology is all about and what it

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Speaker 2: can do. And ever since then, I've been interested not

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Speaker 2: only in aviation, but different forms of technology where and hardware.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I am so tempted to just have a

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Speaker 1: deep conversation about avionics and transponders. And in a previous

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Speaker 1: life I used to write documentation for airplane systems and

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Speaker 1: about the layout of all the cabling and the various

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Speaker 1: components within your typical aircraft. And I think it's an

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Speaker 1: amazing education in technology in general, because not only do

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Speaker 1: you learn about these basic components and how they all

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Speaker 1: work together, there were so many other technologies that rose

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Speaker 1: up in order to make it more efficient to create

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Speaker 1: sophisticated aircraft. For example, augmented reality. Maybe not a lot

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Speaker 1: of people know this, but augmented reality really got a

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Speaker 1: big start in learning how to lay out the cabling

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Speaker 1: systems inside an aircraft chassis so that the people who

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Speaker 1: were putting the aircraft together could see where they needed

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Speaker 1: to lay the various components.

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Speaker 2: They are related, I mean, redundancy, duplicated safety systems. They

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Speaker 2: all actually apply on autonomously. Because as well, and we

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Speaker 2: take great note of aviation actually, and when we come

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Speaker 2: to tell as supervision and teleoperation, this is also something

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Speaker 2: that the aviation industry is actually using by having air

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Speaker 2: traffic controllers who oversee a fleet of airplanes.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's an excellent point. You studied aviation management, you

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Speaker 1: earned degrees in that. I'm really curious what your journey

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Speaker 1: was like from the world of aviation toward solving last

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Speaker 1: mile challenges in the delivery space.

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Speaker 2: First of all, both industries are super difficult. It's extremely

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Speaker 2: difficult to run a profitable airline. And having come from

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Speaker 2: the airline industry, I can tell you that a profitable

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Speaker 2: airline is something that you don't see that often. And

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Speaker 2: now we are pioneering autonomous vehicle industry and it's as

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Speaker 2: difficult as airlines. I mean, we are laying the bricks

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Speaker 2: and we are putting down the foundation on which the

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Speaker 2: new industry can really exist. Abundance is vast and progress

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Speaker 2: is gradual. Put them together and it will take you

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Speaker 2: on a journey. And it's been a gradual journey so far.

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Speaker 2: Coming from the airlines establishing one of the largest and

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Speaker 2: first locker networks in Europe and in the US, and

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Speaker 2: it's been a progress so as new technologies emerge, we

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Speaker 2: take note and we try to implement them and pivot

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Speaker 2: and trial, and it's been a long kind of experiment,

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Speaker 2: but finding profitable business models in the meantime and in between.

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Speaker 1: To that end, I would love to get your definition

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Speaker 1: of the problem that cleven aims to solve.

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Speaker 2: So clever On is first and foremost a technology company

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Speaker 2: focusing on autonomous driving systems technology, and the hardware we

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Speaker 2: manufacture is an extension of the software. So I could

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Speaker 2: say that we are combining the best hardware and software

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Speaker 2: for sustainable future really by building physical and digital infrastrucructure

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Speaker 2: to make autonomous mobility a reality for industries worldwide. But

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Speaker 2: we have to start from somewhere, and we have chosen

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Speaker 2: the last mile space to be extremely underserved. It's one

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Speaker 2: of the biggest cost elements for companies operating in the

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Speaker 2: logistics space. Up to sixty to eighty percent of the

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Speaker 2: last mile cost is actually labor related cost. And at

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Speaker 2: the same time, we have the shortage of drivers ever

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Speaker 2: increasing volume of packages that need to be delivered. So

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Speaker 2: we have chosen this space specifically because it's difficult and

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Speaker 2: risky as well. So we see that if we solve

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Speaker 2: one of the most difficult pain points in the logistics chain,

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Speaker 2: then we have a really high likelihood of expanding that

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Speaker 2: technology to different sectors. So we are keeping our systems

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Speaker 2: in the inner city areas. The carriers are driving in

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Speaker 2: a safe manner, in neighborhoods, different communities, serving customers in

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Speaker 2: a polite, quiet, safe manner, and I think this is

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Speaker 2: really necessary to really get consumers acquainted with the technology,

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Speaker 2: get them feel comfortable with new technologies. I think starting

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Speaker 2: with the toughest task is somewhat risky, but it's also

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Speaker 2: really rewarding if we do solve it.

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Speaker 1: This is fascinating. So I see this as the approach

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Speaker 1: of defining a specific problem so that you can really

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Speaker 1: focus your efforts, identify where the challenges are, where the

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Speaker 1: bottlenecks are, and then engineer a solution to those And

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Speaker 1: from what it sounds like, it sounds like rather than

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Speaker 1: the open sandbox where everything is a possibility, it makes

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Speaker 1: it very difficult to focus on specifics. By identifying a

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Speaker 1: very particular challenge, this last mile delivery, you have defined

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Speaker 1: the context of what needs to happen, and from what

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Speaker 1: you're saying to me, it sounds like it's multifaceted. There's

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Speaker 1: the technology side of solving that problem, but there's also

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Speaker 1: the social side, getting the social buy in for autonomous vehicles,

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Speaker 1: which is its own problem. Then there's also I imagine

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Speaker 1: the political challenge as well, making sure that you are

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Speaker 1: able to meet with legislators and to achieve the agreement

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Speaker 1: from them to allow those vehicles to operate on public roads.

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Speaker 1: So it's a multi pronged kind of challenge you're tackling.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's no one who right now knows exactly what's

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Speaker 2: right and wrong. We have decided that we in addition

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Speaker 2: to deploying the vehicles, we want to educate. We want

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Speaker 2: to educate the communities. We want to educate the lawmakers

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Speaker 2: and tell them what is realistic and what is safe

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Speaker 2: and what is not. And we've been lucky to be

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Speaker 2: actually the first company in Europe in twenty twenty that

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Speaker 2: was allowed on the public roads with completely unmanned vehicles.

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Speaker 2: And we take the same approach as we take with

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Speaker 2: our customers when talking with authorities. Let's begin with a

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Speaker 2: very simple test, very simple demonstration and showcase, and then

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Speaker 2: gradually add more technology, add more autonomous striving capabilities, and

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Speaker 2: once everybody is comfortable with that setup, we can go

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Speaker 2: beyond and we can test more and more and show

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Speaker 2: what the vehicles are actually capable of when they are

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Speaker 2: given more permissions.

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Speaker 1: Basically excellent. So we're talking about a combination of autonomy

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Speaker 1: and teleoperation. I imagine that connectivity is an absolute foundational

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Speaker 1: technology for your approach. In order to have this teleoperative control,

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Speaker 1: you need to have something where you have no latency.

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Speaker 1: If you are operating a vehicle on a public street

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Speaker 1: and someone comes to a quick stop in front of you,

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Speaker 1: the tele operator needs to be able to respond in

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Speaker 1: kind in order to avoid an accident. So can you

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Speaker 1: talk a bit about how connectivity plays a part in

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Speaker 1: the operations of cleven at the stage you're at right.

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Speaker 2: Now, Connectivity is crucial for our services. We definitely need

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Speaker 2: a wide network coverage, especially in the US. We've been

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Speaker 2: really lucky to have a partnership now in place with

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Speaker 2: T Mobile, and this partnership enables us to expand rapidly

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Speaker 2: in the States. So the big question always is to

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Speaker 2: we have the necessary latency to offer our services in

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Speaker 2: a safe way, and the results so far are great.

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Speaker 2: Our latency today is around one hundred milliseconds, which is

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Speaker 2: actually faster than any person who takes decisions in the

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Speaker 2: real car. So I would say that our solution is

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Speaker 2: actually as safe or even safer than any normal person

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Speaker 2: driving on the roads. And by establishing those connectivity partnerships,

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Speaker 2: we are partnering with the best in class wireless providers

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Speaker 2: and they are crucial to enable us to scale our

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Speaker 2: mission to deliver the most reliable, safe, efficient autonomous delivery platform.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating with this approach to marriage of teleoperation and autonomy,

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Speaker 1: do you imagine that the future of autonomous vehicles will

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Speaker 1: be a hybrid where there will be this communication outside

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Speaker 1: the vehicle itself, or do you think that we are

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Speaker 1: going to focus more on an autonomous but fully siloed

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Speaker 1: vehicle that's kind of its own computer.

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Speaker 2: The network that you're describing. That requires a lot of

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Speaker 2: infrastructure investment, and it's not only one company that can

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Speaker 2: achieve that. In this case, it would have to be

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Speaker 2: a joint collaboration between connectivity providers, different technology companies that

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Speaker 2: really make five G and DIOT technologies scalable as well well.

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Speaker 1: And that kind is a great way to bring us

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Speaker 1: back to the solving of the last mile because As

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, the last mile for delivery is the most

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Speaker 1: difficult problem to solve. Can you talk a bit about

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Speaker 1: some of the work that Cleven has done with various

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Speaker 1: partners and how that has informed your approach to business

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Speaker 1: and how that has evolved since the company was formed.

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Speaker 2: Sure, so, we actually spent four or five years during

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Speaker 2: just silent R and D no one knew about us,

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Speaker 2: and we just popped up at the beginning of last year.

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Speaker 2: That's when we launched our third generation vehicle, and since

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Speaker 2: then we've managed to actually sign up large amount of

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Speaker 2: customers coming from both the logistics sector and retail as well.

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Speaker 2: Because we keep our manufacturing side of things in house,

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Speaker 2: we are also capable of designing the exact vehicle that

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Speaker 2: we want to use. And our vision was to have

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Speaker 2: a really lightweight vehicle, something that you cannot get from

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Speaker 2: any automotive OEM, and this has been well received by

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Speaker 2: the US legislators as well. We fit nicely in a

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Speaker 2: specific vehicle category and that has gained us access to

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Speaker 2: actually five states and we are actually making the first

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Speaker 2: steps to launch commercial services in the US. So we

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Speaker 2: can already see from multiple use cases that we are

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Speaker 2: not only matching the speed of the and the volume

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Speaker 2: of delivery, but we are also making it more affordable

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Speaker 2: for our customers.

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Speaker 1: Excellent. Can you maybe go into a little more detail

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Speaker 1: about those use cases.

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Speaker 2: Sure. We began testing with for example, DHL Express at

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Speaker 2: the beginning of last year. We were initially servicing dhl's

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Speaker 2: own offices in the cities, but pretty quickly realized that

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Speaker 2: we can actually go beyond and start servicing both P

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Speaker 2: to B and P two C customers. So today we

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Speaker 2: are actually driving as we speak on the public roads,

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Speaker 2: we are delivering packages. We are in fact scaling the

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Speaker 2: fleets as well. So it all began with just one

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Speaker 2: simple test, one vehicle, and now we are expanding the

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Speaker 2: fleets and thinking about expanding the operational domains and regions

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Speaker 2: as well in Europe, going beyond Estonia, starting operations in France.

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Speaker 2: In Germany, we just launched a delivery service in Harvest

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Speaker 2: near Dallas, where we are working with a company called Postnet.

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Speaker 2: We see great traction from many but now for us

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Speaker 2: as a company, it's the question of with whom we

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Speaker 2: work and how much will we scale at this current stage,

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Speaker 2: as we need to internally scale our company as well.

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Speaker 2: At the same time, So it's always this balancing act

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Speaker 2: how much we do and how fast we develop so

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Speaker 2: that the company can actually keep up with the development.

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Speaker 1: When you're looking to scale up and hire more people,

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Speaker 1: what are these skills that are most important to Cleven

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Speaker 1: when you're out scouting for talent.

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Speaker 2: We are actually a really unique company in a sense

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Speaker 2: as we have our own in house university or academy,

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Speaker 2: which we created a couple of years ago. So instead

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Speaker 2: of going out and trying to find the talent, we

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Speaker 2: are actually training young people to become megatronics engineers software developers,

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Speaker 2: and that's all happening in house. So even if we

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Speaker 2: go out and try to find top talent, they necessarily

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Speaker 2: don't have that practical experience. As I mentioned, the hardware

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Speaker 2: is just the extension of the software, so we need

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Speaker 2: people who can work with both hardware and software and

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Speaker 2: understand how the hardware operates as well. And inside our

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Speaker 2: company we have the luxury of putting those two together.

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Speaker 2: So the students who actually study with us right now,

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Speaker 2: they have a really high degree of practical experience. And

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Speaker 2: I would say that my ambition is actually to scale

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Speaker 2: the university and the education part even more in the

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Speaker 2: future by establishing perhaps a US academy and bringing the

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Speaker 2: know how from Europe, from Estonia to the US. So

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Speaker 2: I think what's lacking in the educational system right now

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Speaker 2: is really the practical side of things. And I see

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Speaker 2: that technology companies should be actually open to include students

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Speaker 2: in their everyday work and life and let them test

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Speaker 2: and let them engineer on the physical product itself.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing. I think that's a really inspiring approach toward

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Speaker 1: developing talent because, as we know, the skills you learn

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Speaker 1: in tackling something like this, those are the same skills

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Speaker 1: that are going to be useful in applications that go

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Speaker 1: well beyond even autonomous driving.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's much better to upskill people who

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Speaker 2: are interested in technology, and that way we get motivated,

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Speaker 2: eager to learn, people who want to contribute. In reality,

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Speaker 2: they're not just starter the paychecks. We are giving our

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Speaker 2: students like a quad pike to begin with, and telling

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Speaker 2: them that this quad pike needs to be remotely operated

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Speaker 2: by the end of the course, and together with us,

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Speaker 2: they are capable of achieving that. Right, So that's how

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Speaker 2: it goes, step by step.

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Speaker 1: I love that the vehicles themselves are these lightweight, smaller vehicles.

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Speaker 1: I was also really interested in the fact that they

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Speaker 1: are all electric vehicles, and I think that was a

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Speaker 1: fantastic decision. Was that something that you had made a

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Speaker 1: conscious decision early on, or was it driven by engineering

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Speaker 1: needs or was it a combination.

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Speaker 2: First of all, electric vehicles are in our case, actually

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Speaker 2: lighter than any combustion engine vehicles. Secondly, we saw the

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Speaker 2: emergence of green cities and the zero emission zones, so

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Speaker 2: we wanted definitely to have an electric vehicle which doesn't

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Speaker 2: consume a lot of electricity. I can tell you that

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Speaker 2: we only use forty two what hours per kilometer, which

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Speaker 2: is actually super low figure. Any normal electric car we'd

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Speaker 2: use two to three hundred what dours. So the cost

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Speaker 2: of driving the vehicle should be really low. We can

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Speaker 2: calculate that it's approximately a few cents per mile, and

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Speaker 2: actually it has been paying off because we now proved

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Speaker 2: and showed to the legislators and the government that we

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Speaker 2: are small, nimble, we drive at really low speeds, we

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Speaker 2: don't pollute.

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Speaker 1: And that kind of leads me to my last big question,

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Speaker 1: which is do you have any advice for business leaders

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Speaker 1: who find themselves needing to work with local or even

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Speaker 1: federal or countrywide legislators. What are the sort of approaches

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Speaker 1: that you found to be really effective when you are

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Speaker 1: dealing with people who aren't in the tech space, but

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Speaker 1: they are in the legislative space, and it's their duty

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Speaker 1: to protect citizens and landmarks and all of that.

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Speaker 2: I would say the most important thing is to establish

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Speaker 2: a communication, a friendly communication line, and show that the

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Speaker 2: technology is not a threat, it's actually beneficial for the communities.

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Speaker 2: And that's only possible if you just bring the technology

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Speaker 2: to them, demonstrate, let them test it themselves, and that

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Speaker 2: way kind of gain more trust. We show them how

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Speaker 2: we do it, why we do it, and let them

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Speaker 2: be like part of the roadmap. Let them be in

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Speaker 2: charge of deploying the vehicles and giving the permissions. In

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Speaker 2: some cases we allow the legislators to sit behind the wheel,

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Speaker 2: take the wheel, try to tell operate the vehicles, test

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Speaker 2: the latency, test the ADS systems, and once to get

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Speaker 2: the feel of it, they understand and they allow us

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Speaker 2: to do more.

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Speaker 1: Before I could let Sander go, I needed to ask

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Speaker 1: him one more thing. What's the best advice you have

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Speaker 1: ever received?

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Speaker 2: I think it might come from my dad who said

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Speaker 2: that if you want to do something and you really

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Speaker 2: believe in it, just do it first and then ask

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Speaker 2: permissions later. The idea here is that if you start

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Speaker 2: asking questions from the early on, at the idea stage,

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Speaker 2: then everybody will tell you that it's not possible. No,

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Speaker 2: it's not allowed, it's not permitted, technically impossible. But if

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Speaker 2: you just take the leap of faith and to the MVP,

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Speaker 2: then you have control and you have something to show.

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Speaker 2: And if you have something to show, you can communicate

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Speaker 2: that value to others. So begin with your belief in

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Speaker 2: what you're doing and just do it as a first step.

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Speaker 1: Wow, well, Sander, this has been a phenomenal conversation. I

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Speaker 1: wish I could stretch it out longer, but I respect

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Speaker 1: your time too much. Thank you so much for being

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Speaker 1: on the restless ones.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me Charlton.

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Speaker 1: Thanks again to Sander Sebastian Agure for joining the program today.

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Speaker 1: I admire the engineering focused approach Cleven takes to business. Clearly,

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Speaker 1: defining a problem and then formulating a solution gets right

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Speaker 1: to the very heart of engineering, and Sander's team have

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Speaker 1: taken this philosophy beyond the technical requirements of creating an

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Speaker 1: autonomous technology company. They use that same philosophy to identify

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Speaker 1: pain points in getting social buy in and in convincing

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Speaker 1: legislators to allow vehicles access to public roads. The solutions

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Speaker 1: may not always be as straightforward as swapping out one

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Speaker 1: sensor for another, but defining the problem clearly goes a

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Speaker 1: long way toward ideating a solution, and with Cleven's approach

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Speaker 1: to teleoperating, the need for a robust communications infrastructure is obvious.

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Speaker 1: It's only with access to high throughput, low latency connections

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Speaker 1: that such operations are even possible. And meanwhile, we inch

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Speaker 1: ever closer to a future in which autonomous vehicles can

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Speaker 1: become a reality beyond the test cases. I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode of The Restless Ones. Be sure to

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Speaker 1: join us for future episodes as I sit down with

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Speaker 1: more thought leaders in the tech and business sectors, and

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Speaker 1: be sure to check out our back catalog of episodes

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Speaker 1: to learn how Restless leaders aren't satisfied with doing something

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Speaker 1: just because that's how it's always been done. Until next time,

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland