Luminar Technologies, an automotive technology company, provides sensor suites and software for passenger and commercial vehicles in the United States, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. The Company operates through two segments: Autonomy Solutions and Advanced Technologies and Services.
The Autonomy Solutions segment develops, manufactures and sells laser imaging, detection and ranging sensors, or lidars, and related perception and autonomy software solutions, primarily to Original Equipment Manufacturers in the automotive, commercial vehicle, Robotaxi and related industries.
The Advanced Technologies and Services segment develops application-specific integrated circuits, pixel-based sensors and advanced lasers, apart from designing, testing and providing consulting services for non-standard integrated circuits for use in the automotive and aerospace sectors, as well as for military and defence purposes. The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.
Luminar Technologies was founded by Austin Russell. Soon afterwards, Jason Eichenholz, a serial entrepreneur, joined the company in Orlando as Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder. The company spent its first five years in stealth mode.
Recently, 28-year-old Austin Russell was in the news, after he acquired an 82% stake in Forbes Global Media Holdings, a company that publishes Forbes magazine. The deal value is worth nearly USD 800 Million Dollars.
Who Is Austin Russell?
- Austin Russell was born and brought up in Newport Beach, California, United States
- At the age of 15, he applied for his first patent for a groundwater recycling system to reuse water from sprinklers
- His parents introduced him to laser entrepreneur Jason Eichenholz, who became Austin Russell’s mentor and joined Luminar as co-founder and chief technology officer
- At the age of 17, while he was in high school, Austin Russell founded Luminar Technologies
- After graduating from St. Margaret Episcopal School, he attended Stanford University for three months, taking courses in applied physics, but soon dropped out as he won USD 100,000 fellowship from the Thiel Fellowship in 2013
- Austin Russell also studied at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine
- He engineered and manufactured Luminar’s lidar components himself, rather than purchasing components from outside
- In December 2020, Austin Russell took the decision to make Luminar Technologies ‘public’, trading on the Nasdaq as LAZR
- In 2021, at the age of 25, he became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, as he owned 104.7 million shares, roughly one-third of Luminar’s equity, which was worth USD 2.4 billion dollars
- In 2017, MIT Technology Review named Austin Russell an “Innovator Under 35” and in 2018, Forbes named him to its “30 Under 30” list for founding and leading Luminar
- In 2021, he appeared on the Fortune magazine 40 Under 40 list and in 2022, Motor Trend ranked him at number 41 on its 2022 Power Liste
- On January 2022, Austin Russell donated USD 4 million to Team Seas, allowing the fundraiser to reach its goal of USD 30 million raised
- According to the Hurun Report, Austin Russell’s net worth is around USD 1.2 Billion Dollars, as of January 2023
Robotaxis Are More Than A Decade Away
In an interview with the Times Magazine, when asked about the estimated year people are getting in self-driving robotaxis, Austin Russell said, “When it comes to having our technology on consumer vehicles, it’s literally right around the corner. We have been talking for months. That will dramatically improve safety and enable certain autonomous capabilities starting on highways and expanding there on out. When it comes to robotaxis and truly full self-driving systems at any appreciable scale: well into the 2030s. If I were to pick a number I would call it 2035. That would be my over-under on how that will materialize starting out. I think by 2050 we would see it more widespread. Super promising, it’s going to be hugely valuable. But the question is, what’s the right path to be able to get there and to be able to see the technology through?”
Austin Russell also talked about his company’s “100, 100, 100” vision.
“The holistic goal behind everything that we do at Luminar is our 100-year vision, which is to save as many as 100 million lives and 100 trillion hours out on the road over the next 100 years. I think that this is going to be one of the most impactful things that we could do from a societal standpoint. For people between the 1 and 44 by some metrics, it’s the leading cause of death—car accidents. That’s a totally solvable problem, we just need the technology to see it through. Everything that we do ultimately all ties back to that big picture all around saving lives, and saving people time. And it also ties into the overall notion that you do not have to replace the driver from day one to be able to already start having a huge lifesaving impact. That is the north star we are centred around,” he said.