{"id":1359,"date":"2026-06-13T13:10:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T13:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2026-06-13T13:10:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T13:10:50","slug":"the-ai-superstar-ceo-behind-a-self-driving-truck-unicorn-on-why-gen-z-is-a-better-hiring-bet-than-industry-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1359","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018AI superstar\u2019 CEO behind a self-driving truck unicorn on why Gen Z is a better hiring bet than industry veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The 50-year-old began her career in academia, working alongside the \u201cGodfather of AI\u201d Geoffrey Hinton, before building out Uber\u2019s self-driving technology division. Now, the cofounder and CEO of the autonomous trucking unicorn Waabi, she realizes there\u2019s a lot of fear and anxiety about AI reshaping the future of work. But she sees something else entirely, and it\u2019s not just because she\u2019s raised over $1 billion for her unicorn: this is one of the best times to be alive, and to be a young worker.<\/p>\n

Read more I spent 8 years flood-proofing a city. Capital markets are running out of time to take El Ni\u00f1o seriously<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFear can paralyze your ability to embrace that change,\u201d Urtasun told Fortune<\/em> when asked about Gen Z\u2019s worries about an uncertain AI future. \u201cAnd I think that everybody should take this change as an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Since its 2021 launch, Waabi has raised more than $1 billion to develop technology once considered science fiction, including a recent Series C round co-led by Khosla Ventures. In partnership with Volvo, its autonomous trucks are already testing road operations, offering a glimpse of a driverless future arriving faster than many once expected.<\/p>\n

For Urtasun, that optimism extends to who she hires. Rather than seeking candidates with decades of industry experience, she looks for something harder to teach: raw adaptability. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mindset she developed in academia, where she learned to spot and shape young talent before it calcified into conventional thinking. \u201cAs a professor, you rely on really raw young talent,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

At Waabi, she applies the same logic\u2014prioritizing workers who are versatile, eager to learn, and willing to rethink assumptions from scratch. \u201cAI-first\u2014that\u2019s the talent that is really making the transformation,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the talent that has been, 20 years doing software engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018AI Superstar\u2019 CEO tells Gen Z to bet big on curiosity<\/h2>\n

A native of Spain, Urtasun earned her Ph.D. in computer science from EPFL in Switzerland in 2006, did postdoctoral work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Berkeley, and later became a professor at the University of Toronto\u2014where she built a reputation for pioneering AI research. (This is where Geoffrey Hinton entered the picture.)<\/p>\n

For Urtasun, the most valuable lesson from her years in higher education wasn\u2019t mastering a single speciality\u2014it was learning how to learn. She credited her academic career with teaching her to adapt quickly, embrace interdisciplinary thinking, and continuously pick up new skills as technology evolves.<\/p>\n

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By 2017, the \u201cAI Superstar,\u201d as described by Wired<\/em>,<\/em> was tapped by Uber to head up the company\u2019s new advanced technologies division. Four years later, she struck out on her own, founding Waabi with ambitions to rethink autonomous driving from scratch.<\/p>\n

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One of Waabi\u2019s core principles, she said, is simply curiosity\u2014a mindset shaped in part by years spent working with students and watching how younger generations approach learning. That experience has also fueled her optimism about the future of work in the AI era. Today\u2019s graduates are entering the workforce with tools previous generations never had\u2014and it would be a mistake to not take advantage of the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Read more How Elon Musk rewrote SpaceX\u2019s story\u2014and turned it into the greatest IPO debut in history<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cIf I\u2019m somebody graduating now,\u201d she said. \u201cI [would] be so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waabi CEO learned about proving your haters wrong from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi<\/h2>\n

Working at the intersection of software and physical AI has never been easy\u2014but few industries have tested founders\u2019 patience quite like autonomous driving.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years, promises that self-driving cars were just around the corner fueled billions in investment. But reality has proved more complicated. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, is the biggest operator of fully autonomous vehicles\u2014but after sone two decades of existence, operates in just 11 U.S. cities. It also continues to face uphill battles in both its existing locations and hopeful expansions.<\/p>\n

A survey from consulting firm McKinsey earlier this year found expectations for fully autonomous passenger vehicles and long-haul trucking have continued to slip, with timelines now stretching closer to the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

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For Urtasun, the industry\u2019s complications is just evidence of the need for \u201cinfinite grit\u201d as an entrepreneur. To the disagreement of others who thought she was entering the space too late, she believed the industry needed to be rebuilt around an AI- and safety-first approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody is going to believe you at the beginning,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you can prove them wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of that resilience, Urtasun added, came from her years at Uber, where she \u201clearned to be an executive\u201d while working under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Khosrowshahi encouraged her to remember that employees absorb more than strategy\u2014they watch how leaders react in moments of uncertainty. Even amid setbacks or \u201cbig fires,\u201d as Urtasun described them, leaders have to signal a path forward.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLead with positivity,\u201d she said, recalling his advice. \u201cAlthough you might not realize, every gesture, everything\u2014people pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Jamie Dimon says remote work breeds \u2018rope-a-dope politics\u2019 and stunts young workers\u2019 growth<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raquel Urtasun, co-founder of autonomous truck startup Waabi, talks to Fortune about unicorn hiring in the AI age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers"],"yoast_head":"\nThe \u2018AI superstar\u2019 CEO behind a self-driving truck unicorn on why Gen Z is a better hiring bet than industry veterans - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1359\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The \u2018AI superstar\u2019 CEO behind a self-driving truck unicorn on why Gen Z is a better hiring bet than industry veterans - 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