Hyperloop is generating a surprising amount of interest for a technology that has yet to build a fully working, commercial system. Even optimistically, such a system is years away at present. However, the very potential of the tech as becoming the next “it” thing in transportation is causing multiple teams and startups to mushroom up all over the place. Along the same, Hyperloop One Co-Founder and the former CTO of the company Brogan BamBrogan, has announced Arrivo — his brand new venture.
If you remember, Hyperloop One was mired in controversies late last year after BamBrogan, who was CTO at the time, filed a lawsuit against the company — alleging that the engineers who were actually building everything, were being relegated to the role of workers and all the big decisions were being made without taking them into confidence.
The lawsuit was later solved by way of settlement. Well, BamBrogan is now back with his own venture — Arrivo, a Hyperloop venture that seeks to do what every other venture in the field is attempting, facilitate transport of cargo and humans through vacuum tubes in metal pods. Arrivo has BamBrogan as its CEO and also boasts of a founding team that is high on engineering and business content. The team has been sourced from both Hyperloop One as well as SpaceX.
The new venture will focus its attention on the US for now and will start off with transporting cargo. Later, it could shift its attention to human transportation as well.
As per BamBrogan:
We think we can get some projects operational within the next three years. We’re excited about moving quickly and getting to market.Thanks to Andrew [Liu] and Knut [Sauer], we have a really great understanding of the worldwide market and the demand.
Liu and Sauer are members of the founding team along with former SpaceX engineer Jadon Smith, Nima Bahrami, William Mulholland and David Pendergast. The company is focused upon US at present however, it is not averse to a global playing field either.
For now, Arrivo has a huge task ahead of it. Apart from developing business and technologies that would be needed to develop its offerings, Arrivo would also be attempting to make a lot of new hires. The company is hoping to hire somewhere over 30 employees by June. It is then looking to expand until the number reaches 70 or 80 by year-end. Most of the new hires would be engineers. The company has a huge challenge ahead of it and as such, it will be looking out for the best talent to help it overcome it.
Just like Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce didn’t just make one chip, they really started off 20 years of improvements not only in chip technology but also in the technology used to make those chips, and that turned into opportunities for people to use them. We want to develop technology that can be used in ways that we can’t even imagine. That’s the bigger vision.
