Just about a decade into the race to develop self-driving cars, this young industry has its own supergroup: Aurora Innovation, formed by three of the biggest names in the field and veterans of its highest-profile efforts. At the end of 2016, Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnell, and Sterling Anderson created the startup to deliver fully self-driving technology—no human involvement—and will start with operations in geofenced areas (somewhere), slowly expanding as the cars prove themselves.The trio’s experience runs deep. After helping lead Carnegie Mellon’s efforts in Darpa’s Grand Challenges, Urmson became a founding member of Google’s self-driving team, which he ran until 2016. Anderson worked on the tech at MIT before bringing his talents to bear on Tesla’s Autopilot system. Bagnell, another CMU alum, is a machine learning expert who helped build Uber’s autonomy effort.
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