Earlier today Embark’s CEO, Alex Rodrigues, sent the following message to all employees — following the announcement of Embark’s intention to go public via a multi-billion dollar SPAC merger.
Read the news: Wall Street Journal | Self-Driving Truck Startup Embark to Go Public in $5.2 Billion SPAC Deal
Subject: Welcome to the Starting Line
Embark Team,
In 2016, Brandon and I laid out a vision: we wanted to use cutting-edge technology to build a world where roads are safer for the people we love, consumers pay less for the things they need, and drivers stay closer to the homes they cherish.
Over the last five years I have witnessed members of this team achieve what many people thought was impossible. We started as a small but ambitious team working out of a one-truck garage. I remember turning wrenches until the early hours of the morning together and feeling like we could achieve anything if we just stuck together and proved our potential to the world. Now I look around and see that all of our efforts have combined to turn our scrappy startup into a well-resourced team with the opportunity to make history.
The effort that this team has poured into getting us to today cannot be understated. We’ve spent countless hours working on some of the most challenging problems and I’m proud to say we have a lot to show for it. Our team, technology, and discipline is what has and will continue to differentiate Embark in this space.
Embark going public through this business combination transaction is exciting. It’s exciting because it validates that the vision of Embark expands far beyond just the people within our four walls (physical & virtual), it’s exciting because the company is growing to size itself against the challenge we have ahead of us, and it’s exciting because we are in control of our destiny. That being said, I intend to make clear that we still have a lot of unfinished business. This transaction gives us the opportunity to meaningfully accomplish our mission. With the resulting capital we intend to deliver the first commercial self-driving truck and expand that opportunity across the sun-belt, and even then our work won’t be complete. Going public is a means to fulfilling our potential and the starting line for the next phase of our journey.
While Embark has always grown steadily since 2016, we are now entering a period of rapid growth and change that will require immense focus to get right. In this new phase the spotlight will be brighter, the stakes higher, the competition fiercer, and the opportunities greater. For all the media attention Embark will get in the coming days, our mission hasn’t changed.
Stock movements and media speculation will try to distract you. Do not let them distract you. The stock will be affected by many things week to week, only some of which we can control. Avoid getting too excited when the stock rises and avoid getting too concerned when the stock falls (both of which are inevitable for any public company). Rather, keep your eye on the bigger picture: if we focus on the right things and work hard with the resources, team, and technology that we have, we have the opportunity to make self-driving trucks the standard way of moving goods and change logistics forever. Our job as Embarkers is to execute on our roadmap, and if we do, over time the stock price will take care of itself.
This means every one of us will have to become experts at managing change, tuning out the noise, and staying laser focused on Embark’s mission. I want to take a moment to do exactly that — focus on the mission. Embark has always been, and continues to be, singularly focused on commercializing autonomous long-haul trucks. That mission is rooted in a few core benefits of our technology: safety, jobs, and efficiency. We know we can build long-haul trucks that will reduce the number of crashes, injuries, and fatalities on public roads. We know those trucks could create new opportunities for drivers to work short haul, staying closer to their families and increasing their quality of life. And we know that the efficiencies those trucks could unlock will make all the things that move on trucks cheaper across the board while reducing the environmental impact of transportation.
On safety — far too many people die in vehicle crashes, but it’s easy to become desensitized to the banality of it, so it bears repeating: according to a 2007 NHTSA study, motor vehicle crashes are the #3 cause of lost years of life for all people in the USA and the #1 cause of death for people ages 8–34. If we can build trucks that won’t get tired, won’t get distracted, won’t make the familiar human errors that cause over 90% of all vehicle crashes, we have a moral imperative to put those trucks on the road safely and as rapidly as possible.
On jobs — the story of innovation is always one of growth and change. Technology comes around that replaces some jobs but creates many others. In the middle of a serious driver shortage, and with demand for truck freight only projected to increase, our technology can help shift driver jobs to higher quality short-haul routes. At the same time, we are creating new classes of jobs that will support autonomous truck operation. Many of you are pioneers of these new types of jobs.
On efficiency — Embark will create a new tool for moving freight: the autonomous truck. Because Embark-powered trucks don’t need to rest, we will empower our carrier partners to move goods faster than human-driven trucking at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, we can’t divorce our work from the climate crisis that is becoming increasingly evident around us. Our California-based team has seen the impacts of wildfires, drought, and other extreme weather. We know the technology we are building together can maximize fuel efficiency, help drive adoption of zero emission trucks on short-haul routes, and reduce food waste. Food waste alone contributes to emissions and climate change in much the same way as road transportation.
The work each of us does is important to accomplishing this mission, but it’s also meaningful and enduring beyond our company. If we are successful, our grandkids and great-grandkids will marvel that people were ever forced to drive vehicles by hand the way we marvel at old photos of Market Street full of horses and carriages.
Whether you have been at Embark for years or just started last week, I hope you share my view that we have assembled a world-class team. A team composed of people who are amazing at what they do, a team that strives to always improve, and a team that I personally am proud to work alongside. It is an exciting time for all of us at Embark and I want to take this moment to thank everyone for your continued hard work, dedication, partnership and support toward helping us achieve our mission. You believed in the Embark vision, and because of your work, today’s news shows that many others do too. Now we believe we will have the resources to go out and bring that vision to the world…
Welcome to the starting line.