Category: Podcast

53. Alan White, Global Head of Emerging Transportation Platforms at Siemens Smart Infrastructure

53. Alan White, Global Head of Emerging Transportation Platforms at Siemens Smart Infrastructure

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Episode 53: Making fleet electrification easy, with Alan White of Siemens. 

Alan details Siemens Depot 360’s comprehensive offerings to provide a turnkey, commercially attractive path for electrifying vehicle fleets. 

  

00:00 Introduction to Siemens  

02:08 Introduction to Depot 360 

02:37 Benefits and Challenges of Electrification 

03:30 Siemens Smart Infrastructure 

05:26 Alan White’s Background and Career 

07:36 Depot 360’s Operational Insights 

16:25 Global Electrification Trends and Challenges 

30:22 Predictions and Closing Remarks 

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52. Anja van Niersen, CEO, Milence

52. Anja van Niersen, CEO, Milence

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Episode 52: Building the Future of Electric Trucking with Anja Van Niersen

Anja Van Niersen, CEO of Milence, discusses plans to establish a charging network for European long-haul trucking. Milence is a 500MM Euro joint venture amongst Daimler, Traton and Volvo trucks.

00:00 Introduction to Milence

03:04 Anja’s background and career

03:10 Milence’s mission and operations

12:41 The profile of a charging hub

16:47 Future of heavy-duty/long-haul trucking

23:15 Geographical footprint and infrastructure development

30:00 Future enablers

37:26 The role of consumers and market demand

40:03 Optimism for adoption

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51. Advanced Clean Transportation Expo, 2025

51. Advanced Clean Transportation Expo, 2025

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Live from Anaheim! I was at the world’s premier event for sustainable commercial transportation. Here’s a brief ~10-minute recap of key trends regarding China, electrification, sustainability’s future, and regulation. The highlight for me was driving a massive “day cab,” the driver part of a semi-truck.  You can see the video at www.gtkpartners.com/act25

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49. Shahin Farshchi Ph.D, General Partner at Lux Capital

49. Shahin Farshchi Ph.D, General Partner at Lux Capital

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Lux Capital General Partner Shahin Farshchi, PhD, talked with me about his background, Lux’s history, and how the firm came to position itself as the leading investor in hard-tech. A focus on outstanding teams, market readiness, patience and taking the lead from entrepreneurs on the “next great sector” has led to investments such as Anduril, Aurora, Databricks, Hugging Face, Matterport, Nirvana, Planet Labs, Zededa and Zoox.

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.

Links to Lux Capital and Shahin.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below.

(1:44) Introduction to Lux

(6:14) Shahin’s background and initiative in managing your career

(20:49) Investment selection process

(34:30) Focusing on the long-term

(37:33) The next big things

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48. Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP at AMD

48. Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP at AMD

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AMD’s Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP, talked with me about his background, AMD’s history, and how the company came to position itself as a “bankable supplier” with one of the most diverse semiconductor portfolios for the age of AI: CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, accelerators, custom development, and with rack-scale systems with the pending acquisition of ZT Systems.  A focus on performance and open-ness are AMD’s guiding lights.  Needless to say, we discussed DeepSeek AI, too.  

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below. 

(0:00) Introduction to AMD 

(7:23) Mark’s background and lessons from the iPhone and iPod 

(15:10) The whole banana, or a comprehensive solution suite   

(23:32) DeepSeek AI and the benefit of constraints 

(27:37) Software and an open approach 

(32:30) Balancing investing in innovation and margins 

 

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47. Steve Patton, Americas Automotive Sector Leader at EY

47. Steve Patton, Americas Automotive Sector Leader at EY

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Steve Patton shares EY’s perspective on how consumer demand and regulations shape the automotive landscape.  We touch on Chinese car makers, sustainability, electrification, autonomy and logistics.  Is sustainability self-sustaining, or does it still need regulatory incentives?  Steve explains.  

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     

EY Transportation group is here.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below. 

(0:00) Introduction to Steve and EY 

(5:42) Sustainability, regulation 

(16:37) Supply chain and fulfillment   

(20:32) Connectivity, especially in industrial applications 

(31:27) EVs and Chinese car companies 

(45:18) Predictions and hopes 

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46. CES 2025, Marinated

46. CES 2025, Marinated

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With the advantage of letting a few days pass before collecting my thoughts, two themes came into focus.  First, the rise of Chinese auto companies, and the mainstreaming of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and IoT were starkly clear.  Second, I explain why there seems to me to be a correlation between exhibitor behavior and their business prospects.  This isn’t investment advice, of course.  

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

Other posts regarding CES: Chris Stallman, VC; Marc Amblard, Mobility Adviser.   

 

 

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45. Everybody Still Hates Tesla, Part 2

45. Everybody Still Hates Tesla, Part 2

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Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, in electrification, auto dealership structure and passenger car autonomy Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors to disrupt of the industry.  We revisit and offer updated commentary from our original Everybody Hates Tesla episodes of a few years ago.  

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 1 minute.      

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below. 

(0:00) Updated introduction 

(4:41) Beginning of “Everybody Hates Tesla, Part 2”  

(5:08) Supply chain 

(17:41) Dealerships 

(21:39) Self-driving 

Link to Ben Thompson’s Stratechery article on Waymo vs Tesla approaches to self-driving.  

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44. Everybody Still Hates Tesla, Part 1

44. Everybody Still Hates Tesla, Part 1

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Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors and customers to disrupt the profit, supply and dealership structure of the industry.  This latitude is also potentially the Company’s biggest weakness, contributing to Groundhog Day execution problems and unnecessary “self-driving” claims. We revisit and offer updated commentary from our original Everybody Hates Tesla episodes of a few years ago.  

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below. 

(0:00) Updated introduction 

(6:27) Beginning of “Everybody Hates Tesla, Part 1”  

(10:00) Electrification 

(15:40) EVs are inherently premium vehicles

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43. Georges Massing, Head of Automated Driving, Mercedes-Benz AG.

43. Georges Massing, Head of Automated Driving, Mercedes-Benz AG.

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Can your AI make life-and-death decisions? Mercedes-Benz’s Drive Pilot can.  Does your AI vendor take legal responsibility for those life-and-death decisions? Mercedes does.  Drive Pilot is the only certified Level 3 passenger car system globally.  Georges Massing, global head of the company’s automated driving and cabin technologies, tells us how.  We hear his thoughts on how the technology ecosystem can work with Mercedes.

You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.

Mercedes-Benz’s global website is here.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below.

(0:00) Introduction to Mercedes

(4:05) Introduction to Georges Massing

(12:50) The Mercedes brand

(17:42) The user interface

(23:25) Autonomy

(44:38) Mercedes & the ecosystem

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