2021 · Dubai · co-founder
I joined ABJD as a co-founder in its early days: a Dubai-based mobility startup building mainstream electric vehicles - and the automotive OS behind them.
The thesis: EVs commoditize fast. Hundreds of new brands, tier-1 suppliers standardizing every function - the ground that stays open is one layer up. So the mission was to build the Windows, the Android of the EV: an operating system that lets a firm - or a nation - onboard the coming generation of intelligent vehicles while keeping sovereignty. Sovereignty over production, through federated micro-manufacturing; and over the data the vehicles generate, with privacy by design at the very base of the OS.
Power over your identity: reclaiming digital sovereignty for individuals, communities and nations.
Eighteen months later, we failed - timing, geography, an industry not yet ready; the why deserves its own article. What I kept: a precise education in what doesn’t work.