Under CEO Tim Cook, Apple has become the world's most valuable company, expanding the global reach of its products while developing services to make them more attractive.
Soroush Salehian worked in Apple's special-projects group for four years before leaving and co-founding the lidar startup Aeva in 2017. Observing Cook reinforced a lesson Salehian learned from other executives he's worked for throughout his career, he told Business Insider: the importance of an unwavering focus on the quality of your products.
Developing an innovative, high-quality product that customers find valuable is challenging, Salehian said. To do so consistently requires a clear understanding of what you want and an intense focus on getting the results you need.
"I think that is what really separates good from really great," Salehian said.
Bringing that approach to Aeva began by making sure the company didn't become overwhelmed with projects. It was critical to Salehian and co-founder Mina Rezk, also a former Apple employee, that they identify the company's strengths and build around them.
The central idea behind Aeva is to improve the perception capabilities of vehicles and consumer electronics through lidar sensors, which bounce beams of light off nearby objects to measure how far away they are. The company is taking a different approach to the technology than some of its competitors, which according to Salehian, has resulted in a lidar sensor that can absorb more information while using less power.
Though Aeva plans to first sell its lidars to automakers and automotive suppliers (the company has partnerships with Audi and industry supplier ZF Friedrichshafen) to boost the performance of driver-assistance and automated-driving systems, the company eventually wants its lidars to find their way into phones, tablets, and health devices, where they can improve augmented-reality features and measure biometric information.
Salehian thinks lidars will transform consumer technology the way color cameras did, he said, creating a "new way of seeing the world." His former employer has expressed a similar enthusiasm about lidars: Apple has added to them to its new iPhones and iPads, calling them a "breakthrough" that "enables capabilities never before possible on any mobile device."
If Aeva's technology can deliver on its potential, Salehian's old boss might have something to learn from him.
Are you a current or former Aeva employee? Do you have a news tip or opinion you'd like to share? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com, on Signal at 646-768-4712, or via his encrypted email address mmatousek@protonmail.com.
- Read more:
- The world's youngest self-made billionaire is proving Elon Musk wrong by bringing lidar — and self-driving savvy — to the mass car market
- VCs say Aurora and TuSimple are among the self-driving startups best poised to become the next Waymo
- Google paid a star self-driving engineer $120 million. Then he quit, joined a rival, and headed to prison.
- The 25-year-old CEO of lidar startup Luminar copes with 100-hour weeks by walking 5 miles a day during calls
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