Previously, Ahti was one of the founders and developers of Skype. In 2013, he designed a sample retrieval robot to compete in a NASA contest for Mars missions. Armed with that experience, Ahti and his co-founder Janus Friis realized there was a huge opportunity to disrupt a delivery industry which has yet to be revolutionized by technology. They set to work creating a last-mile robotic delivery solution, which is when Starship Technologies was born.
Founded in 2014, Starship now operates in more than 100 service areas worldwide, and its robots have completed more than 8 million deliveries. The company has headquarters in Tallinn, in Ahti’s native Estonia.
Highlights
When you don’t know what’s not possible you can build anything.
I have always thought that I want to do my own thing, a small group of people having some sort of a vision and some sort of an idea potentially to change the world.
All of these obstacles can be overcome. It is fun to overcome obstacles.
The bonkers part was actually not technology, the bonkers part was changing people’s behaviour.
As long as you believe that you can put one foot in front of the other it’s possible to go forward.
If you are alone then it is I think hard... you really need to be a psychopath to be able to do it alone, keep the focus.
You have to keep in mind this dream, this simple idea.
I set out 10 years ago to build this company and to revolutionise last mile delivery in the world.
I want to get to a point where I see okay, I have really done the revolution in the world and until that is done, I am just halfway.
I encourage everybody to look outside of your media bubble and also be interested in what is happening outside of that.