Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun is a distinguished computer scientist and entrepreneur, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of a stealth startup focused on AI and e-commerce since August 2023. Thrun has an extensive academic background as an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University since July 2003 and is the founding director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL). Notably, Thrun led the Stanford Racing Team to victory in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. As the co-founder and chairman of Udacity from July 2011 to May 2024, Thrun played a pivotal role in shaping online education in technology. Thrun also founded and served as CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, a notable eVTOL company, from April 2017 to December 2022. Sebastian's previous experience includes a significant tenure at Google from April 2007 to August 2014, where Thrun was involved in numerous groundbreaking projects and founded Google[x]. Thrun holds a PhD in Computer Science and Statistics from the University of Bonn, Germany.