From Alfred Speer's 10 mph vision in 1871 to modern failures in Paris, the moving walkway has failed as mass transit because of the fundamental physics problem of safely onboarding people onto a platform already moving at high speed, leading to trips and falls.

Bolt's initial scooter launch in Paris was a disaster, with rampant theft and vandalism of consumer-grade scooters. The key insight was that the unit economics were impossible without controlling the hardware. By developing custom-built scooters that couldn't be easily resold for parts, they dramatically reduced theft and made the business model viable.

While Rivian launched an e-bike, the more strategic innovation is its helmet with integrated lights. This focus on practical commuter safety is an inexpensive way to reinforce Rivian's core brand identity of thoughtful engineering, extending the brand's values into a new product category without a massive investment.

Buttigieg argues that while AVs can save thousands of lives, a conservative regulatory approach is paradoxically the fastest path to adoption. A handful of highly-publicized accidents can destroy public acceptance, so ensuring safety upfront is critical for long-term success, even if it slows initial deployment.

Early self-driving cars were too cautious, becoming hazards on the road. By strictly adhering to the speed limit or being too polite at intersections, they disrupted traffic flow. Waymo learned its cars must drive assertively, even "aggressively," to safely integrate with human drivers.

Unlike a solid speed bump, a 'speed cushion' is a traffic calming device with wheel-wide gaps. This simple design innovation effectively slows down standard cars while allowing wider-axle vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks to pass through without slowing down, prioritizing emergency response.

After a disastrous London launch was shut down in 72 hours for bypassing regulators, Bolt learned a critical lesson. Their 'move fast' approach from low-regulation markets didn't work everywhere. This failure forced them to create a dual strategy: optimizing for speed in some countries and for risk mitigation and compliance in others.

The public holds new technologies to a much higher safety standard than human performance. Waymo could deploy cars that are statistically safer than human drivers, but society would not accept them killing tens of thousands of people annually, even if it's an improvement. This demonstrates the need for near-perfection in high-stakes tech launches.

With Waymo's data showing a dramatic potential to reduce traffic deaths, the primary barrier to adoption is shifting from technology to politics. A neurosurgeon argues that moneyed interests and city councils are creating regulatory capture, blocking a proven public health intervention and framing a safety story as a risk story.