- Alex, Brandon, and Mike are the founders of Varden Labs
- Alex is a skilled programmer and has worked at Khan Academy
- Mike is experienced in mechanical engineering and has worked at Thal McLabs
- Brandon has experience in software and electrical engineering and has worked at 3 startups
- The three founders were in the same mechatronics engineering class at the University of Waterloo
- They have lived together and worked on various projects for the past 2 years
- They are excited about their current project and believe it will transform the future of transportation.

After building the first self-driving vehicle in Canada, three students from the University of Waterloo applied to Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch with their company, Varden Labs, intending to build self-driving shuttles for use on campuses. 

They were accepted, and eventually went on to become Embark Trucks, which builds self-driving software for the $700B trucking industry. Today, they're going public. This is their YC application video from 2016.

Read about their road to IPO at https://blog.ycombinator.com/embark-trucks-going-public/.

Hi, I'm Alex, this is Brandon and Mike, and together with our trusty prototype Marvin, we are Varden Labs.

I've been programming since I was 13 years old, I was ranked as 1 of the top 20 programmers in Canada in high school, and most recently I worked as a software engineering intern at Khan Academy in Manatee.

I built my own fully custom 3D printer, electric scooter, and most recently worked at a YC alum, Thal McLabs, as their mechanical intern.

I'm Brandon, and I'm doing software and electrical.

Before Varden Labs, I had worked at 3 startups, all with aggressive development topics.

The most recent was an artificial intelligence company, where it was programming robots to interact with their environment.

The 3 of us were in the same mechatronics engineering class at the University of Waterloo.

We've lived together for the last 2 years and worked on lots of projects together.

This is by far our favourite, and we're really excited to see how it's going to transform the future of transportation.


Speaker 0: Hi, I'm Alex, this is Brandon and Mike, and together with our trusty prototype Marvin, we are Varden Labs. I've been programming since I was 13 years old, I was ranked as 1 of the top 20 programmers in Canada in high school, and most recently I worked as a software engineering intern at Khan Academy in Manatee.

Speaker 1: I'm Mike. I do mechanical stuff at Varden Labs. I've done mechanical stuff all my life. I built my own fully custom 3D printer, electric scooter, and most recently worked at a YC alum, Thal McLabs, as their mechanical intern. Hi.

I'm Brandon, and I'm doing software and electrical. Before Varden Labs, I had worked at 3 startups, all with aggressive development topics. The most recent was an artificial intelligence company, where it was programming robots to interact with their environment.

Speaker 0: The 3 of us were in the same mechatronics engineering class at the University of Waterloo. We've lived together for the last 2 years and worked on lots of projects together. This is by far our favourite, and we're really excited to see how it's going to transform the future of transportation. See ya!

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Embark Trucks' Application Video for YC W16