Amazon’s ex-retail boss Dave Clark launches new startup to solve supply chain ‘Franken-software’
Dave Clark
Dave Clark, Amazon‘s former CEO of global consumer, who briefly helmed logistics company Flexport, is returning to the startup world.
Clark on Tuesday launched a new venture, called Auger, which aims to help companies and governments combine the mishmash of “Franken-software” overseeing their supply chains into a single platform.
“At Flexport, I got to see all of these companies in the middle, like the Nikes or Lululemons, and I was amazed at how much of a struggle it is, and how much they still use Excel or Smartsheet or Tableau or something to bring all this disparate data together in such a way that they can do something,” Clark said in an interview. “A shocking amount of supply chain still runs on Excel.”
Clark’s third act follows a short but tumultuous stint at Flexport. Last September, Clark abruptly resigned as CEO of Flexport, allowing for the return of its founder Ryan Petersen. Petersen claimed repeatedly that Clark overspent and overhired during his time at the freight forwarding startup. But documents viewed by CNBC, and sources close to Clark, showed that Petersen and members of Flexport’s board helped implement decisions that Flexport has suggested were ill-advised. Petersen has since taken steps to turn around the business by overhauling its top ranks, implementing layoffs and subleasing excess warehouse space.
Prior to Flexport, Clark developed a storied reputation during his 23 years at Amazon as the architect of its mammoth logistics network. He joined Amazon’s operations division in 1999 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming one of the most important executives at the company. In 2020, Amazon tapped Clark to head its core retail business after longtime executive Jeff Wilke left the company. Clark departed Amazon for Flexport in 2022.
Clark joined Flexport to bring what he had built at Amazon to “small businesses and other businesses around the world.” He left the startup feeling there was still a gap in the market for supply chain tools, and began to develop the idea behind Auger. The name is meant to convey the drilling tool’s ability to break through things and dive deep.
Robots transport goods to the employees in warehouse at Amazon fulfillment center in Eastvale on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021.
the Riverside Press-enterprise | Medianews Group | Getty Images
“I spent the last year with the chance to really sort of step back and think about the best way to tackle this problem,” Clark said. “What do I want to do next? Do I still want to try to tackle this problem? Do I want to do something else? And I just kept coming back to, this should not be a problem for companies with the technology that exists in the world.”
He said a typical company might have “eight to ten to 12 to 20” systems for procurement, forecasting, and enterprise resource planning. The systems can be clunky and are rarely integrated. He wanted to build a platform where companies could manage their supply chain with the “same level of simplicity and intuitiveness as the consumer applications that they use every day.”
Clark, who moved with his family to Texas before leaving Amazon, has returned to his former employer’s backyard in Seattle to work on the new venture, which will be based in Bellevue, Washington. He hopes to pull from the area’s deep bench of tech talent.
Amazon last year rolled out its own supply chain management platform, which can handle the process of transporting businesses’ goods from the manufacturer to customers’ doorsteps. But the service is targeted at businesses that sell on Amazon’s marketplace and use its logistics and fulfillment network.
Auger’s launch comes as venture deal volume has steadily declined over the past few years, aside from investments in artificial intelligence companies. U.S. venture capital exit value this year is expected to reach $98 billion, down 86% from 2021, according to an Aug. 29 report from PitchBook, while venture-backed IPOs are expected to be at their lowest since 2016.
VC activity in the supply chain tech industry has shown recent improvement, although it’s well below the levels seen in 2021 and 2022. Global investment in the space hit $2.4 billion, marking the third straight quarter of growth, according to Pitchbook.
Auger has raised $100 million from venture firm Oak HC/FT. Clark said he soon expects to grow headcount to about 20 employees and intends to launch a “V1” product within nine months.
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Technology
‘Robotaxi has reached a tipping point’: Baidu, Nvidia leaders see momentum as competition rises
Chinese tech company Baidu announced Monday it can sell some robotaxi rides without any human staff in the vehicles.
Baidu
BEIJING — Chinese robotaxi companies are expanding abroad at a faster clip than U.S. rivals Waymo and Tesla — at a time when industry leaders say autonomous driving is finally near an inflection point.
“I think robotaxi has reached a tipping point, both here in China and in the U.S.,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said Tuesday on an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript.
“There are enough people who have [had the] chance to experience driverless rides, and the word of mouth has created positive social media feedback,” he said, noting that the wider public exposure could speed up regulatory approval.
His comments echoed similar notes of optimism in the last few weeks from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Xpeng Co-President Brian Gu — who reversed his previously cautious stance after faster-than-anticipated tech advances. Xpeng is launching robotaxis in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou next year.
It’s a global market with significant growth potential, likely worth more than $25 billion by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs’ estimates in May.
To seize that opportunity, Chinese companies are aggressively expanding overseas and claim they are close to making robotaxis a viable business, rather than simply burning cash to grab market share.
In the last 18 months, Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide landed partnerships with Uber that allow users of the ride-hailing app to order a robotaxi in specific locations, starting in the Middle East.
Such tie-ups “will be critical to success” as they enable robotaxi companies to operate more efficiently and reach profitability more quickly, said Counterpoint Senior Analyst Murtuza Ali.
Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world.
Halton Niu
General manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business
Expanding on experience at home
Baidu says that since late last year, its Apollo Go robotaxi unit has reached per-vehicle profitability in Wuhan, where the company has operated over 1,000 vehicles in its largest deployment in China.
That means ridership is enough to offset a Wuhan taxi fare that’s 30% cheaper than in Beijing or Shanghai, and far below prices in the U.S. or Europe. Besides developing autonomous driving systems, Baidu has also produced electrically-powered robotaxi vehicles — without relying on a third-party manufacturer — that are 50% cheaper.
“Once we can generate profit for every single car in a second-tier city [like Wuhan] in mainland China, we can generate profits in lots of cities across the world,” Halton Niu, general manager for Apollo Go’s overseas business, told CNBC.
“Scale matters,” he said. “If you only deploy, for example, 100 to 200 cars in a single city, if you only cover a small area of the city, you can never become profitable.”
How U.S. rivals stack up
Scale remains the dividing line. In the U.S., Alphabet-owned Waymo operates more than 2,500 vehicles and is expanding rapidly from major cities in California to Texas and Florida, with plans to enter London next year, following its first overseas venture in Tokyo.
Tesla sells its electric cars in China, and reportedly showed off its Cybercab in Shanghai this month. But it began testing its robotaxis in Texas only in June, and this week obtained a permit to operate in Arizona.
Amazon’s Zoox is also ramping up its expansion in the U.S., but has not released overseas plans.
The three companies have not disclosed plans to break even on their robotaxis.
Baidu Apollo Go’s Niu did not rule out an expansion into the U.S. But for now, the robotaxi operator plans to enter Europe with trials in parts of Switzerland next month, following their expansion in the Middle East this year.
Abu Dhabi last week gave Apollo Go a permit to charge fares to the public for fully driverless robotaxi rides, which are operated locally under the AutoGo brand, eight months after local trials began in parts of the city.
But Chinese startup WeRide said it received a similar permit on Oct. 31 to charge fares for its fully driverless robotaxi rides in Abu Dhabi, and claimed that removing human staff from the cars would allow it to make a profit on each vehicle.
That puts Pony.ai furthest from profitability among the three major Chinese robotaxi operators. Its CFO Leo Haojun Wang told The Wall Street Journal in mid-September that the company aimed to make a profit on each car by the end of this year or early next year.
Pony.ai plans to launch a fully autonomous commercial robotaxi business in Dubai in 2026, after receiving a testing permit in late September. The company plans to roll out in Europe in the coming months and has also outlined an expansion into Singapore.
Pony.ai and WeRide are set to release quarterly earnings early next week.
“Currently, companies like Waymo, Baidu, WeRide and Pony.ai are leading in terms of fleet size, which positions them advantageously in the race for profitability,” said Yuqian Ding, head of China Autos Research at HSBC.
Scale and safety
Fleet size is becoming a competitive marker. Pony.ai reportedly said it plans to release 1,000 robotaxis in the Middle East by 2028, while WeRide aims to operate a fleet of 1,000 robotaxis in the region by the end of next year.
Niu said Apollo Go operates around 100 robotaxis in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and plans to double its vehicle fleet in the next few months.
“Apollo Go has had a head start with significantly more test rides than the other two,” Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, said in an email. “The more testing and data you can collect from trips taken, the more likely the AI sensors are able to recognize the objects on the road, which means better safety as well.”
He cautioned that despite some initial progress, the robotaxi race remains uncertain as “no one has truly had mass adoption for their vehicles.”
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Coverage remains limited. Even in China, robotaxis are only allowed to operate in selected zones, though Pony.ai recently became the first to win regulatory approval to operate its robotaxis across all of Shenzhen, dubbed China’s Silicon Valley. In Beijing, self-driving taxis are mostly limited to a suburb called Yizhuang.
Anecdotally, CNBC tests have found Pony.ai offered a smoother ride than Apollo Go, which was prone to hard braking.
As for safety — which is critical for regulatory approval — none of the six operators has reported fatalities or major injuries caused by the robotaxis so far. But Apollo Go and Waymo have begun advertising low airbag deployment rates.
Even if that’s not enough to convince regulators worldwide, Beijing is expected to ramp up support at home.
HSBC’s Ding predicts the number of robotaxis on China’s roads could multiply from a few thousand to tens of thousands between the end of this year and 2026, a shift that would give operators more proof that their model works.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In the weeks leading up to Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings report, investors debated whether the markets were in an AI bubble, fretting over the massive sums being committed to building data centers and whether they could provide a long-term return on investment.
During Wednesday’s earnings call with analysts, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began his comments by rejecting that premise.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point we see something very different.”
In many respects, Huang’s remarks are to be expected. He’s leading the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom, and has built its market cap to $4.5 trillion because of soaring demand for Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
Huang’s smackdown of bubble talk matters because Nvidia counts every major cloud provider — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — as a customer. Most of the major AI model developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Meta, are also big buyers of Nvidia GPUs.
Huang has deep visibility into the market, and on the call he offered a three-pronged argument for why we’re not in a bubble.
First, he said that areas like data processing, ad recommendations, search systems, and engineering, are turning to GPUs because they need the AI. That means older computing infrastructure based around the central processor will transition to new systems running on Nvidia’s chips.
Second, Huang said, AI isn’t just being integrated into current applications, but it will enable entirely new ones.
Finally, according to Huang, “agentic AI,” or applications that can run without significant input from the user, will be able to reason and plan, and will require even more computing power.
In making the case of Nvidia, Huang said it’s the only company that can address the three use cases.
“As you consider infrastructure investments, consider these three fundamental dynamics,” Huang said. “Each will contribute to infrastructure growth in the coming years.”
Reversing the slide
In its earnings release, Nvidia reported revenue and profit that sailed past estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance. Last month, Huang provided a $500 billion forecast for sales of the company’s AI chips over calendar 2025 and 2026.
The company said on Wednesday that its order backlog didn’t even include a few recent deals, like an agreement with Anthropic that was announced this week or the expansion of a deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The number will grow,” CFO Colette Kress said on the call, saying the company was on track to hit the forecast.
Prior to Wednesday’s results, Nvidia shares were down about 8% this month. Other stocks tied to the AI have gotten hit even harder, with CoreWeave plunging 44% in November, Oracle dropping 14% and Palantir falling 17%.
Some of the worry on Wall Street has been tied to the debt that certain companies have used to finance their infrastructure buildouts.
“Our customers’ financing is up to them,” Huang said.
Specific to Nvidia, investors have raised concerns in recent weeks about how much of the company’s sales were going to a small number of hyperscalers.
Last month, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet all lifted their forecasts for capital expenditures due to their AI buildouts, and now collectively expect to spend more than $380 billion this year.
Huang said that even without a new business model, Nvidia’s chips boost hyperscaler revenue, because they power recommendation systems for short videos, books, and ads.
People will soon start appreciating what’s happening underneath the surface of the AI boom, Huang said, versus “the simplistic view of what’s happening to capex and investment.”
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