Arsen Tomsky of inDrive, chief executive officer and founder, joins theCUBE Research hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante to discuss inDrive's global momentum, its origins as a peer-to-peer negotiation platform and the company's dual focus on business model and technical innovation. Tomsky outlines tailored autonomous vehicle design for emerging markets, describes driver-owned micro-fleets and highlights the importance of mapping and driver-generated video data in advancing safe affordable mobility.
Tomsky emphasizes that autonomous vehicles can be designed and priced for developing cities rather than only high-income metros. They assert that drivers can become owners and operators within decentralized micro-fleets. They describe how inDrive leverages driver-collected video and proprietary map data to accelerate AV readiness and how financial efficiency, lean growth and strong local regulatory partnerships serve as critical levers for scaling. The discussion also examines artificial intelligence and machine learning and how AI augments perception mapping and navigation to support scalable affordable mobility.
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Arsen Tomsky, inDrive
Arsen Tomsky of inDrive, chief executive officer and founder, joins theCUBE Research hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante to discuss inDrive's global momentum, its origins as a peer-to-peer negotiation platform and the company's dual focus on business model and technical innovation. Tomsky outlines tailored autonomous vehicle design for emerging markets, describes driver-owned micro-fleets and highlights the importance of mapping and driver-generated video data in advancing safe affordable mobility.
Tomsky emphasizes that autonomous vehicles can be designed and priced for developing cities rather than only high-income metros. They assert that drivers can become owners and operators within decentralized micro-fleets. They describe how inDrive leverages driver-collected video and proprietary map data to accelerate AV readiness and how financial efficiency, lean growth and strong local regulatory partnerships serve as critical levers for scaling. The discussion also examines artificial intelligence and machine learning and how AI augments perception mapping and navigation to support scalable affordable mobility.
>> Palo Alto studio, connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, my co-host.
John Furrier
>> (Instrumental music)
John Furrier
>> Hello, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE here at theCUBE's NYSE Wired studio at the New York Stock Exchange. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This is our mixture of experts series. We talk to leaders who are making it happen with AI affecting the technology change and acceleration, but also the impact to our lives. Arsen Tomsky's here, he's the founder and CEO of InDrive. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. It's great timing for us to have a chat.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Hi, thank you. Pleasure to be here.
John Furrier
>> Love the Cal shirt. Just shout out to Berkeley folks out there watching, got a little following there. Arsen, I want to talk to you about the momentum of your company and the approach you're taking on the technology side. But also you have a distinct view on the impact of autonomous, and as physical AI comes on board, we're seeing massive change. So give an update on the momentum of the company, and then some of the things you're doing inside the cars, inside the technology and some of the things you're seeing, that's going to have real impact.
Arsen Tomsky
>> We now work in more than 1,000 cities in 48 countries. And this story began in 2012 in the officially coldest city in the world, my hometown, Yakutsk. And on the very cold day, local taxi companies, they decided to form cartel agreement. And same day, they doubled fares, and it immediately caused very fierce response from people, because if you have to go through this freezing cold with your kid to school and it's minus 16 degrees, it's of course cause sharp sense of injustice. So 20-years-old students who owned cars, they created a special page on social media, and people could join and start to negotiate. We would say, "I'd like to go from point A to point B and I'd like to pay such fare." And those students, they began to negotiate and people began to go even cheaper than it was before that cartel. And in a short time, 50,000 people started to use it and I saw it was pure social phenomenon. And I decided to launch startup using the same peer-to-peer negotiation. And in last 13 years we built this global platform. And you can see, since day one, we are team who fights the injustice. And this is a rule for us. We systematically look for places where large companies form stable monopolies, duopolies, and when we see it, we launch, and where we just need to make sure that intense advertising, and then those cities began to grow without any additional investments. This is how we built this large story without access to external support. We began to raise first significant investment just in 2020. Short story.
John Furrier
>> It's been a great success story. The autonomous industry has been really booming. We're seeing the advancements. It used to be, only the big cities would have it, slower figuring it out. Now you're starting to see a global expansion. You mentioned some of the statistics that you guys are experiencing. What's the difference between the global and these areas that... I won't call them the rich cities, but the ones that people tend to target? We see San Francisco, we're seeing the big cities, LA, other places. What's different about the global opportunity and the social side of it, the phenomenon behind it, the economics?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Look, we work in such cities like Lima, Lahore, Jakarta, and we see that in those people, people value each cent. So it's very important to give them really affordable service. Also, we work in not-safe cities, especially in LATAM, and it's important to keep the system safe. And for people really value, they can set their terms, right. No, they sometimes don't like the system in big time charges, two to three times, and they like to negotiate. So this is, I think, one of the main reasons why we achieve such large level of success.
John Furrier
>> I'm very impressed with the affordability angle of this, and you guys put out a manifesto, affordable autonomous mobility for the next billion users. Very bold statement, but I want to ask you about the innovation, not just on the tech side, but on the business model side. You guys have a unique view of how you see this evolving. And so there's innovation on the business side. How are you looking at that, and how are you framing that? Because some people are saying, "Well, if autonomous cars are going to replace humans, what about all those gig workers, those people doing it today? They will be out of work." And then you say, "Well, they can do other things." There's an opportunity here. Share your vision on this next billion users and the people behind it, and how that will work from an economy standpoint, and how do you view this shift?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Now we see we have two main theses here. First is that this AVM technology, long time, will be only for cities with high checks, and with developed road infrastructure. And second, all this AV tech will in the future fully replace the drivers. And we don't agree with both of them. First, we think we have a realistic chance to create special AV car for these cities in developing countries, and it should be especially designed car, adapted for those cities, and lower cost. And the second, I believe there is path to keep all these people with work. And this is not a charity. I think this could be very effective way, decentralized micro fleet model, and we believe we should really teach drivers to become the owners of cars. They can switch their job from driving to charging, cleaning, and repairing those cars.
John Furrier
>> It's an opportunity. It's also an entrepreneurial opportunity for the participants. They know the local, they have the networks, they have the skills. How do you see that playing out? Can you share some of the early thoughts on how you see that working? Because AI is an opportunity, not just on the tech, but on people.
Arsen Tomsky
>> I want to say more, this is one of the largest entrepreneurial opportunities what I have seen in more than 30 years. And we can effectively make the entire system of this ride-hailing business more convenient for people, more affordable and safe. And it could take not 25 years, it could take less, five, 10, probably 15 years for some countries. And now the main problem for maybe this long tail of railroad, the cases, the edge cases and current AV players like Waymos, they have to send a lot of cars through the streets, to write the millions of miles to cover all this long tail.
John Furrier
>> I like how you guys, from a marketing standpoint, got the traction, but you're also building in the tech. You've got the custom cars, you got the business model innovation. What structural advantages do you see you guys bringing to the table? Because you're going into emerging markets, you're bringing economic lifeblood into these areas that might be last on the list, as you say, in the long tail. What are the structural advantages that you're looking at, and what are you investing in to make that work? What are some of the things that make this scale?
Arsen Tomsky
>> First, now as we see, the main competition is going on the tax side, not on the economical side, and we should change it. Even in such cities as San Francisco, that companies, they have to subsidize rides. They pay for each mile a few additional dollars, and this causes deep financial losses. So it won't work absolutely in the cities of developing countries with much lower checks. So I believe we should use the same, what we still have in the DNA of the company. We focus on the financial efficiency. For example, when we launch in new cities, and then we use very small amount of the bonuses, much, much less than peers. And this allow us to have incredible high growth margin despite the low tech rate, that commission. And we are going to use the same lean approach and use also these new opportunities, what we are getting from the AI.
John Furrier
>> Using the investment strategy and the profit to drive acceleration, that's a long game play. Love that. What about operational data and regulatory concerns? How do you look at those? You must be welcome in with open arms, or are you? What's it like on the regulation partnership side, and also the operational data? Can you leverage the data, or is there a digital twin, or what kind of things are going on? Because I can imagine that you're going to be able to replicate a lot of value, but it's also unique by city. So regulatory partnerships and operations, how do you see those variables?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Of course we have more than a million active drivers, and we can use this resource to collect tremendous amount of additional data, including the video. And also we started to do first test with own map data because we see in many, many cities of developing countries, Google, the maps has not good quality, and couldn't be used by AV companies. And we have to recreate these maps, and we can do it in relatively short time and we can use not just the regular maps, also ATZ maps when we know exact position, for example, each traffic light. And then we can share this with these AV companies, and this is a very, very valuable resource. Also, in this 13 years, we built very strong relationship with local authorities, because they support the super mission of the company. It sounds like that challenging injustice through fair charges. We clearly position ourself that we really care about people. We don't dictate fares, we chase low tech rate commission and we also run six global nonprofit initiative with same goal, to reduce injustice. If we deliver this idea that we are going to keep millions of people with jobs, not to replace them, it will also support very strong support, and we can share this resource too with external partners.
John Furrier
>> Well, we got the closing bail coming up. So last question for you as we open up the market here today at the New York Stock Exchange, share a story or an anecdote around someone who's either emailed you, or you've seen evidence of someone's lives being changed. Give an example, share a story of some of the impact that you're having. You got the shared mission with the governments, fair choice, economic stability. It really is a unique value proposition. Share a story that illustrates that.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Of course. Let me share this story from first year when we started one day in the nighttime, one girl in my hometown, she had this sickness, the asthma, and she realized she forgot her spray at the work, and she didn't have time and she tried to call 911. They told her she had to wait 14 minutes, and she didn't have that time. And then she tried to order spray through regular taxis. They told her, "We couldn't help you, because we don't have such a service." And then she posted this request on our feed, "Please take my life." And immediately, in just a couple minutes, someone took this, and in next 15 minutes she got a spray, and someone saved her life. And this very good case shows that we have really human-based platform. Thank you.
John Furrier
>> Arsen, really congratulations. I love what you're doing. I love the tech, don't get me wrong, but I love what you're doing on the business model innovation. You're really using the economic structural advantage to accelerate, and also create value and impact people's lives, saving lives in this case, and bringing AI and autonomous vehicles to areas all around the world. So congratulations, and it's a pleasure to know you. Thank you.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Thank you so much.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier-
Arsen Tomsky
>> Have a good day....
John Furrier
>> with theCUBE. We are here, the NYSE Wired program and open network, of course. Please join in and check us out at the nyse.com and of course thecube.net. Thanks for watching.
>> Palo Alto studio, connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante, my co-host.
John Furrier
>> (Instrumental music)
John Furrier
>> Hello, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE here at theCUBE's NYSE Wired studio at the New York Stock Exchange. Of course, we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley and Wall Street. This is our mixture of experts series. We talk to leaders who are making it happen with AI affecting the technology change and acceleration, but also the impact to our lives. Arsen Tomsky's here, he's the founder and CEO of InDrive. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. It's great timing for us to have a chat.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Hi, thank you. Pleasure to be here.
John Furrier
>> Love the Cal shirt. Just shout out to Berkeley folks out there watching, got a little following there. Arsen, I want to talk to you about the momentum of your company and the approach you're taking on the technology side. But also you have a distinct view on the impact of autonomous, and as physical AI comes on board, we're seeing massive change. So give an update on the momentum of the company, and then some of the things you're doing inside the cars, inside the technology and some of the things you're seeing, that's going to have real impact.
Arsen Tomsky
>> We now work in more than 1,000 cities in 48 countries. And this story began in 2012 in the officially coldest city in the world, my hometown, Yakutsk. And on the very cold day, local taxi companies, they decided to form cartel agreement. And same day, they doubled fares, and it immediately caused very fierce response from people, because if you have to go through this freezing cold with your kid to school and it's minus 16 degrees, it's of course cause sharp sense of injustice. So 20-years-old students who owned cars, they created a special page on social media, and people could join and start to negotiate. We would say, "I'd like to go from point A to point B and I'd like to pay such fare." And those students, they began to negotiate and people began to go even cheaper than it was before that cartel. And in a short time, 50,000 people started to use it and I saw it was pure social phenomenon. And I decided to launch startup using the same peer-to-peer negotiation. And in last 13 years we built this global platform. And you can see, since day one, we are team who fights the injustice. And this is a rule for us. We systematically look for places where large companies form stable monopolies, duopolies, and when we see it, we launch, and where we just need to make sure that intense advertising, and then those cities began to grow without any additional investments. This is how we built this large story without access to external support. We began to raise first significant investment just in 2020. Short story.
John Furrier
>> It's been a great success story. The autonomous industry has been really booming. We're seeing the advancements. It used to be, only the big cities would have it, slower figuring it out. Now you're starting to see a global expansion. You mentioned some of the statistics that you guys are experiencing. What's the difference between the global and these areas that... I won't call them the rich cities, but the ones that people tend to target? We see San Francisco, we're seeing the big cities, LA, other places. What's different about the global opportunity and the social side of it, the phenomenon behind it, the economics?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Look, we work in such cities like Lima, Lahore, Jakarta, and we see that in those people, people value each cent. So it's very important to give them really affordable service. Also, we work in not-safe cities, especially in LATAM, and it's important to keep the system safe. And for people really value, they can set their terms, right. No, they sometimes don't like the system in big time charges, two to three times, and they like to negotiate. So this is, I think, one of the main reasons why we achieve such large level of success.
John Furrier
>> I'm very impressed with the affordability angle of this, and you guys put out a manifesto, affordable autonomous mobility for the next billion users. Very bold statement, but I want to ask you about the innovation, not just on the tech side, but on the business model side. You guys have a unique view of how you see this evolving. And so there's innovation on the business side. How are you looking at that, and how are you framing that? Because some people are saying, "Well, if autonomous cars are going to replace humans, what about all those gig workers, those people doing it today? They will be out of work." And then you say, "Well, they can do other things." There's an opportunity here. Share your vision on this next billion users and the people behind it, and how that will work from an economy standpoint, and how do you view this shift?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Now we see we have two main theses here. First is that this AVM technology, long time, will be only for cities with high checks, and with developed road infrastructure. And second, all this AV tech will in the future fully replace the drivers. And we don't agree with both of them. First, we think we have a realistic chance to create special AV car for these cities in developing countries, and it should be especially designed car, adapted for those cities, and lower cost. And the second, I believe there is path to keep all these people with work. And this is not a charity. I think this could be very effective way, decentralized micro fleet model, and we believe we should really teach drivers to become the owners of cars. They can switch their job from driving to charging, cleaning, and repairing those cars.
John Furrier
>> It's an opportunity. It's also an entrepreneurial opportunity for the participants. They know the local, they have the networks, they have the skills. How do you see that playing out? Can you share some of the early thoughts on how you see that working? Because AI is an opportunity, not just on the tech, but on people.
Arsen Tomsky
>> I want to say more, this is one of the largest entrepreneurial opportunities what I have seen in more than 30 years. And we can effectively make the entire system of this ride-hailing business more convenient for people, more affordable and safe. And it could take not 25 years, it could take less, five, 10, probably 15 years for some countries. And now the main problem for maybe this long tail of railroad, the cases, the edge cases and current AV players like Waymos, they have to send a lot of cars through the streets, to write the millions of miles to cover all this long tail.
John Furrier
>> I like how you guys, from a marketing standpoint, got the traction, but you're also building in the tech. You've got the custom cars, you got the business model innovation. What structural advantages do you see you guys bringing to the table? Because you're going into emerging markets, you're bringing economic lifeblood into these areas that might be last on the list, as you say, in the long tail. What are the structural advantages that you're looking at, and what are you investing in to make that work? What are some of the things that make this scale?
Arsen Tomsky
>> First, now as we see, the main competition is going on the tax side, not on the economical side, and we should change it. Even in such cities as San Francisco, that companies, they have to subsidize rides. They pay for each mile a few additional dollars, and this causes deep financial losses. So it won't work absolutely in the cities of developing countries with much lower checks. So I believe we should use the same, what we still have in the DNA of the company. We focus on the financial efficiency. For example, when we launch in new cities, and then we use very small amount of the bonuses, much, much less than peers. And this allow us to have incredible high growth margin despite the low tech rate, that commission. And we are going to use the same lean approach and use also these new opportunities, what we are getting from the AI.
John Furrier
>> Using the investment strategy and the profit to drive acceleration, that's a long game play. Love that. What about operational data and regulatory concerns? How do you look at those? You must be welcome in with open arms, or are you? What's it like on the regulation partnership side, and also the operational data? Can you leverage the data, or is there a digital twin, or what kind of things are going on? Because I can imagine that you're going to be able to replicate a lot of value, but it's also unique by city. So regulatory partnerships and operations, how do you see those variables?
Arsen Tomsky
>> Of course we have more than a million active drivers, and we can use this resource to collect tremendous amount of additional data, including the video. And also we started to do first test with own map data because we see in many, many cities of developing countries, Google, the maps has not good quality, and couldn't be used by AV companies. And we have to recreate these maps, and we can do it in relatively short time and we can use not just the regular maps, also ATZ maps when we know exact position, for example, each traffic light. And then we can share this with these AV companies, and this is a very, very valuable resource. Also, in this 13 years, we built very strong relationship with local authorities, because they support the super mission of the company. It sounds like that challenging injustice through fair charges. We clearly position ourself that we really care about people. We don't dictate fares, we chase low tech rate commission and we also run six global nonprofit initiative with same goal, to reduce injustice. If we deliver this idea that we are going to keep millions of people with jobs, not to replace them, it will also support very strong support, and we can share this resource too with external partners.
John Furrier
>> Well, we got the closing bail coming up. So last question for you as we open up the market here today at the New York Stock Exchange, share a story or an anecdote around someone who's either emailed you, or you've seen evidence of someone's lives being changed. Give an example, share a story of some of the impact that you're having. You got the shared mission with the governments, fair choice, economic stability. It really is a unique value proposition. Share a story that illustrates that.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Of course. Let me share this story from first year when we started one day in the nighttime, one girl in my hometown, she had this sickness, the asthma, and she realized she forgot her spray at the work, and she didn't have time and she tried to call 911. They told her she had to wait 14 minutes, and she didn't have that time. And then she tried to order spray through regular taxis. They told her, "We couldn't help you, because we don't have such a service." And then she posted this request on our feed, "Please take my life." And immediately, in just a couple minutes, someone took this, and in next 15 minutes she got a spray, and someone saved her life. And this very good case shows that we have really human-based platform. Thank you.
John Furrier
>> Arsen, really congratulations. I love what you're doing. I love the tech, don't get me wrong, but I love what you're doing on the business model innovation. You're really using the economic structural advantage to accelerate, and also create value and impact people's lives, saving lives in this case, and bringing AI and autonomous vehicles to areas all around the world. So congratulations, and it's a pleasure to know you. Thank you.
Arsen Tomsky
>> Thank you so much.
John Furrier
>> I'm John Furrier-
Arsen Tomsky
>> Have a good day....
John Furrier
>> with theCUBE. We are here, the NYSE Wired program and open network, of course. Please join in and check us out at the nyse.com and of course thecube.net. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier