Seems like setting up in houses is a common pattern for Bay Area self driving car startups then. I’d guess that the availability of decent office space with workshop bays is essentially nonexistent
Not in the South Bay where this company was. Plenty of machine shops, mechanics, etc with workshop bays imo. What was true at the time was that investors were throwing money hand over fist at self driving car startups, even to young founders fresh out of college. I would not discount the psychological appeal to a 20-something founder with millions of dollars a to burn to set up shop in a mansion.
The point of my original comment is not to say that doing so is objectively bad, but I had just left an abusive startup run by a young and inexperienced startup and I wanted something more stable. I ended up getting a job at a Toyota research branch in a boring office park and I played with a cute little robot. It was just what I needed at the time.
