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> with a team that has only built prototypes

This is normal for research isn't it? If someone before you has already built a working version of something, then it isn't research any more. And Uber hires extraordinarily qualified AI researchers doesn't it?

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Reasarchers aren't normally expected to build a production system to sell as a product. They might be very smart people but for something like this you need a team with at least some members who have real experience delivering automotive hardware + safety critical systens + automation.

Research tends to ignore the boring but important details that make a product.

I think what they're saying is that usually teams don't go that far out of their industrial strength. In a way, Uber here is going from being cell phone app developers to making automotive hardware, which is a big shift. Shipping hardware past the prototype phase is __HARD__ in ways that shipping a software app/building a marketplace isn't (not saying the latter aren't hard, but the two tasks take very different types of organizations).

Uber here is going from being cell phone app developers to making automotive hardware

But why would they do that, instead of hiring other developers? Surely Levandowski would have an idea of who to hire.

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