December 2018 December 2015intralink.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Stratagem... · 2019-08-18 · 100-mile routes in Google-equipped Toyota Prius vehicles. By 2012, the cars had

The Google self-driving project began in 2009 with the challenge to drive autonomously over ten uninterrupted 100-mile routes in Google-equipped Toyota Prius vehicles. By 2012, the cars had driven more than 300,000 miles and by then, Google had started to build its own sensors from the ground up. In 2015, Steven Mahan, who is legally blind, took the world’s first fully self-driving ride on public roads in Austin, Texas, in Google’s Firefly vehicle (the Firefly vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals).

In 2016, the Google self-driving car project became Waymo, a separate self-driving technology company owned by Alphabet. The next year, Waymo partnered with Fiat Chrysler to add 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica Hybris minivans to the Waymo fleet. These cars were the first vehicles built on a mass-production platform with a fully-integrated hardware suite designed by Waymo. In April 2017, Waymo invited residents in Phoenix, Arizona to join the company in the first public trial of self-driving vehicles. These vehicles test-drove on public roads without anyone in the driver’s seat. Feedback from passengers in this so-called early rider program has been integral in helping shape Waymo’s technology, service, and customer experience.

How does Waymo’s self-driving technology work? At the most basic level, human drivers need to answer four questions. Fully self-driving vehicles answer those questions too.

The world's first self-driving service

December 2015

• Where am I? Before Waymo’s cars drive in any location, the Waymo team builds its own detailed three-dimensional maps that highlight information such as road profiles, curbs and sidewalks, lane markers, crosswalks, traffic lights, stop signs, and other road features

• What's around me? Waymo’s sensors and software scan constantly for objects around the vehicle—pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, road work, obstructions—and continuously read traffic controls, from traffic light colour and railroad crossing gates to temporary stop signs. These vehicles can see up to three football fields away in every direction

• What will happen next? Waymo’s software predicts the movements of everything around the car based on their speed and trajectory. It understands that a vehicle will move differently than a cyclist or pedestrian. The software then uses that information to predict the many possible paths that other road users may take

• What should I do? Based on all this information, Waymo’s software determines the exact trajectory, speed, lane, and steering manoeuvres needed to progress along this route safely.

The industry leader in the race to get a fully self-driving car on the road is Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. With self-driving technology, the car does all the work of driving and the person in the vehicle is never expected to take control at any time.

StratagemDecember 2018

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Waymo’s self-driving technology has now driven more than 10 million miles, the equivalent of 700+ years of human driving experience. Waymo has tested in more than 25 cities, on challenging city streets, in snow, rain, and extreme weather conditions. At Waymo’s private test track in California, they have run more than 20,000 individual scenario tests, practicing rare and unusual cases and collision avoidance testing. Waymo has multiplied all this real-world experience in simulation, where its software is driving more than 10 million miles every day in a virtual world (accumulating more than 7 billion miles of simulated driving testing so far).

No surprise then that in December 2018, Waymo decided to take the next step in its journey with the introduction of its commercial self-driving service, Waymo One, to the public. Waymo invited early riders from its research program to be the first to access Waymo One and expects to gradually roll out the service so even more people can ride with Waymo.

How does Waymo One work? It starts by giving riders access to the Waymo One app. They can use it to call Waymo’s self-driving vehicles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can ride across several cities in the Metro Phoenix area, including Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, and Gilbert. Whether it’s for a fun night out or just to get a break from driving, the riders get the same clean vehicles every time and the Waymo driver with over 10 million miles of experience on public roads. Riders will see price estimates before they accept the trip based on factors like the time and distance to their destination.

Waymo has put support literally front and center in its cars. With the tap of a button on the in-car console and screens, or through the Waymo app, riders can connect instantly to a rider support agent to ask questions like, “What if I want to change my destination during the trip?”. These channels will become even more important as Waymo transition to fully driverless rides. At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise the vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience. Up to three adults and a child can ride in a Waymo car.

Over time, Waymo hopes to make Waymo One available to even more members of the public as the company adds vehicles and drive in more places. Self-driving technology is new to many, so Waymo is proceeding carefully with the comfort and convenience of its riders in mind.

The Waymo software is also learning to drive big trucks in much the same way a human driver would after years of driving passenger cars. The principles are the same, but things like braking, turning, and blind spots are different with a fully-loaded truck and trailer. Waymo has conducted road tests of Waymo’s self-driving trucks in California, Arizona, and Georgia, including a pilot in Atlanta with Waymo’s self-driving trucks carrying freight bound for Google’s data centers.

Waymo’s mission is to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around. Waymo aims to bring fully self-driving technology to the world that can improve mobility by giving people the freedom to get around, and save thousands of lives now lost to traffic accidents. There are 1.2 million deaths and 2.4 million injuries worldwide every year due to vehicle accidents, and 2 out of 3 people will be involved in a drunk driving crash in their lifetime. There is a clear theme to the vast majority of these incidents: human error and inattention. 94% of crashes involve human choice or error in the U.S.

Fully self-driving vehicles hold the promise to improve road safety and offer new mobility options to millions of people. Whether they are helping people run errands, commute to work, or drop off kids at school, fully self-driving vehicles hold enormous potential to transform people’s lives.

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Our advisers have grown up in an industry where we see the huge benefits of advice, yet have very little respect for the vast majority of advice out there. Some of us had our first jobs in the days when AMP, Banks and fund managers ruled supreme. We all saw what was going on and the difficulty of providing critical objective advice under the industry structure. This was many years ago, so this is nothing new. In fact, it used to be worse.

Our Head of Strategic Advice Mark Serry, is an ethics vigilante. Over 12 years ago he used to write some articles for the Financial Planning Association. On one occasion he was given free range to choose the topic and unfortunately that was the last time he was asked. He wrote about all the conflicts of interest in the financial industry. The article never saw the light of day.

The big revelations of the Royal Commission were pretty hum drum to us. Didn’t everyone know what was going on? There was nothing very surprising to us.

Staff are not acting in the best interest of clients as they are paid and rewarded to act in the best interest of the business. That is probably true of most industries to varying degrees. Executives are so far removed from the actual customer that they just care about the numbers and do not even see the human beings on the other side.

Staff are not there long enough to really care about the long term and more focused on maximising sales and bonuses now. Yes, there were some deplorable acts, but there are going to be good and bad people in any industry. They may steal the headlines, but they are not the real issue.

From our perspective it is simple:

• You cannot have a financial incentive to recommend one option as opposed to another. That is just encouraging the wrong behaviour.

• If you punish the wrong people, you are not going to ensure that there is an incentive to act in the right way. The problem is that in almost all cases the wrong party is punished. A company is not a person that knows right and wrong. If you fine or destroy the reputation of the company, the shareholders are the ones that suffer, and they are not involved at all. The board with their 10 meetings a year are never going to be able to protect the shareholders. The threat of punishment has to apply to the people who take the wrong action. In the GFC no

one went to jail as everyone simply blamed someone else and there were so many guilty of egregious behaviour that should have been criminal.

• This is a phenomenally complex job and requires independent, analytical thinkers. An adviser should be the buffer between you and the financial world. They must be sceptical and knowledgeable. Many people, especially that entered the industry in its infancy, were able to continue with no qualifications, while others could get in too easily. Professionals who put a lot of effort into learning and value being good at what they do, don’t want to sell, they want to use their brains and their effort to provide meaningful advice.

So, we expect that there will be some regulations and rules that will make it less attractive for banks to stay in financial advice and most are already leaving. However, we are not optimistic about any real changes that were not already occurring and there is a real risk that when the government regulates, it will be costly and ineffective as they tend to miss the point.

Just try to get a $10,000 credit card limit nowadays if you are retired even if you have $3,000,000 in super!

Banking Royal Commission highlights trust deficiencyIs it just us or are we seeing a lot of Royal Commissions? The greater trust we are required to give, the more we are shocked when this trust is breached. The less consumers understand what they are paying for, the more they need to trust as the complexity makes it virtually impossible to be able to determine yourself. We could only imagine the shock and horror if there was a Royal Commission into the medical industry.

It’s what has made us a leading wealth management firm.

But there’s another aspect to our service that marks us as very different to others in the market. At Intralink, we believe enabling better informed, more financially literate clients is a critical part of our mission.

Put simply, we want to make you a smarter investor.

And here’s how. Throughout 2019 we’ll be presenting an ongoing content series designed to help you understand the investment ecosystem in greater depth. Some of it will be shared via email, and some as in-house presentations but it will all be practical, useful information and insights that we know you’ll find valuable.

We call it our Investor Masterclass.

The package will include:

• Monthly educational emails.

• Specific emails related to hot topical issues.

• In-house presentations including market and economic updates, investment themes and a range of educational and strategic planning topics.

‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest’ Benjamin Franklin

As a valued Intralink client you’re partnered with a team of professionals passionately committed to improving your life. We do that by securing your financial security, helping you reach important life goals, and by providing sound financial guidance.

• All presentations will also have an accompanying online version that you can review at any time.

• This is in addition to ongoing content like portfolio updates, Quarterly Reviews and face-to-face meetings.

Intralink’s Investor Masterclass will be valuable, shareable content that will lead to deeper discussions, greater insights and ultimately, better decision-making. It will allow you to get ahead of the news cycle and see where the market winds are blowing well before the ‘post-event’ reportage happens.

Importantly, we know that the Investor Masterclass needs to be a two way conversation.

Our job won’t be complete until you’re completely clear on what the information means for you and your long-term goals, and how it might impact your investment strategies.

That famous American polymath Benjamin Franklin nailed it back in the mid-1700’s – one of the most important investments you can make is in deepening your knowledge. We hope you’ll enjoy the many benefits of our Investor Masterclass in the following months.

Intralink Wealth Management Pty Ltd AFSL 330737 ABN 76 117 065 335Level 10, 360 Collins Street Melbourne VIC 3000Phone (03) 9629 1100 [email protected] www.intralink.com.au

Appointment of Senior Investment SpecialistIntralink is delighted to announce the appointment of Brendan Waller to the team, as a Senior Portfolio Manager.

Brendan brings more than 25 years investment market experience with global investment banks including Macquarie Bank and JP Morgan.

His experience includes Divisional Director and Head of Melbourne Desk at Macquarie Equities, Head of Melbourne Desk for JP Morgan, and Equity Sales and Trading for Credit Suisse. In these roles Brendan advised some of the biggest fund managers both globally and in Australia. As a result of this experience, he brings a broad and comprehensive understanding of the fund management industry, including portfolio construction and risk management.

Our investment team benefits from a unique mix of people, to ensure that we build an investment portfolio that meets your objectives. We use our own internal resources and some external relationships to build the best investment portfolios for our clients, which stems from our desire to ensure that risk is understood and managed.

Intralink and our Investment Committee welcome Brendan and the additional knowledge and expertise that he will undoubtedly bring to both our investment approach, investment team and organisation.

Brendan started his new position with Intralink on Monday 29 October. Over the coming months, we look forward to introducing you to Brendan personally.

With 2018 rapidly coming to an end, we would like to offer our sincere thanks for your ongoing loyalty and support. We trust that you and your family have a safe and relaxed

holiday and a happy and healthy start to to the New Year.