Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Video Scripts

UNIT 1
A Business Decision
Page 16
Steve Tappin: What was the key to the success?
John Donahoe: But that was like one of those gut-check moments1.
Tappin: How have you managed to make these deals successful?
Other Speaker: We all thought that we were on the right path.
(start of interview)
Tappin: Every CEO1, you know, we—you have ups and downs. And think some—you
have a period where things go well or maybe sometimes when there’s a
mistake. Is there one or two mistakes that stick in your mind in your career?
Donahoe: I make mistakes every day. You know, Steve, I’ve learned from some of my
hardest experiences. When I became—example—when I became CEO of
eBay, I knew we needed to make bold change, and we faced a challenge.
We’re either going to have long, steady decline1 or confront2 reality and make
change. So, literally, I was appointed3 CEO on a Wednesday, and the following
Monday, I stood in front of the eBay selling community and announced the
boldest changes—the biggest, boldest changes eBay had had in its ten-year
history. And it was confronting reality. I was—felt like I was telling the truth,
the truth that everyone saw—
Tappin: Yeah.
Donahoe: —but we hadn’t yet owned up to. And it felt so good to tell the truth—for
about 24 hours. Because after 24 hours, all hell broke loose1. The sellers were
upset. The media was upset. The media got our investors upset. Our
employees got upset because we were making change. And I had probably
been too bold in my communication of that change and hadn’t socialized it.
So what happened was a viral2 effect. We started having sellers organizing to
get rid of me, to get rid of the company’s leadership3. I’ll never forget; we had
a—something we called eBay Live. We used to bring together 15,000 of our

1
gut-check moment: noun phrase a test of one’s courage, character, or determination
1
CEO: noun chief executive officer; the person with the highest rank in a business company
1
decline: noun a continuous decrease in number, value, quality, etc., of something
2
confront: verb to deal with (a problem or difficult situation)
3
appoint: verb to choose someone for a job or position of responsibility
1
all hell broke loose: idiom suddenly there was a lot of noise, arguing, fighting, or confusion
2
viral: adjective used to describe a piece of information, a video, an image, etc., that is sent
rapidly over the Internet from one person to another
3
leadership: noun a group of leaders of a particular organization, etc.
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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Video Scripts
sellers from all over the world, and eBay Live that year was in Chicago. So I
got in my cab, went to the hotel, went up to my hotel room, flipped open my
laptop, opened up YouTube, and typed in eBay—something I hadn’t done
before. And the first page of search results, the first ten videos were hate
videos about me.
Tappin: Yeah.
Donahoe: And, in fact, the number-one one was what John Donahoe’s doing to eBay.
And I’ll tell you at that moment, it hurt. At that moment, I thought, oh my God,
this is personal. This is—I’m trying to do the right thing. I think we’re doing
the right things. But it’s deeply personal, and people feel very, very upset.
And I knew that, but they felt deeply upset at me. And that was a moment—
that was like one of those gut-check moments—is this worth it?
Tappin: Yeah.
Donahoe: Is this worth it? And I had to decide right then whether it was worth it. And I,
you know, it wasn’t perfectly obvious at the moment. And that night, I tossed
and turned1, and the next morning, I said, you know what, it’s worth it. I had
to go out in front of those 15,000 sellers that morning and stand up in front
of them and say here’s why what we’re doing, I believe, is right for our
community and right for everyone here. And I respect different opinions, but
we’re in this together. And that coming back to that purpose and articulating
it was a gut-check moment but—
Tappin: Yeah.
Donahoe: —but I had dug my own self a bit of a hole by not communicating as
effectively as I could.
Tappin: Yeah.

UNIT 2
Benefits to Being Messy
Page 41
Bill Geist: Good morning. As you may know, January is Get Organized Month, a difficult
time for millions of Americans like myself whose desks are less than tidy0.
Are you a slob?
David Freedman: I do not consider myself a slob. Those are still fighting words I think.
(laughing together) There’s a difference between being messy and being a
slob.
1
tossed and turned: verb phrase moved from side to side or up and down
0
tidy: adjective arranged in good order; neat
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Geist: Now there is hope for the messy in a new book coauthored by science writer
David Freedman. We found the perfect place at CBS for our interview.
Freedman: Mess is good for a lot of reasons. First of all, you save a lot of time. Another
reason is there’s efficiency0 in mess. People who are really messy know
where their stuff is because it reflects the way they work and think. And, in
addition, it’s expressive.
Geist: This is revolutionary. We’ve been taught all our lives that neatness is a virtue.
Woman: (in old TV clip) Yes, cleaning up after yourself is a grown-up way to behave.
Geist: So I just wanted to show you my office.
The author contemplated my clutter0.
This is it. What do you think?
Freedman: I’m seeing pileage as opposed to heapage. Piles have a chronological meaning
to them.
Geist: Yes.
Freedman: And people often know how many inches they have to go down in a pile to
get so many weeks or months back in time (Geist laughing), and that makes it
very easy to find things.
Geist: At our office, the forces of fastidiousness have been beaten back. Next door,
Martha is embedded in her work.
We’re analyzing offices. Do you think your office is messy?
Martha Teichner: Not particularly.
Geist: No, is . . . Can you find things in here?
Martha: Of course.
Freedman: Well, I think a messy office is, in many ways, basically a very interesting,
lively ecosystem, and in your case—
Martha: Ecosystem?
Freedman: In your case, literally so. (Geist laughing)
Geist: Charles has his office looking rather tidy. He shared a few of his
housekeeping secrets.
Charles Osgood: You see that space down there?
Geist: Yeah.

0
efficiency: noun the ability to work well without wasting time or energy
0
clutter: noun things that make a place messy
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Osgood: It’s kind of a . . . What I do . . . If they say somebody’s downstairs and coming
up to see me, I go like this. (loud thud) Take stuff like this (papers rustling),
and I put it (Geist laughing) (loud thud) like that.
Andy Rooney: Look at them. All go to something, but I don’t know what they go to.
Geist: Andy always has a lot of stuff in his office, but he has a system to deal with it.
Rooney: When something comes in my desk that I want to keep I throw it in one of
these boxes and then eventually end up putting it under here. (Geist
laughing) That’s the end . . . That’s the end of it.
Geist: But he bristles at the suggestion he’s organized, but he would. He’s Andy
Rooney.
Rooney: There’s something offensive about anyone who is too well organized or even
organized at all ’cause I just don’t think they produce much of anything.
Geist: The messy people I work with produce. This is a senior producer who’s one
of the bigwigs on the show.
Freedman: She’s developed some really useful mess here.
Geist: Now there’s a concept for you: useful mess.
Freedman: This makes me smile, and I think if I could see more executive offices that
look this messy, I bet we’d be a more productive nation.
Geist: Wow! Makes you almost proud to be slovenly.
Geist: Mess has an established performance record. Had Sir Alexander Fleming not
kept such a filthy0, moldy laboratory, penicillin would not have been
discovered. The authors found that employees with messy desks are 36
percent more efficient, and that’s not all. The book has a survey that shows
the bigger the salary, the bigger the mess. Yet, even David Freedman admits
there are limits.
Geist: I don’t . . . Phil, are you here? Phil may or may not be in here. I don’t know.
Freedman: Wow, well, this is a . . . (Geist laughing) This is quite a mess.
Geist: A spectacular display in Phil’s office seemed to stun the author.
Freedman: I’m not afraid to say it. This is a very, very messy office.
Geist: I feel like you’ve got about two feet going here. Several coats.
(voiceover) And challenge his beliefs.
Look at his chair. He can’t even sit in his chair.
Freedman: Yeah, well, I mean I try not to be judgmental about other people’s mess. I am
tempted to say that maybe this is getting a little bit out of control here. Some

0
filthy: adjective dirty
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people—
Geist: You’re impressed.
Freedman: I am impressed. Well, some people are sort of engineers about the way they
get their pileage together and actually keep it from falling over. There’s some
sort of science, I think.
Geist: This has got avalanche potential, though.
Freedman: There is some physical danger in here, yes.
Geist: Little wonder there is still dirty desk discrimination in our society. Messy
desks don’t exactly inspire confidence. You won’t see the president
addressing the nation from a desk cluttered with old coffee cups and piles of
unkempt papers anytime soon.
Freedman: I think a lot of people would be horrified, and I think that’s something it’s
really time to change.
Geist: As Albert Einstein said, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of
what, then, is an empty desk?”

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UNIT 3
“Adulting” School
Page 55
Katie Brunelle: How to fold a fitted sheet0.
Teacher 1: Those two corners together. So what I end up with is kind of a halved sheet.
Rachel Weinstein: If you get a flat tire, how to put on the spare and get to, get yourself
where you’re going.
Brunelle: Being healthy with basic exercising and nutrition skills.
Weinstein: Knowing to start your retirement fund early so that you can take advantage
of compound interest.
Brunelle: Keeping things alive, whether it’s your plants or your children or your pet.
Weinstein: Anyone who is over 18, 22, is an adult. And it’s just a matter of how well are
you adulting.
Heather Noe: I came from a generation where our public school system pushed for, you
could be whatever you want to be. The sky’s the limit. Just go to college and
everything’s going to be great. You can just go for whatever you want to be
and dream as big as you possibly can.
What I’m hoping to take away from any of the courses that I will be attending
in the Adulting School is filling in any gaps that I feel like I have. I was never
told anything about credit score or the weight of having to pay back student
loans or I have no idea how to buy a house or even how to really get started
outside of looking online at pretty houses that seem wonderful and totally
out of reach.
Brunelle: We offer, kind of, you know, what do you do with your debt? How can you
budget and live on the income that you’re bringing in? We’re basically
sneaking0 education into these fun events.
Teacher 1: You are going to fold your fitted sheet.
Teacher 2: I want each and every one of you to understand that from birth, you are
wired to do value a certain way. So when you leave here tonight, you will
know yourself better than you ever knew yourself before. That’s pretty cool.
She’s excited.

0
fitted sheet: noun phrase a large piece of thin cloth with round corners that is used on a bed
0
sneak: verb to do something secretly
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Weinstein: This generation has been encouraged to think outside the box. And that’s a
beautiful thing, but it comes with some challenges because if you don’t have a
circumscribed0 path to follow, you know, you have to figure it out yourself.
Noe: To me, it seems like the Adulting School is basically a really jazzed-up0
version of adult ed, which we’ve had for a really long time.

0
circumscribed: adjective limited
0
jazzed-up: adjective made more interesting or exciting
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UNIT 4
Moore’s Law
Page 87
Narrator: Today, hugely sophisticated computers can be held in the palm of your
hand. But originally, computers filled an entire room.
Voiceover: Preparing Nellie to do a day’s work has become a well practiced routine0.
Speaker 1: Right, keys in. Can you check disk oil level please, Harry?
Speaker 2: Oil OK.
Speaker 3: OK, disk up to speed.
Speaker 4: Hello, alternator house, disk oil and temperature OK, is it OK your end?
Speaker 5: Motor on. OK for standby0.
Narrator: Forty years after the first electronic computers were developed . . .
Speaker 6: Standby coming on.
Narrator: . . . their size has decreased dramatically. How has computing technology
advanced so rapidly? The answer lies in the size of circuit boards, which
have rapidly become smaller and smaller.
` Gordon Moore was the co-founder and chairman of Intel, back in 1965, when
he formulated0 what has come to be known as Moore’s law. Observing how
technology had advanced up to that point, Moore said that the number of
transistors that can fit on a circuit board would double every two years. This
increases computational power very quickly. In fact, each doubling of
transistor density actually quadruples0 the effective computational power,
because as transistors shrink0, so does the time it takes to perform their
switching operations—so, we get twice the amount of transistors in the same
space, working at twice the speed. This also results in a lower cost per unit as
the same computational power can be created more cheaply.
The effect has been very noticeable in the consumer market. For example,
the development of cell phones, from early models to complex smartphones,
in less than 30 years is strongly linked to Moore’s law, as are processing
speed, memory capacity, and even the number and size of pixels in digital
cameras.

0
routine: noun the normal order and way in which you regularly do things
0
standby: noun something that is ready
0
formulate: verb to express your ideas in carefully chosen words
0
quadruple: verb to make something four times bigger
0
shrink: verb to become or make something smaller
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Industry experts now believe we are approaching the end of Moore’s Law.
Current techniques are reaching their capacity, and the technology required
to go even smaller would cost too much. Since 1965, much of the computing
industry has set its targets for development based on Moore’s law, but with
the technology apparently nearing its limits, the future is harder to predict.

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UNIT 5
Improving Farming with Flying Robots
Page 105
Chris Anderson: It’s a bit of a cliché0 but, William Gibson’s famous quote, “The future is
already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” We have seen the future of
aviation. We have seen the future of food. We have seen the future of
robotics. Right now, it’s too hard. It’s not reliable enough. It’s too expensive.
But as we work on that, as we make it cheaper and easier and more
ubiquitous0, then it becomes more evenly distributed. Then regular people
can have these powerful tools and we can see what they’ll do with it. So,
we’ve already seen robots can fly; the question is how do we make it so that
everybody can see that?
We know that we’ve got to feed more people, and we have to lower the
chemical load in our, in agriculture and use less water. How are we going to
do that? Well, the answer is going to be essentially technology, that where
farms are becoming increasingly automated—robotic tractors, robotic
milking machines, et cetera—and farms are increasingly becoming a big data
opportunity. We realize that the more you know about the farm, the better
you can manage it, and the better you can optimize0 your yield0 and decrease
your chemical load. How are we going to get big data? How are we going to
measure our farms? And the answer is you can either, you know, scatter
sensors0 like seed, which is hard and we don’t know how to do that, or you
can just take the sensors to the farm, which is what drones can do. So the
irony of this whole thing is that when I got started in this whole thing, I
thought, you know, autonomy—drones—are the future of flight. And in
reality, they may in fact be the future of food. It’s been a long time since
farming was dominated by the, you know, the family plots and the small
holdings. Today, farms are huge. There’s—the farms are getting bigger and
bigger with consolidation in big ag0, and there’s fewer and fewer people on
them. And they’re, and as the sort of demands for productivity go up, they’re
being scientifically managed by what’s called precision agriculture. So a
tractor today typically drives itself, GPS-guided, within centimeters’ precision

0
cliché: noun a phrase or an idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning
and is not interesting
0
ubiquitous: adjective very common
0
optimize: verb to make something as good as it can be; to use something in the best possible
way
0
yield: noun the total amount of crops, profits, etc., that are produced
0
sensor: noun a device that can react to light, heat, pressure, etc., in order to make a machine,
etc., do something or show something
0
ag: noun abbreviation for agriculture

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to exactly know where things are planted. They can also pick, you know,
crops that same way. The farmer sitting in that cab is probably watching a
movie, not driving the tractor. Cows, when they want to be milked, cows go
into the milking shed and the robots then milk them. You know, this is, this
sort of robotic, you know, revolution in agriculture, you know, 300 years
after the original mechanization of agriculture, is going to be the way we get
to that next level of productivity that feeds the planet. I think we’re right
there with drones, which is to say our job, as technologists, is to make them
cheap and easy and ubiquitous, and then ultimately the users figure out what
the application is for. And farming is a perfect example of that—it was
farmers who told us that these things were fantastic crop survey, you know,
devices and we didn’t realize that crop surveys were important until we
started talking to farmers and they explained that agriculture is the biggest
industry in the world, that right now because farms are so big, the farmers
can’t walk their fields anymore. They don’t actually know what’s going on,
and as a result, they use more chemicals and more water than they need to
simply because they’re suffering from ignorance. They can’t afford the cost
of a disease/infection, so they overspray. If they could get, you know, a
sensor, by this I mean a simple camera, to just fly every day and say here’s
what’s going on with your crops today, maybe they wouldn’t be spraying
those chemicals. Maybe we could lower the chemical load in our food and our
environment. And so it’s not only the biggest industry in the world with the
highest economic potential of bringing this sort of data, big data approach to
crop management, but it’s also the safest place to be using things because
there’s no people there. It doesn’t, it’s not over your backyard, it doesn’t
trigger privacy issues. It’s private land, it’s under 400 feet. You know, if we do
our job right, today you think of drones as military weapons; tomorrow you’ll
think of drones as farm equipment. You’ll just, there’ll be these things
buzzing over crops as you drive through the countryside.

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UNIT 6
Failure and Success in Startups
Page 129
Peter: So, Michael, I’d love to know where it all started and what was your first
business?
Michael: Went to university up in Birmingham and met a friend of mine called Tom
Boardman. And we had this idea to sell toys and gadgets and games. And a
wonderful chap0 called Tom Teichman decided to invest half a million
pounds into our business. And we decided to do it on the Internet, which was
very new and shiny back in 1998. And the great thing then was that there
weren’t many competitors. The downside was there were hardly any
customers either.
Peter: And then from there where did—
Michael: Well, then—
Peter: What was your next—
Michael: Then we almost lost everything in the dot-com0 bust0 in early 2000. We
overextended0 ourselves. We spent too much money. We got carried away0.
We teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. It was a pretty, pretty scary time.
Peter: Michael’s business might now be a multimillion-pound hit, but he’s clearly
had more than his fair share of near misses. After the dot-com bubble burst,
Michael swapped selling gadgets for developing an adventure game. Perplex
City launched in 2005. Players bought puzzle cards and followed clues in a
bid to find buried treasure worth a hundred thousand pounds. Amazingly,
having nearly lost it all, Michael persuaded his previous investor and others
to give him another chance and more money.
Michael: I’d managed to raise further financing0, and in total, I’d raised about six
million pounds for this business. Yes, so I got some very, very well respected,
huge venture capital firms0 came in and invested between them many

0
chap: noun used in Great Britain to talk about a man in a friendly way
0
dot-com: noun a company that sells goods and services on the Internet
0
bust: noun a period of economic difficulty in which people and businesses struggle to survive
0
overextended: adjective involved in more work or activities or spending more money than you
can manage without problems
0
get carried away: verb phrase to get very excited or lose control of your feelings
0
financing: noun money used to run a business, an activity, or a project
0
venture capital funds: noun money that is invested in a new company to help it develop,
which may involve a lot of risk

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millions of pounds. So the pressure and the stakes0 really, really raised at
that point.
Peter: Did it succeed? Was it good for you?
Michael: There were people in different countries around the world helping expand
this treasure hunt. It was a pretty big operation, but unfortunately there
weren’t enough people playing to cover the costs of running this very
expensive business.
Peter: But what did you put—you didn’t spend six million, surely, on a website and
a treasure hunt?
Michael: Well, helicopters are pretty expensive.
Peter: Real helicopters, you mean?
Michael: Real helicopters we hired to do flyovers of these live events we did. We had a
massive burn rate0, and our outgoings were a lot higher than our incomings.
Peter: Wow.
Michael: Very, very—
Peter: Six million.
Michael: Six million pounds. And you can imagine how stressful and tense it was to
have all this money, but the business not working.
Peter: So did you lose all the money then?
Michael: Well, we had about six hundred thousand pounds left in the bank, about a
million dollars.
Peter: And how did you front the investors? Were they camping outside, like sort of
protestors?
Michael: Well, we had to go to the board and tell them in a very stressful board
meeting that, you know, that six million pounds you’d given me? Well, most
of it has gone. I’m really sorry this idea hasn’t worked out. But I’ve got one
more idea, one final roll of the dice.
Peter: What did they say? I mean, if you came in to me and said, “Peter, look, it’s not
all bad. You gave me six million and I’ve got six hundred K0 left. So, hey, we’re
all right.” No, we’re not all right. It’s like what is going on?
Michael: I was terrified. But to their credit the board were supportive. You know, they
listened and they said, “Michael, fair enough. You know, we invested in you
more than the idea. And if you’ve got one more idea, let’s see what happens.”
0
stakes: noun something that you risk losing, especially money, when you are involved in an
activity that can succeed or fail
0
burn rate: noun the rate at which the money available for a project or new company is spent
0
K: abbreviation $1,000
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I think if I’d screwed up0 with Moshi Monsters, there wouldn’t have been a
third chance. So fortunately it worked.
Peter: Have you been told that you were mad before?
Michael: Well, I think there’s always been a very fine line between insanity and
genius. And a lot of entrepreneurs with big visions kind of weave between
that line.
Peter: Insane or genius, Michael certainly doesn’t lack confidence.

0
screw up: verb phrase to do something badly or spoil something
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UNIT 7
Phineas Gage
Page 166
Narrator: Phineas Gage was a 25-year-old foreman of a railway construction gang,
working on the new railways of east coast America.
On September 13, 1848, an accidental explosion blew an iron rod0 through
his head.
Over 1 meter and 6 kilograms of tamping iron was driven into his left cheek
and right through his skull, with incredible force.
The extent of the damage can be seen here and shows how the rod
punctured0 his frontal lobe at the front of the brain.
Amazingly, Gage survived, and he could still walk and talk.
He had fully recovered within a few months, except for one key difference: he
had undergone a radical personality change. Before the accident he was
described as smart, hard-working, and iron-willed. Now he was impulsive,
rude, and vulgar0.
It was because of the doctor who made these observations that the case of
Phineas Gage has gone down in history.
Dr. John Martyn Harlow, the local doctor in Vermont, treated Gage at the
scene of the accident. But then, unusually, he continued to study him even
after he had made a physical recovery. He recorded the injury to the front of
the brain seemed to have caused a personality change. For the first time, he
suggested that the mind and personality could be affected without other
apparent brain damage.
Title: Injury caused personality change
Front of brain affects personality
Position = Function
Narrator: This was so controversial0 at the time that it was another decade before Dr.
Harlow’s theory was accepted.
As other investigations into the brain progressed, the idea of “brain
localization” was put forward.
The brain was not just a homogenous0 lump but was made up of different
areas doing different things.
0
rod: noun a long straight piece of wood, metal, or glass
0
puncture: verb to make a small hole in something
0
vulgar: adjective rude and likely to offend
0
controversial: adjective causing a lot of angry public discussion and disagreement
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Dr Harlow’s observations could now be seen to provide the first proof of this
theory. They had shown that the front of the brain was important for
personality.
The tragic accident of Phineas Gage changed our understanding of the
relation between mind and brain forever.

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UNIT 8
Driverless Trucks
Page 194
Jamie: I’m on my way to do some disrupting0 with a group of people who want to
change an entire industry. And it might end up changing the whole global
economy and how it works.
Narrator: Our mission begins in the car park of a home improvement store. It’s not the
most obvious place to start a revolution, but this one has a certain do-it-
yourself quality.
Jamie: Absolutely huge. I’ve never been in a truck before. Oh, wow, this is it.
Stefan: Yeah.
Narrator: Meet Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, a 27-year-old who’s raised five million dollars
with his plan to change the future.
Tony: All right, mate.
Narrator: Tony Hughes is key to Stefan’s plan.
Jamie: What is this?
Milk?
And we gotta get this over to—which is, how far is that?
All right, how long we got in the truck?
Well then, let’s do it. All aboard! (engine roaring) All right, let’s go!
Narrator: More than three million trucks carry freight0 on America’s highways. This
truck isn’t like the others.
Stefan: Tony, is the system good?
All right, Kurt, is the system good?
Rosebud on, Rosebud on.
Jamie: So, you’re not touching the wheel; I can see the other wheel is moving, isn’t
it? Oh my God. This is quite scary. It’s just driving itself, man. (laughs)

0
homogeneous: adjective consisting of things or people that are all the same or all of the same
type
0
disrupt: verb to make it difficult for something to continue in the normal way
0
freight: noun goods that are transported by ships, planes, trains, or trucks
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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Video Scripts
Narrator: Stefan and his team have made this truck drive itself by adding a computer
that controls the pedals0 and steering wheel. They’re hoping by adopting the
huge existing truck fleet, they can beat bigger rival companies racing to build
expensive self-driving trucks from scratch0.
Jamie: And you see every time it veers a little bit, my heart goes, I’m thinking oh
God, it’s lost control and then it comes back in again. Your heart beats just a
little bit quicker ’cause you’re thinking oh my God, we got this—suddenly
this huge vehicle that we’re all in is being controlled not by the driver but by
the computer.
Narrator: I can’t help wondering: trucking is one of the best-paid jobs open to people
without a degree, but for how long? Among America’s three and a half million
truck drivers, Tony is a rarity.
Jamie: What do they say when you tell them what you’re doing?
Tony: They say, they call me a traitor0 because they say you’re taking our jobs away
from us.
Jamie: They call you a traitor?
Tony: Yep.
Jamie: How does that make you feel?
Tony: As long as I am satisfied with the job that I am doing out here, and making the
—lives better for other drivers, they can say whatever they want. But this
will make a difference in drivers’ lives.
Narrator: Stefan’s vision of self-driving trucks still requires drivers.
They’ve been needed to remotely0 pilot trucks through busy depots or
congested cities, on and off the motorway.
Jamie: How does it compare now do you think if Tony is driving without the system?
Stefan: Well, the system still isn’t as good as Tony. The goal is that it will be better
than an above average or a good driver in the next couple of months.
Jamie: Next couple of months?
Stefan: That’s what we think.
Jamie: That’s the speed at which it’s improving.

0
pedal: noun a part of a bicycle, car, etc., that you push or press with your foot to make the
machine move or work
0
from scratch: idiom from the very beginning, not using any of the work done before
0
traitor: noun a person who works against their friends, country, etc.
0
remotely: adverb from a distance
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Q3e Listening & Speaking 4: Video Scripts
Stefan: Because we are focusing on this particular domain. It’s way easier, it’s way
simpler to drive autonomously0 on the highway than to drive autonomously
in a neighborhood. There’s way fewer variables that happen.
Narrator: There is no shortage of ambition in this cab.
Stefan: Our plan is to start to take people out of the vehicle on the middle routes by
the end of the year.
Jamie: By the end of the year.
Stefan: Yeah.
Narrator: But there are some teething problems.
Jamie: We got a team of engineers that are driving with us, so they—we’ve stopped
off in a lay-by, they’ve jumped out, they’re checking the pedals, making sure
everything’s working. That’s exactly what Silicon Valley is about. Once you’re
out and doing it and you’re dealing with real-life problems, things going
slightly wrong, fixing them up, you can then demonstrate to the world that
we have made this thing work. We’re not gonna wait around for all the
regulations. And then almost, by virtue of demonstrating its power, it forces
the world to change around it, and I think that’s what happens when you take
this disruption philosophy, this idea of Silicon Valley, getting out there,
changing things, and then making the world catch up with them. That’s why
they’ve conquered the world.

0
autonomously: adverb with the ability to work without any help from anyone
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