Robot Pizza Trucks Hit Some Bumps

Here is a Bloomberg Businessweek story about Zume Pizza Inc., the startup that was going to have robots make pizzas in delivery trucks. That was its real pitch, it raised $375 million from SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund, the very recent past was absolutely wild. “In January, Zume cut 360 jobs, leaving a little over 300 employees, and said it would focus on packaging and efficiency gains for other food delivery companies,” getting out of the robot pizza business. But while it was in that business, hoo boy:

I love the path-dependency here. “Why do the robots cook the pizzas in trucks?” “Well, in an earlier version of the business plan the trucks were moving; it was a terrible idea, but by the time we figured that out we already had the trucks.” I suppose you save on real-estate costs. Also: