Sohrab Haghighat is the co-founder and CEO of Hestus and a two-time Y Combinator founder. He holds a PhD, has spoken at numerous conferences and is named as an inventor on more than 14 patents. Sohrab was among the first ten employees at Cruise Automation (the SF-based self-driving company acquired by GM in 2016). At Cruise, Sohrab led multiple teams responsible for vehicle behavioral planning. After Cruise, Sohrab founded SpaceRyde, a Canadian rocket launch company, which he led for six years. SpaceRyde was the first company to get a launch authorization from the Government of Canada, 21 years after the last rocket launch from Canadian soil. Under his leadership, the company built a pipeline of more than $170M in launch contracts, and its IP was later sold.