He added AI to parking lots—then raised $3.5B. | Alex Israel, Founder of Metropolis

Episode notes

Alex and his co-founders spent 2018 pitching parking lot owners on computer vision tech. Every meeting ended the same way: "Cute startup, come back in 30 years." So they did something else—they bought the parking operators and implemented the AI themselves. VCs called them delusional. But today, Metropolis has 20 million members and adds 1 million new members every month. Every 1-2 seconds someone signs up. Alex's biggest lesson? When enterprise customers won't adopt your tech, don't convince them—buy them. Sometimes the only way to disrupt an industry is to become the industry.