Speaking
I talk about AI, self-driving, and what it's like to build a company while you're still in school. When the subject is hardware, I bring it on stage.
85k+ mi
on Full Self-Driving
Ridden in automated driving technology.
12,057 mi
Key West to Prudhoe Bay
The Buoy to Bay, July 2026. 94.6% on v14 Lite, in a Model 3 with 189,689 miles on its original pack.
HW3 → HW4
on a bench, then on stage
I take Tesla's Full Self-Driving computers apart, get them running, and bring them to talks. Both boards power on to a screen you can actually use. More of that work is coming.
24+ hrs
in passenger AVs
39 Waymo rides, 170 miles, across Miami, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Nashville, and Orlando. Tesla Robotaxi in five of those cities, AV Ride in Dallas. Tesla, Waymo, Aurora, Nuro, AV Ride, and Zoox depots explored.
Why organizers book me
I drive it.
85k+ miles on FSD, including Key West, Florida to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on FSD.
I take it apart.
HW3 and HW4, running on a bench, then on a display at events.
I explore the others too.
Ridden in, and explored the depots of, Waymo, Tesla Robotaxi, Zoox, Nuro, AV Ride, Aurora, and more.
I used to run infrastructure.
Built a hosting company. Sold it in 2026. Now that time goes into FSD computers and the models on them.
A rising star when it comes to the technical aspects of Full Self-Driving.
Also worth knowing
On the record
Chattanooga Charge 2026
Moderated by Josh West, with David Moss and Landon of the West. I carried a Hardware 3 board and a Hardware 4 board up to the table and walked the tent through what actually changed between them, then argued that the part of Optimus worth caring about isn't the factory floor, it's the person who can't get help at a price that works.
Read the recapTesla Owners Club of Michigan · Summer Meetup
Moderated by TechGeek Tesla, alongside David Moss, Dirty Tesla, and Iowa Tesla Guy. This is the technical one: why the link between the MCU and the FSD computer gates what the B-pillar cameras can do, why v14 Lite on HW3 is a memory-bandwidth problem rather than a feature problem, and what a real HW3-to-HW4 retrofit would cost once you've had both cars apart. Recorded and published by David Moss.
Watch on YouTube
Tesla Owners Club of Michigan Summer Meetup · Muskegon, June 2026
What I can bring
I drove the entire drivable height of North America with the software at the wheel, logged every intervention, and published the log whatever it said. This talk is the honest version: where FSD is genuinely finished, where it quietly hands the wheel back, and why the interesting failures happen on gravel and in construction zones rather than on the highway everybody films.
Something adjacent that isn't listed? Ask. I'd rather build a talk around your audience than reuse one that nearly fits.
The demo table
Mine arrives in a trunk. I spent three weeks designing and building a service-center-style display stand for events. Figma drawings, a borrowed bandsaw, two crooked print jobs, and finally the CA glue that held the acrylic, because a board somebody can stand over is worth more than any diagram I could put on a screen.
The display, in the trunk
Left open at the show all day so people could come look at it between sessions.
My own teardown photography, shot in the lab.
Travels with me
All I need from the venue is a stage.
The practical part
Everything an organizer usually has to email twice for.
Where I've been
Press kit
Intro line
1 sentence
Koby Pierce is a builder and entrepreneur from Lexington, Kentucky who researches autonomy the hard way: he takes Tesla's Full Self-Driving computers apart, and this July he drove 12,057 miles on Full Self-Driving from Key West to the Arctic Ocean.
Short bio
60 words
Koby Pierce is a builder and entrepreneur working across AI, autonomy, and infrastructure. He spent six years building the hosting company Hybrid Hosting and led it through an acquisition in 2026. He now runs Pierce Technology Solutions and hosts the podcast Our Full Self Future. He researches Tesla's Full Self-Driving hardware by disassembling it, and its software by driving it.
Full bio
128 words
Koby Pierce is a builder, entrepreneur, and speaker based in Lexington, Kentucky. He spent six years building the hosting infrastructure company Hybrid Hosting and led it through an acquisition in 2026. Today he runs Pierce Technology Solutions, building connectivity and monitoring systems for Kentucky's horse farms, and hosts Our Full Self Future, a podcast on autonomy and physical AI recorded from inside a self-driving car. His teardown research on Tesla's HW3 and HW4 Full Self-Driving computers has been picked up by the EV press. In July 2026 he drove the Buoy to Bay, Key West to Prudhoe Bay and home, 12,750 miles, 94.6 percent of it on Full Self-Driving. He has spoken on panels at Chattanooga Charge and the Tesla Owners Club of Michigan Summer Meetup.
Booking
Audience, format, date, city. That's enough for me to say yes or no quickly and suggest which of the four talks actually fits.
Based in Lexington, Kentucky@koby_pierce on XLinkedIn
