The recent emergence of an autonomous vehicle (AV) industry in the U.S. has been attributed primarily to the 2004-2007 DARPA Grand Challenges, three competitions during which teams constructed robots to transverse a desert racecourse (2004-2005) and complete a series of simulated urban driving scenarios (2007). Popular accounts of the Grand Challenges credit victories by Stanford and Carnegie Mellon University, respected research institutions that have received hundreds of millions of dollars in robotics research funding, and the subsequent establishment of Google Waymo with the birth of the AV industry. However, this dominant narrative overlooks significant contributions of “geek teams” who, despite possessing far fewer capabilities and resources, created game-changing innovations during the Challenges and established startups that today form the backbone of the AV industry. This seminar will provide deeper insights into how the individual prototyping efforts of geek teams, combined with a shared robotics architecture, led to the formation of collective field identity, an important antecedent to industry emergence. Implications for research and innovation policy will be discussed.