In 1995, Todd Jochem helped drive a car across America - with no one touching the wheel.
But before No Hands Across America made headlines, there was a kid from Huntingburg, Indiana - population 3,000 - who had never set foot in a real laboratory. A kid who walked into Carnegie Mellon University and wondered if he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.
Driven is the second book in the five-volume memoir series Dare to Be Great: A Life in Five Acts. It follows the years when Todd Jochem left the familiar fields and gyms of southern Indiana for the most elite robotics program in the world - and discovered that getting there was the easy part.
These pages trace the real story behind a thesis that tested every limit, the Automated Highway System demonstration that put Carnegie Mellon on the front page, and the imposter syndrome that nearly derailed all of it. This is what it felt like to sit in rooms full of the most brilliant minds in the country and wonder whether you belonged - and what happened when those same people decided to believe in you.
At its core, Driven is not a technology story. It's a story about people.
The classmates who became co-conspirators. The mentors who saw something you couldn't see in yourself. The young wife whose faith kept you anchored when doubt said to quit. And the CMU community that turned a small-town kid's raw ambition into something that mattered.
If you've ever stepped into a room where you felt outmatched - and stayed anyway - this book is for you.
Book 2 of 5 in the Dare to Be Great series. Each book stands alone, but together they tell the full story of a life shaped by accountability, excellence, and the people who made the difference.
