Today, my colleague Kirsten Korosec reported that the autonomous vehicle startup Aurora is close to finalizing a deal to merge with one of three blank-check companies that have been formed to date by renowned entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus and a third partner in these deals, Michael Thompson, who long managed special situation funds. This one is intriguing for a lot of reasons, including because Aurora’s founders are big wheels in their industry (no pun intended) and their moves are widely watched, and having already acquired the self-driving unit of Uber in a complicated arrangement, Aurora could, as a publicly traded entity, snap up even more rivals, given it would have a more liquid currency than it does right now. Possible merits of the deal aside, the deal is also interesting because of Hoffman's involvement.