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Waymo has raised $3B in the last two months
- alokrai 6y agoUnpaywalled: http://archive.is/Beahs http://archive.is/Beahs
- Rutledge 6y agoAlso on the blog (WSJ article has more details): https://blog.waymo.com/2020/03/waymo-raises-first-external-investment.html?m=1 https://blog.waymo.com/2020/03/waymo-raises-first-external-i...
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 6y agoIs there a chrome extension or something that finds these links automatically?
- jackson1442 6y agoHere's what I use: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome Not available on AMO or Chrome Webstore, unfortunately, but is very easy to install on Firefox, and requires just a bit of effort on Chrome.
- ricktdotorg 6y agothank you for posting this! in a mere 5 minutes of use you have earned a thousand thank-yous. :thumbsup:
- imedadel 6y agoI made one for myself a while ago: https://github.com/ImedAdel/arkiv https://github.com/ImedAdel/arkiv, it just tries to look for an archived version or sends you to a page to build to archive the website. Not quite perfect, but does the job for me :)
- bdcravens 6y agoThey've raised $3B in 2 months; this round was $750M. The original headline: "Waymo Adds $750 Million to War Chest as Driverless Cars Prove Tough to Deploy"
- faitswulff 6y agoThat headline should also be the title for this submission.
- durpkingOP 6y agoheadline police-- 'We protect and serve people who don't read articles'
- Rutledge 6y agoThe round is $3B, it is the first and only round Waymo has raised (open since March): https://blog.waymo.com/2020/05/t-rowe-price-perry-creek-capital.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/05/t-rowe-price-perry-creek-capi...
- enitihas 6y agoCan anyone explain why does Waymo need to raise any money? Doesn't Alphabet have practically infinite pockets? If they are confident of Waymo, why would they want to share the profits with anyone else ever? Even if Alphabet was reluctant to invest their own profits, can't they borrow cheaply too?
- yumraj 6y agoDiversify the risk. Even founders who can self fund, raise money from investors as you don't want to own all the risk in any risky endeavor.
- matt_the_bass 6y agoThat’s a good point. But maybe they don’t have 100% confidence so they want to share the risk. Or maybe alphabet doesn’t see the self driving VEHICLE as their product. Maybe they see the consumer data as the product and want someone else to pay for the effort to collect it.
- somethoughts 6y agoMy take is that there are two interests in self driving cars for Google Proper (i.e. Search, Maps, Youtube, News, Ads). * Free version of Uber/Lyft based on a Google ad/maps referral as described by this patent [1] * Free up peoples commute times so there eyeballs are free to use Google more (watch Youtube, use Google Search, read Google News). Perhaps even access free in-Waymo wifi that only allows Google domain access. They have monopolies in these two areas and therefore neither requires 100% ownership in Waymo. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/23/google-awarded-patent-for-free-rides-to-advertisers-locations/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/23/google-awarded-patent-for-...
- bdcravens 6y agoRisk transfer.
- julianozen 6y agoI think also Google share holder probably wont stomach unlimited investment in this. It allows Google stock growth to not be hampered by this investment
- trixie_ 6y agoIs Waymo the Magic Leap of autonomous driving?
- nbardy 6y agoIt's an inaccurate comparison. The problems are very different. Magic Leap is trying to create a viable product for a market that doesn't exist. What they are actually going to ship and how it's going to be useful is still up in the air. Autonomous is going to be incredibly valuable and it's a hard problem that we'll have to keep hacking away at for a long time. Waymo has made more advancements than any other company. There is a big pack of companies all trying to get a piece of this pie and none of them may succeed in the short term, but Waymo looks to have the best shot.
- trixie_ 6y agoThe Oculus Quest has proven to be incredibly successful. Magic Leap has had more than enough time to develop something comparable. Instead billions of dollars have been poured in only to result in fancy tech demos. Waymo is 100% at the same stage right now, and if nothing happens, they will definitely be the Magic Leap of autonomous driving.
- numpad0 6y agoAnd comma.ai the Palm?
- duxup 6y agoFinancially maybe. But beyond that I am sure there is a market for self driving cars. Just don't know if / when they'll get to the point that they can sell it, but I'm a hell of a lot more sure about Waymo's product demand than I am Magic Leap's in terms of "Does anyone want this product / could you actually sell it?" Waymo is there to help me get places easier. I like that. I'm not at all sure what Magic Leap was offering.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.md/BhlFN https://archive.md/BhlFN
- KCUOJJQJ 6y agoI'm not a car owner but I wouldn't buy a car from Google or a car that is connected to the internet / saves data into logs that can be read in a garage. I wouldn't buy a car from Google because of this [1]. Even if Google promised not to collect data I wouldn't believe them. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location-tracking-cell-tower-data-android-os-firebase-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location... Google admits it tracked user location data even when the setting was turned off
- dave5104 6y agoMaybe I haven't been following Waymo too closely... but are they even planning on selling cars? I thought the end goal was to build a fleet of self-driving cars to have a lower cost Uber/Lyft replacement. You wouldn't own the car, but merely a subscription to their self-driving fleet.
- three_seagrass 6y agoDoesn't look like it. Waymo seems content to do taxi and delivery, though my guess is Google took such a large stake in Uber and Lyft in order to license the tech there. Or integrate Waymo fleets with their apps. Despite the glut of subprime car loans, the newer generations are buying less cars, and Waymo is probably not going to try to sell vehicles.
- bluegreyred 6y agoHow do you feel about Tesla in this regard?
- KCUOJJQJ 6y agoI don't know. The police in the city of Basel bought seven Teslas. It seems this wasn't OK regarding data protection. And I don't know if it's OK now or if the police were just allowed to keep the cars because they had already bought them. According to an article, written in German, the police had to replace the SIM cards inside the cars with Swiss SIM cards [1]. IMHO this looks (partly) like a pseudo action because there is still an internet connection. (However, according to the article the cars are considered to be OK now.) [1]https://www.baublatt.ch/kommunal/datenschutzproblem-bei-tesla-flotte-der-polizei-basel https://www.baublatt.ch/kommunal/datenschutzproblem-bei-tesl...
- jhpriestley 6y agoOne oft-repeated line about driverless cars was that they would improve the world by reducing car accidents, and possibly helping with congestion and parking problems. The pandemic has proven that these goals and many more can be accomplished without any complicated, speculative AI technology, simply by taking full advantage of telecommuting and delivery. Obviously there is no profit to be made so it would make no sense for investors to do so, but I wonder what $3B could accomplish if it were put to the purpose of reducing the need to travel, rather than finding new ways to burn gasoline.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- drcode 6y agoI'm pretty sure delivery drivers also get into car accidents.
- jhpriestley 6y agoFewer miles, fewer accidents. One delivery truck can replace many personal car trips.
- icebraining 6y agoI guarantee you there's plenty of profit to be made in delivery and even telecommuting. Hell, Amazon alone is investing more than $3B extra in the next quarter! Besides, delivery would also benefit from this.
- khazhoux 6y agoI don't think the world forced to stay indoors for months is in any proof that transportation is somehow obsoleted.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThey primarily make software right? 3Bn seems like a lot of cash for a software company to need. That’s 2m dollars per employee. What am I missing here? Am I just old and out of touch?
- dodobirdlord 6y agoThey also design hardware, and they run a fleet of 600 vehicles in Arizona by last count. They're also ramping up a new fleet of up to 20,000 no doubt very expensive vehicles. https://www.wired.com/story/waymos-self-driving-jaguars-arrive-new-homegrown-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/waymos-self-driving-jaguars-arri...
- LatteLazy 6y agoThanks, I had no idea they were over 20 cars, let alone 600->20000. 20,000 seems like a proof of concept. If you have 20,000 cars and they're mostly on the road, you could open your own Uber in a city...
- shawabawa3 6y agoSelf driving cars involves a lot of hardware, it's hardly just a software company
- icebraining 6y ago2m is only if they keep the current headcount, which may not be feasible if they want to test in more locations, or negotiate the upcoming self-driving legislation in multiple countries. Plus who knows how long it'll take before these cars are viable. This is still very much a research project.
- mitfahrener 6y agoTitle is misleading.
- InTheArena 6y agoMeanwhile, Tesla continues to iterate on a production fleet with a (admit idly rough) new capability rolled out to allow autopilot to obey stop lights and stop signs. If I were a investor that invested in individual stocks (which I am not), my money would be on Tesla over the long run here.
- ehsankia 6y agoWaymo did considering the iterative method and decided against it intentionally. Putting aside the obvious danger of incrementally getting to L4 (the inbetween state where the system feels safe enough for users to not pay attention, but actually isn't), it's actually not obvious that there is an obvious smooth transition from L2 to L4. Yes, Tesla may be getting more data in the field, but Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car without anyone at the wheel (within a small region + good weather). Also worth pointing out that the quality of the data also matters, not only the quantity.
- InTheArena 6y agoI think this was a strong argument when Tesla was the rough highway only version it was two years ago. Now it’s dramatically better and continuing to accelerate.
- ehsankia 6y agoYet L4 is still nowhere in sight. What Tesla has now, Waymo had a demo for almost a decade ago. Either Waymo has been doing literally nothing for the past decade, or there's something more subtle and far more difficult about getting to L4.
- InTheArena 6y agoOr just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead. I suspect we will see a replay here of the ULA versus SpaceX history of the last ten years, and at the end, Google is going to look up and wonder "what happened" while Tesla continues to dominate the actual market.
- supernova87a 6y agoI'm not sure I would be so pleased as an employee or share/optionholder in Waymo about the fundraising. In fact, people forget that fundraising isn't something really to be overly proud of. It's a loan, whether it's phrased that way, or as an equity stake. It was all fine when they got free money from Google to power their experiments (cars, people, time). Now they're borrowing from their own value to pay investors for the loan. I'd want to see some belt tightening from what is sure to be an overly large engineering team and lots of support staff, if there were ever to be the promise of becoming profitable (and to eventually pay for these loans from investors).
- fl1pP3R 6y agoy
- kilroy123 6y agoIt'll be interesting to watch Waymo try to make it on their own. I predict they end up focusing on semi-autonomous trucks instead of cars for regular people.
- daenz 6y agoDoes anyone else think that the massive decrease in driving (due to lockdowns) is a game-changer for the outlook on autonomous vehicles? Suppose we can embrace a society with fewer drivers, isn't that better for autonomous vehicles by most metrics?
- oneiftwo 6y agoI expect we will see gradual conversion of roads to be more amenable to autonomous driving - barriers for pedestrians, special markings, etc - and autonomous zones will become more and more commonplace. On the other hand I think with the collapse of the economy and skyrocketing unemployment, the price for a human driver may plummet. Remains to be seen if the increased demand in deliveries is enough to offset the voids left in the rest of the economy.
- bradlys 6y agoI don’t see it happening for the US that way. The increased cost of infrastructure would probably be too much? Unless the US figures out how to lower construction/maintenance costs reliably, I don’t see those features being added. It feels like we’re already pretty low on features... It takes years for faded lines to be repainted on the road.
- Retric 6y agoLong term Autonomous cars are likely to need less markings or barriers than normal drivers not more. Why have road signs when updating a database somewhere is cheaper? We are at the stage of people in the 1960’s talking about long term computer trends.
- yalogin 6y agoI dont understand Waymo and what they are doing. What is their path to making money on this? They are not building their own cars, haven't partnered with any automakers either. In fact they discussed with a bunch of them and couldn't convince any company to partner with them. Most of the automakers already are investing heavily in their own autonomous tech stack. Unless they blow everyone out of the water with their technology I don't see them selling their stuff to automakers. The only path then is an Uber competitor. That means they have to acquire a fleet custom made for their solution. That is a huge investment a large undertaking, not sure Waymo has it in them to do it. This is not Google wave to abandon so I am sure they will not do so, however I will not be surprised if people grow frustrated by the lack of clarity.
- vl 6y agoWhat do you mean by “what is their path to making money on this?” Original founders cashed out very well (remember Lewandowski’s 120 millions?). I’m sure current management will manage just fine in the private round or some other “stock buyback program”.
- TuringNYC 6y agoI get your frustration -- but at the same time, i'm darn glad they are doing "stuff" whatever it might be. Self driving cars will change the world in so many ways. Traditional industry was too close-minded to tackle the challenge and now we have non-traditional players (Google, Uber) leading the charge -- this has spurred traditional players to jump in. It also creates a statistical-ish way to spread strategy bets in approach. Hopefully some combination of the many approaches being used wins -- then we all win.
- iamleppert 6y agoCan anyone explain the business model of a self-driving car company? We already have this service, except it’s powered by humans. Humans who own the cars, store the cars, clean them, and take care of all the maintenance. A self-driving car company will have to own a huge depreciating asset, and they’ll still need staff to clean & take care of the cars in addition to an enormously expensive engineering team and/or licensing payments. What business model are these companies trying to fulfill? It seems like they are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
- malux85 6y agoExcept self driving trucks can drive 24/7 and never take a break. You’ve seen those truck stops where there’s 30-40 trucks sitting idle while their drivers are sleeping and on mandated breaks? Wasteful. If all cars are self driving we can eliminate red lights and traffic signals because of machine coordination. Better utilisation of cars will lead to a 5x to 10x decrease in traffic, and route planning algorithms will optimise pickups and simultaneous package delivery. Your car can go and ferry people around rather than sit idle taking up parking spaces while you’re at work (copy paste this for 200,000 workers in the city) and make you money The car can go fuel and charge itself and drive itself to servicing and cleaning.
- kortilla 6y agoOther than the trucking example, none of those are business models for self driving car companies.
- malux85 6y agoThe trucking model is profitable enough. Truck drivers is literally the most common job in the US. And what if the ferrying people around part is a revenue share between the self driving car company and the car owner?
- vl 6y agoBut why do they have to make profit? Original founders already cashed out, current management and top employees will most likely cash out in the private round.