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The justification for why they don't need an auto industry CEO makes sense. But do co-CEOs make any more sense? I never get a good vibe from that arrangement.

by rdw 6y ago

tyingq 6y ago
If I were one of the "co-CEOs", I'd read that as "Google doesn't trust either one of us enough to do this alone". Co ownership of say, a project might be okay, but co-ownership of a specific leader title is silly to me, especially the top spot.
- grensley 6y ago
  What are your thoughts on the average family unit?
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Ever get permission from Dad on something then get yelled at by Mom later?
Fricken 6y ago
Around the time Krafcik was hired Google/Alphabet was dealing with scandals and fallout from egomaniacal leaders like Tony Fadell, Andy Rubin, Anthony Levandowski, and that guy they put in charge of Verily. Larry and Sergei realized they weren't very good judges of character, and so they went in the opposite direction and put the milquetoast John Krafcik in charge. Their hope was that Krafcik would be better at forging auto industry partnerships. I'm not sure what Waymo would look like today if a tech exec had been in charge, but I doubt the CEO would have had much of an impact one way or the other on the hard problems associated with self-driving.
- tyingq 6y ago
  "put the milquetoast John Krafcik in charge" A brief read over his career seems to show he was pretty successful. I guess you could argue "right place/time", but his time at Hyundai and TrueCar looks like it went well.
  - Fricken 6y ago
    Certainly, I wasn't trying to suggest Krafcik was spineless or lacking competence, just low key and not high on coke. The biggest hazard Waymo faced the past 5 years was some kind of Media witch hunt based on a sensational accident of some sort, and that didn't happen on Krafcik's watch. His job was to do a political highwire act and manage the interests of his team, Larry and Sergei and Ruth, regulators and politicians across multiple levels of government, partners across several industries, competitors as well as the media and public expectations. Somehow nothing catastrophically shitty happened. Self driving cars are still a science experiment, and that's not on Krafcik. He killed it. At the front end Waymo is as ready to scale and commercialize as it can be at this stage.
    - tyingq 6y ago
      Ha, yes. Definitely different from some of the Waymo crew.
mcot2 6y ago
Yes they matter very much sometimes. A CEO like Elon with a very large depth of understanding of this problem space is going to be able to allocate resources much better than someone without any AI experience. There are many many many dead ends in this space and you need to be able to experiment and pivot quickly which is what Tesla is doing. Waymo is stuck in the mud.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Waymo actually has level 4 autonomy out there and revenue passengers, and is slowly inching out progress and confidence. Tesla ... Tesla is nowhere near that, and is just doing stuff that scares me.
  - mcot2 6y ago
    The stuff that scares you may be the beginings of the technology thats actually needed to get to full L5. We just don’t know yet so anyone that is certain on the internet I would be skeptical of. The bet Elon is making is on pure vision which is a much different approach than Waymo and Cruise are taking.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      It might be. But I find it difficult to believe that having fewer sensors makes things easier. I also just don't think the Tesla cameras have enough angular resolution to perform a lot of scenarios safely, like detecting a much faster vehicle in a short merge. (Note Tesla relies upon the front-facing radars quite a bit, too, so it's not really pure vision).
      - dawnerd 6y ago
        Elon said they’re not going to need the radars going forward. I guess that makes sense if vision gets good enough but they’re going to run into issues like you said if camera placements and poor visibility. They should have stuck cameras facing the left/right from the furthest corners of the car so it can see around corners without inching into the street. But who knows, it seems like they’ve made good progress as is so well see. I don’t understand the people that think they’re never going to upgrade the camera suite though, cybertruck and the semi already have a new camera layout.
adrenalinelol 6y ago
I agree, it's strange to axe the type of person they'd need to rollout the tech, unless the tech itself just isn't going to be ready soon at all vs. giving him a different role? I wonder how long the project of "L4/L5 autonomous vehicles on today's roads" would have to meander on for before the Alphabet leadership decides to axe it or radically change to scope would/will be?
- ghaff 6y ago
  Maybe it's enough of a pet project of the senior leadership to get cut an extraordinary amount of slack. But even given continuing incremental advance it still seems a very long way from a viable product that they could sell.
pasttense01 6y ago
It's possible they expected that the person who is not promoted will leave. Thus they promoted both to make sure this didn't happen.
kqr2 6y ago
Great comment from ChuckMcM on previous Waymo thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674924

The justification for why they don't need an auto industry CEO makes sense. But do co-CEOs make any more sense? I never get a good vibe from that arrangement.

by rdw 6y ago

The justification for why they don't need an auto industry CEO makes sense. But do co-CEOs make any more sense? I never get a good vibe from that arrangement.

tyingq 6y ago

If I were one of the "co-CEOs", I'd read that as "Google doesn't trust either one of us enough to do this alone". Co ownership of say, a project might be okay, but co-ownership of a specific leader title is silly to me, especially the top spot.

grensley 6y ago
What are your thoughts on the average family unit?
- tyingq 6y ago
  Ever get permission from Dad on something then get yelled at by Mom later?

Fricken 6y ago

Around the time Krafcik was hired Google/Alphabet was dealing with scandals and fallout from egomaniacal leaders like Tony Fadell, Andy Rubin, Anthony Levandowski, and that guy they put in charge of Verily. Larry and Sergei realized they weren't very good judges of character, and so they went in the opposite direction and put the milquetoast John Krafcik in charge. Their hope was that Krafcik would be better at forging auto industry partnerships. I'm not sure what Waymo would look like today if a tech exec had been in charge, but I doubt the CEO would have had much of an impact one way or the other on the hard problems associated with self-driving.

tyingq 6y ago
"put the milquetoast John Krafcik in charge" A brief read over his career seems to show he was pretty successful. I guess you could argue "right place/time", but his time at Hyundai and TrueCar looks like it went well.
- Fricken 6y ago
  Certainly, I wasn't trying to suggest Krafcik was spineless or lacking competence, just low key and not high on coke. The biggest hazard Waymo faced the past 5 years was some kind of Media witch hunt based on a sensational accident of some sort, and that didn't happen on Krafcik's watch. His job was to do a political highwire act and manage the interests of his team, Larry and Sergei and Ruth, regulators and politicians across multiple levels of government, partners across several industries, competitors as well as the media and public expectations. Somehow nothing catastrophically shitty happened. Self driving cars are still a science experiment, and that's not on Krafcik. He killed it. At the front end Waymo is as ready to scale and commercialize as it can be at this stage.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Ha, yes. Definitely different from some of the Waymo crew.

mcot2 6y ago

Yes they matter very much sometimes. A CEO like Elon with a very large depth of understanding of this problem space is going to be able to allocate resources much better than someone without any AI experience. There are many many many dead ends in this space and you need to be able to experiment and pivot quickly which is what Tesla is doing. Waymo is stuck in the mud.

mlyle 6y ago
Waymo actually has level 4 autonomy out there and revenue passengers, and is slowly inching out progress and confidence. Tesla ... Tesla is nowhere near that, and is just doing stuff that scares me.
- mcot2 6y ago
  The stuff that scares you may be the beginings of the technology thats actually needed to get to full L5. We just don’t know yet so anyone that is certain on the internet I would be skeptical of. The bet Elon is making is on pure vision which is a much different approach than Waymo and Cruise are taking.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    It might be. But I find it difficult to believe that having fewer sensors makes things easier. I also just don't think the Tesla cameras have enough angular resolution to perform a lot of scenarios safely, like detecting a much faster vehicle in a short merge. (Note Tesla relies upon the front-facing radars quite a bit, too, so it's not really pure vision).
    - dawnerd 6y ago
      Elon said they’re not going to need the radars going forward. I guess that makes sense if vision gets good enough but they’re going to run into issues like you said if camera placements and poor visibility. They should have stuck cameras facing the left/right from the furthest corners of the car so it can see around corners without inching into the street. But who knows, it seems like they’ve made good progress as is so well see. I don’t understand the people that think they’re never going to upgrade the camera suite though, cybertruck and the semi already have a new camera layout.

adrenalinelol 6y ago

I agree, it's strange to axe the type of person they'd need to rollout the tech, unless the tech itself just isn't going to be ready soon at all vs. giving him a different role? I wonder how long the project of "L4/L5 autonomous vehicles on today's roads" would have to meander on for before the Alphabet leadership decides to axe it or radically change to scope would/will be?

ghaff 6y ago
Maybe it's enough of a pet project of the senior leadership to get cut an extraordinary amount of slack. But even given continuing incremental advance it still seems a very long way from a viable product that they could sell.

pasttense01 6y ago

It's possible they expected that the person who is not promoted will leave. Thus they promoted both to make sure this didn't happen.

kqr2 6y ago

Great comment from ChuckMcM on previous Waymo thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674924