3 ms·
Around the time Krafcik was hired Google/Alphabet was dealing with scandals and fallout from egomaniacal leaders like Tony Fadell, Andy Rubin, Anthony Levandows
by 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 agoCertainly, 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 agoHa, yes. Definitely different from some of the Waymo crew.