5 ms·

> When we think about our next cities, Los Angeles jumps out,” said Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. “LA is a remarkable, vibrant place – and Waymo’s experience

> When we think about our next cities, Los Angeles jumps out,” said Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. “LA is a remarkable, vibrant place – and Waymo’s experience leaves us best positioned to tackle its driving complexity. That's a funny way to say the next biggest place with 300 days of sun per year.

TotoHorner 4y ago
> That's a funny way to say the next biggest place with 300 days of sun per year. Why does that matter?
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Self driving cars don’t work in rain/snow
  - 988747 4y ago
    ...yet. I think Waymo's approach of launching the service in the cities when it is easy first, and over time expanding to more troublesome climates is much more sensible than Tesla's "humans can do it, so AI should be able to, with just cameras".
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Waymo's approach of launching the service in the cities when it is easy first, and over time expanding to more troublesome climates is much more sensible Is there a fundamental answer to this question? Start with low-hanging fruit and then build up? Or begin with the most challenging bits before gliding forward? The risk with the former is you end up in a dead end. The risk with the latter, finding the hard problems intractable without the experience of solving the easier ones.
      - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
        From a business perspective it's probably not even close. Start with the easiest + biggest. Scale matters here so you can't leave big easy markets there for the taking.
        saalweachter 4y ago
        Also, "easiest" is different from "easy". It's not like there aren't hard problems to solve self-driving a car in fair weather, that also have to be solved before you can drive in bad weather.
  - minwcnt5 4y ago
    They do work in rain, mostly (maybe not really heavy rain or flooded streets etc.)
    - jalk 4y ago
      Which humans are terrible at too
  - ra7 4y ago
    Waymo does work in rain and fog. They are permitted to operate in both of those conditions in San Francisco. They also do extensive weather testing, including areas with snow, so presumably they are close to cracking that as well. https://blog.waymo.com/2021/11/a-fog-blog.html https://blog.waymo.com/2021/11/a-fog-blog.html
    - xenospn 4y ago
      Driving in the rain in places that don’t usually have rain is a completely different ballgame.
      - djohnston 4y ago
        Why?
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    Correction: Tesla FSD doesn't work in rain or snow, or even for that matter all that well in regular daylight. Cruise is slightly better than FSD, but not by much. It's prone to driving really slowly and phantom braking, but at least it doesn't swerve into light poles or oncoming traffic like FSD does. Waymo works in rain.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    What happens to the passengers if you're on the freeway and it starts to rain. Does the car just dump them on the shoulder? Or is it smart enough to find a good place nearby to kick them out?
ra7 4y ago
But more importantly: > With approximately 13 million residents, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is one of the largest ride-hailing service areas in the world and the third largest in the U.S., with an estimated market opportunity of $2 billion in 2022. As a commercial opportunity, Los Angeles is the equivalent of a dozen smaller U.S. ride-hailing market opportunities combined.
testfoobar 4y ago
I don't understand the division of CEO roles into two CO-CEOs. Is this generally effective? I would imagine this would make tough decision making nearly impossible? Who takes the blame for bad decisions vs. good decisions? Anyone have some history on why Waymo has two CEOs?
- refulgentis 4y ago
  This is a really good question...its unusual but I didn't process it as such because it read as a smart & effective split. Last CEO was from Detroit, co-CEOs are effectively technical lead and ops lead. Makes sense for what is a one of kind tech lab hitched to a ride hailing business. You also made me think deeper about the unusual situations where I've seen co-leads at a FAANG. Honestly? I think it helped. There's a very strong "bullshit" culture that can set in. It is a mere step beyond your average upper class Americans cultural mileu, so its underrated how degenerate it turns with that one more step: suddenly, leadership is never leading, and being extremely territorial about general subject matter while never doing anything ambituous enough to fail can leads to cylical ineffectiveness. With two leads, there's two people to appeal to, and two people who need to argue and agree eventually. They can't sidestep that conflict is a crucial part of polishing.
- akomtu 4y ago
  I guess that when the last CEO was leaving, he had two candidates to replace him, but both treatened to leave if the other is made the boss, so that CEO made the solomon decision: he made them both "ceo".
- bergenty 4y ago
  I think it’s a great idea. Also a great model for benevolent dictators.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  A company the size of Alphabet doesn't even understand the meaning of the adjective "chief", as in, "most important." Also, the "co-CEO" is a womens' studies lawyer that spent 16 years managing "public policy" at each failing company de-jour of the past decades: AOL, Yahoo, eBay, and is now "co-CEO" of an extremely technical company? Yikes.

TotoHorner 4y ago

> That's a funny way to say the next biggest place with 300 days of sun per year. Why does that matter?

colinmhayes 4y ago
Self driving cars don’t work in rain/snow
- 988747 4y ago
  ...yet. I think Waymo's approach of launching the service in the cities when it is easy first, and over time expanding to more troublesome climates is much more sensible than Tesla's "humans can do it, so AI should be able to, with just cameras".
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Waymo's approach of launching the service in the cities when it is easy first, and over time expanding to more troublesome climates is much more sensible Is there a fundamental answer to this question? Start with low-hanging fruit and then build up? Or begin with the most challenging bits before gliding forward? The risk with the former is you end up in a dead end. The risk with the latter, finding the hard problems intractable without the experience of solving the easier ones.
    - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
      From a business perspective it's probably not even close. Start with the easiest + biggest. Scale matters here so you can't leave big easy markets there for the taking.
      - saalweachter 4y ago
        Also, "easiest" is different from "easy". It's not like there aren't hard problems to solve self-driving a car in fair weather, that also have to be solved before you can drive in bad weather.
- minwcnt5 4y ago
  They do work in rain, mostly (maybe not really heavy rain or flooded streets etc.)
  - jalk 4y ago
    Which humans are terrible at too
- ra7 4y ago
  Waymo does work in rain and fog. They are permitted to operate in both of those conditions in San Francisco. They also do extensive weather testing, including areas with snow, so presumably they are close to cracking that as well. https://blog.waymo.com/2021/11/a-fog-blog.html https://blog.waymo.com/2021/11/a-fog-blog.html
  - xenospn 4y ago
    Driving in the rain in places that don’t usually have rain is a completely different ballgame.
    - djohnston 4y ago
      Why?
- gamblor956 4y ago
  Correction: Tesla FSD doesn't work in rain or snow, or even for that matter all that well in regular daylight. Cruise is slightly better than FSD, but not by much. It's prone to driving really slowly and phantom braking, but at least it doesn't swerve into light poles or oncoming traffic like FSD does. Waymo works in rain.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  What happens to the passengers if you're on the freeway and it starts to rain. Does the car just dump them on the shoulder? Or is it smart enough to find a good place nearby to kick them out?

ra7 4y ago

But more importantly: > With approximately 13 million residents, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is one of the largest ride-hailing service areas in the world and the third largest in the U.S., with an estimated market opportunity of $2 billion in 2022. As a commercial opportunity, Los Angeles is the equivalent of a dozen smaller U.S. ride-hailing market opportunities combined.

testfoobar 4y ago

I don't understand the division of CEO roles into two CO-CEOs. Is this generally effective? I would imagine this would make tough decision making nearly impossible? Who takes the blame for bad decisions vs. good decisions? Anyone have some history on why Waymo has two CEOs?

refulgentis 4y ago
This is a really good question...its unusual but I didn't process it as such because it read as a smart & effective split. Last CEO was from Detroit, co-CEOs are effectively technical lead and ops lead. Makes sense for what is a one of kind tech lab hitched to a ride hailing business. You also made me think deeper about the unusual situations where I've seen co-leads at a FAANG. Honestly? I think it helped. There's a very strong "bullshit" culture that can set in. It is a mere step beyond your average upper class Americans cultural mileu, so its underrated how degenerate it turns with that one more step: suddenly, leadership is never leading, and being extremely territorial about general subject matter while never doing anything ambituous enough to fail can leads to cylical ineffectiveness. With two leads, there's two people to appeal to, and two people who need to argue and agree eventually. They can't sidestep that conflict is a crucial part of polishing.
akomtu 4y ago
I guess that when the last CEO was leaving, he had two candidates to replace him, but both treatened to leave if the other is made the boss, so that CEO made the solomon decision: he made them both "ceo".
bergenty 4y ago
I think it’s a great idea. Also a great model for benevolent dictators.
reducesuffering 4y ago
A company the size of Alphabet doesn't even understand the meaning of the adjective "chief", as in, "most important." Also, the "co-CEO" is a womens' studies lawyer that spent 16 years managing "public policy" at each failing company de-jour of the past decades: AOL, Yahoo, eBay, and is now "co-CEO" of an extremely technical company? Yikes.