4 ms·

And a year ago they did less than 15,000! That is not even one tenth! They clearly will not get anywhere with this.

scarface_74 2y ago
Yes, just like every startup pitch deck. “We grew from 10 customers to 100 customers in a year. At this rate we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade!!!” The first cohort of customers of any company is always the easiest to obtain with the lowest acquisition cost. You solve the easiest problems first. This is Cohort Analysis 101. Not to mention Waymo still hasn’t shown to be able to operate in less than ideal weather conditions or proven that the unit economics will make sense or be economical especially taking into account maintenance, or utilization ratios.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
  we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade That is roughly what happened with Facebook, Google, the iPhone ... None of these products were as good when they started as when they had a billion users.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:text=Survivorship%20bias%20occurs%20when%20researchers,a%20subset%20of%20the%20population. https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:... Is that really what you want to argue in front of investors? That you are going to be the next Facebook, Google or Apple? There was also MySpace, Friendster, Altavista, InfoSeek, RIM, Nokia…
    - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
      Facebook was the next Facebook with Instagram. Apple was the next Apple with the iMac. Then with the iPod. Then with the iPhone. Google was the next Google with Android. With Chrome. With Gmail. With Google Maps. With YouTube. Google becoming the next Google with Waymo would not be a black swan event.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        Google also had literally hundreds of failures and Android is not an amazing financial success by any means and Google still ends up paying Apple over $20 billion a year because people with money buy iPhones. Google is not exactly known for its success rate getting products out of the door that aren’t ad related.
        hot_gril 2y ago
        Give stuff for free, ???, profit. It's kinda worked for them, but not as well as Apple's strategy.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        You can’t give hardware away for free profitably. You also have hundreds of failures https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ Including Google Fiber. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/google-fiber-exits-louisville-after-shoddy-installs-left-exposed-wires-in-roads/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/googl... Google Stadia was disaster. In the phone market. The Motorola acquisition was a major failure and Pixels aren’t taking the world by storm. The entire “Other bets” haven’t led to any major successes. There are only two tech companies that have shown any ability to do hardware at scale as mass consumer products in the last 25 years - Apple and Tesla.
- sbochins 2y ago
  It’s been operating safely in each market they’re in. The AI keeps getting better. They have no competition (please don’t bother mentioning Tesla vapor ware). Path to high growth seems pretty sure at this point.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And the markets they are in are low hanging fruit with good weather. I’m not saying Waymo is less safe than human drivers. I am saying that it will only take one fatal accident by any self driving car for people to lose confidence, investigations to start, rollouts to be paused etc. I’m also not saying that is a logical response.
    - flutas 2y ago
      > I am saying that it will only take one fatal accident by any self driving car for people to lose confidence, investigations to start, rollouts to be paused etc. Uber and Cruise are both great examples of this, but it seems like the effect is mostly localized to the company itself that has the issue. Uber hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian, resulting in their self driving tech being sold to Aurora. [0] Cruise hit a pedestrian that was flung into the cars path that a human driver hit previously. This resulted in GM completely abandoning Cruise and their future seems foggy at best. [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_(autonomous_vehicle)#Suspension_of_operations_and_eventual_shut_down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_(autonomous_vehicle)#Su...
  - no_wizard 2y ago
    Which is very very few markets, and all of them share weather patterns that are very similar. When Waymo can demonstrate reliably going from Chicago to Ann Harbor in the middle of a snow storm thats when we can start talking about how its good enough.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      It reminds me of the advanced ED209 robot in Robocop that was taken out by an inability to go down a flight of stairs https://youtu.be/_MS4sLlBvbE https://youtu.be/_MS4sLlBvbE

Yes, just like every startup pitch deck. “We grew from 10 customers to 100 customers in a year. At this rate we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade!!!” The first cohort of customers of any company is always the easiest to obtain with the lowest acquisition cost. You solve the easiest problems first. This is Cohort Analysis 101. Not to mention Waymo still hasn’t shown to be able to operate in less than ideal weather conditions or proven that the unit economics will make sense or be economical especially taking into account maintenance, or utilization ratios.

ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
we will have 20% of the world’s population in a decade That is roughly what happened with Facebook, Google, the iPhone ... None of these products were as good when they started as when they had a billion users.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:text=Survivorship%20bias%20occurs%20when%20researchers,a%20subset%20of%20the%20population. https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/survivorship-bias/#:~:... Is that really what you want to argue in front of investors? That you are going to be the next Facebook, Google or Apple? There was also MySpace, Friendster, Altavista, InfoSeek, RIM, Nokia…
  - ArtTimeInvestor 2y ago
    Facebook was the next Facebook with Instagram. Apple was the next Apple with the iMac. Then with the iPod. Then with the iPhone. Google was the next Google with Android. With Chrome. With Gmail. With Google Maps. With YouTube. Google becoming the next Google with Waymo would not be a black swan event.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Google also had literally hundreds of failures and Android is not an amazing financial success by any means and Google still ends up paying Apple over $20 billion a year because people with money buy iPhones. Google is not exactly known for its success rate getting products out of the door that aren’t ad related.
      - hot_gril 2y ago
        Give stuff for free, ???, profit. It's kinda worked for them, but not as well as Apple's strategy.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        You can’t give hardware away for free profitably. You also have hundreds of failures https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ Including Google Fiber. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/google-fiber-exits-louisville-after-shoddy-installs-left-exposed-wires-in-roads/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/googl... Google Stadia was disaster. In the phone market. The Motorola acquisition was a major failure and Pixels aren’t taking the world by storm. The entire “Other bets” haven’t led to any major successes. There are only two tech companies that have shown any ability to do hardware at scale as mass consumer products in the last 25 years - Apple and Tesla.
sbochins 2y ago
It’s been operating safely in each market they’re in. The AI keeps getting better. They have no competition (please don’t bother mentioning Tesla vapor ware). Path to high growth seems pretty sure at this point.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  And the markets they are in are low hanging fruit with good weather. I’m not saying Waymo is less safe than human drivers. I am saying that it will only take one fatal accident by any self driving car for people to lose confidence, investigations to start, rollouts to be paused etc. I’m also not saying that is a logical response.
  - flutas 2y ago
    > I am saying that it will only take one fatal accident by any self driving car for people to lose confidence, investigations to start, rollouts to be paused etc. Uber and Cruise are both great examples of this, but it seems like the effect is mostly localized to the company itself that has the issue. Uber hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian, resulting in their self driving tech being sold to Aurora. [0] Cruise hit a pedestrian that was flung into the cars path that a human driver hit previously. This resulted in GM completely abandoning Cruise and their future seems foggy at best. [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_(autonomous_vehicle)#Suspension_of_operations_and_eventual_shut_down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_(autonomous_vehicle)#Su...
- no_wizard 2y ago
  Which is very very few markets, and all of them share weather patterns that are very similar. When Waymo can demonstrate reliably going from Chicago to Ann Harbor in the middle of a snow storm thats when we can start talking about how its good enough.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    It reminds me of the advanced ED209 robot in Robocop that was taken out by an inability to go down a flight of stairs https://youtu.be/_MS4sLlBvbE https://youtu.be/_MS4sLlBvbE