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The way this has apparently been handled saddens me. I worked for Cruise, a Waymo competitor. A Cruise vehicle famously had a very unfortunate accident and Cr

by krupan 6mo ago

The way this has apparently been handled saddens me. I worked for Cruise, a Waymo competitor. A Cruise vehicle famously had a very unfortunate accident and Cruise government relations employees famously tried to cover up the worst details when reporting it to the CA DMV. Of course the cover-up was discovered and guess what? Cruise lost their license and not long after lost all their funding and shut down. Self driving cars are a new technology that makes a lot of people nervous. For it to succeed those nerves need to be acknowledged and settled. This is life and death for the business and technology! Also, Waymo's customers (and really all of us sharing the road with them) are very much providing Waymo a huge service as early beta testers. They need to be treated extremely well right now. It is not the time for Waymo to be trying to keep things quiet, dismissing concerns, and making half assed restitution for problems. Again, This is life and death for the technology and your company, Waymo! Every bit as important as the engineering work you are doing. Please don't screw this up

toss1 6mo ago
It is also literally insanely hostile for Waymo to respond like this. The parent company, Alphabet, is valued over four trillion dollars. The proper response would have been: "oh, terribly sorry for the inconvenience, we'll immediately turn it around, wait there". If that was somehow actually possible, the next response should have been: "Oh, sorry that is impossible because of [actual reason X], we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience, where are you going to be staying, we'll immediately pack and ship it all to you FedEx". Instead, they do this petty crap. I'm no lawyer, but as soon as someone takes off with my stuff, that sounds like theft. Sure, I willingly put it in the trunk, but it was on a contract that they would deliver me and my luggage to the destination. Refusing to allow me to retrieve it, then requiring me to come get it is just outrageous. At the very least, instead of offering the rider two rides to come fetch his stuff that they drove off with, would be to deliver it to his home at a time convenient to him. This tells me the company is run by a bunch of greedy losers. Not anyone with whom I might want to associate or do business. Really disappointing
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- tialaramex 6mo ago
  > I'm no lawyer, but as soon as someone takes off with my stuff, that sounds like theft. I expect it's not theft. In England the intent requirement is famously "permanently to deprive" and so any situation where you're getting it back isn't theft. Doubtless the US has slightly different rules but I don't think that'll be theft.
  - usui 6mo ago
    In England, can I take someone's belongings and extort them to pay for "shipping and handling" fees or compel them to go out of their way to some risky nondescript location to pick it up? Wonder what the crime in this case if it's "not theft".
    - tialaramex 6mo ago
      That would probably be a Blackmail offence, the intent requirement is about gain (to you) or loss (to the other party) and there's a bunch of Reasonableness invocations because it depends whether the prosecutor can make out that a Reasonable person should know they aren't entitled to ask that you do this to get your property back, as of course one can gain (or the other party may lose) in a reasonable transaction. For example I once left a laptop on a train when travelling to my mother's house for Xmas. At the time my mother still lived where I grew up, at the edge of Metro-land, and so of course most people on that train wouldn't steal a laptop, they probably earn more than the laptop was worth in a day's work. But I stepped off the train with my other belongings, realised as I walked away and it's too late. The train operating company is under no obligation to like, stop the train and bring back my laptop right? It's unfortunate, but it's not on purpose. A week later I picked it up from their main hub. Their behaviour was entirely reasonable. If you're thinking that this rule about theft means some crimes aren't theft then yeah, the most notable example in English culture is the crime of "joyriding" which is when you take somebody's car and you drive that around for a while and then you just get out and run off. That's not theft because, as we saw, no intent permanently to deprive (because it destroys evidence like fingerprints some joyriders might torch the car, but that would be intent permanently to deprive). So the crime of "Taking Without Owner's Consent" or TWOC was invented for cars and there's a fun rabbit hole you can disappear down as crooks take like boats and other things and the exact wording of that law is interpreted by courts as to whether it's TWOC if you took a bicycle, or a rowboat, or...
BoorishBears 6mo ago
Waymo has been "scaling up". In the earliest days the lost and found was 7 days a week with highly permissive hours for a manned desk at the depot. Then one day it became weekdays-only, but with a still large window. Then one day the window for pick up got broken up into a few smaller windows throughout the day. Now with the larger Bay Area expansion they did switch to automated lockers, but if you're unfortunate enough in SF specifically, your belongings now end up in a locker an hour away from from the city...
redanddead 6mo ago
Cruise was legendary, awesome bunch of people. I remember finding out how you guys had an angel syndicate and speaking to a few guys, hope you all are onto bigger and better things
tencentshill 6mo ago
>keep things quiet, dismissing concerns, and making half assed restitution for problems That is exactly the Tesla strategy, and it seems to work well for them. Though Waymo doesn't have a daily PR disaster to distract like Musk.

by krupan 6mo ago

toss1 6mo ago

It is also literally insanely hostile for Waymo to respond like this. The parent company, Alphabet, is valued over four trillion dollars. The proper response would have been: "oh, terribly sorry for the inconvenience, we'll immediately turn it around, wait there". If that was somehow actually possible, the next response should have been: "Oh, sorry that is impossible because of [actual reason X], we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience, where are you going to be staying, we'll immediately pack and ship it all to you FedEx". Instead, they do this petty crap. I'm no lawyer, but as soon as someone takes off with my stuff, that sounds like theft. Sure, I willingly put it in the trunk, but it was on a contract that they would deliver me and my luggage to the destination. Refusing to allow me to retrieve it, then requiring me to come get it is just outrageous. At the very least, instead of offering the rider two rides to come fetch his stuff that they drove off with, would be to deliver it to his home at a time convenient to him. This tells me the company is run by a bunch of greedy losers. Not anyone with whom I might want to associate or do business. Really disappointing

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
tialaramex 6mo ago
> I'm no lawyer, but as soon as someone takes off with my stuff, that sounds like theft. I expect it's not theft. In England the intent requirement is famously "permanently to deprive" and so any situation where you're getting it back isn't theft. Doubtless the US has slightly different rules but I don't think that'll be theft.
- usui 6mo ago
  In England, can I take someone's belongings and extort them to pay for "shipping and handling" fees or compel them to go out of their way to some risky nondescript location to pick it up? Wonder what the crime in this case if it's "not theft".
  - tialaramex 6mo ago
    That would probably be a Blackmail offence, the intent requirement is about gain (to you) or loss (to the other party) and there's a bunch of Reasonableness invocations because it depends whether the prosecutor can make out that a Reasonable person should know they aren't entitled to ask that you do this to get your property back, as of course one can gain (or the other party may lose) in a reasonable transaction. For example I once left a laptop on a train when travelling to my mother's house for Xmas. At the time my mother still lived where I grew up, at the edge of Metro-land, and so of course most people on that train wouldn't steal a laptop, they probably earn more than the laptop was worth in a day's work. But I stepped off the train with my other belongings, realised as I walked away and it's too late. The train operating company is under no obligation to like, stop the train and bring back my laptop right? It's unfortunate, but it's not on purpose. A week later I picked it up from their main hub. Their behaviour was entirely reasonable. If you're thinking that this rule about theft means some crimes aren't theft then yeah, the most notable example in English culture is the crime of "joyriding" which is when you take somebody's car and you drive that around for a while and then you just get out and run off. That's not theft because, as we saw, no intent permanently to deprive (because it destroys evidence like fingerprints some joyriders might torch the car, but that would be intent permanently to deprive). So the crime of "Taking Without Owner's Consent" or TWOC was invented for cars and there's a fun rabbit hole you can disappear down as crooks take like boats and other things and the exact wording of that law is interpreted by courts as to whether it's TWOC if you took a bicycle, or a rowboat, or...

BoorishBears 6mo ago

Waymo has been "scaling up". In the earliest days the lost and found was 7 days a week with highly permissive hours for a manned desk at the depot. Then one day it became weekdays-only, but with a still large window. Then one day the window for pick up got broken up into a few smaller windows throughout the day. Now with the larger Bay Area expansion they did switch to automated lockers, but if you're unfortunate enough in SF specifically, your belongings now end up in a locker an hour away from from the city...

redanddead 6mo ago

Cruise was legendary, awesome bunch of people. I remember finding out how you guys had an angel syndicate and speaking to a few guys, hope you all are onto bigger and better things

tencentshill 6mo ago

>keep things quiet, dismissing concerns, and making half assed restitution for problems That is exactly the Tesla strategy, and it seems to work well for them. Though Waymo doesn't have a daily PR disaster to distract like Musk.