Tekedra Mawakana

"What’s funny to me is when I think back to when I joined Waymo almost five years ago. And I remember thinking, “Oh, product market fit’s probably done. It’s ready to commercialize.” And I realize, no, you actually have to put the technology into the real world and that’s how you get it ready. That’s what we’ve been focused on doing, and learning, and receiving feedback from, now, riders in Phoenix."

"We’ve been at it for a while. I would say it’s the engineering challenge of our generation. That is what’s taking it so long. To do it, and do it well, I think means two things. One, that safety is at the core of everything we do. And safety takes time. And secondly, we actually have to learn along the way. It’s like a process of discovery."

"In a 50-square-mile territory, which is also the size of San Francisco, so I’m not going to concede that it’s tiny. Yes, it is a specific jurisdiction that we’re working in, but that’s the way to do it safely. Also, we have launched a trusted tester program in San Francisco. So now residents of San Francisco are having the chance to try out our service too."

"I think that’s one of the ways in which this is quite different. It’s not a one-and-done, and it’s also not, get the technology up to a certain point and now we’re ready to deploy it everywhere. Geographically, street lights are different, weather is different, there’s a lot about each domain that’s quite different. What you’ll see us do, and what you’ve seen us do now that we’re operating in two fairly different environments, that gives our tech stack the opportunity to learn. We’ve driven over 20 million miles on public roads, autonomously, across 25 cities. Over 20 billion miles in simulation, which is quite important. And so this is the way the Waymo Driver learns and all of that learning is shared across the fleet."

"It’s something that I’ve had to relearn in my time at Waymo. I like using data to make decisions. And I think when you’re introducing a new technology, introducing a new business model, introducing consumers to an experience that’s never existed before, it’s really about getting comfortable knowing when you have enough data and also getting comfortable with your own gut. And so I say one of the things at Waymo that people get out of it is this reinforced sense of your own internal guide. That’s what I use a lot now because it’s pioneering. There isn’t a playbook. No one’s done it before. We’re figuring it out as we go along. It requires a lot of humility and a lot of openness around learning. And so I learn, I listen, I make a decision. If it’s not the right decision we pivot, and we keep going. And so really having the mindset that this is a learning journey."