0:03 Well, great to have you here, Tekedra.
0:06 >> It's great to be here.
0:07 Thank you so >> Well, I thought
0:10 uh before we start, cuz there was I don't know, it seemed like about
0:13 40% of the audience who had never had
0:16 that experience, I thought I would share some of our family videos
0:20 of our first Waymo ride
0:22 >> uh with with my two sons.
0:23 I also have a daughter, but we kind of split up into two cars.
0:26 But, if we could play the
0:29 Yeah, yeah, start the ride. Yeah. Yeah.
0:32 >> All right, here we go. >> Hello from Waymo.
0:35 >> Hello from Oh my
0:37 >> one minute >> This is cool. >> Oh my gosh.
0:46 >> Are you expecting a child?
0:49 >> We're at the beach.
0:50 What are we doing?
0:51 Being driven by a ghost. >> Almost there.
0:55 Don't forget your phone, keys, or wallet. >> And sons.
1:00 Don't forget your sons. >> That's great.
1:05 >> So, Tekedra, what's next?
1:06 I mean, every time I I look at the news, I see a new
1:09 city, I see new models.
1:11 What's what's >> Uh so, we are currently operating in 11 cities.
1:16 Um we're giving in the US,
1:19 we're providing 500,000 trips per week.
1:23 Um and we have the goal by the end of the year
1:25 to be at a million trips per week.
1:28 And just to sort of
1:30 help people wrap their mind around
1:32 what that means or how to think about it,
1:35 our fleet of vehicles
1:37 is about 3,000 cars,
1:39 and we drive so the single
1:41 Waymo driver drives uh over 4 million miles per week.
1:47 And so, the way to think about that is a human drives around 700,000
1:52 miles in a lifetime,
1:54 a human who lives sort of the full lifetime.
1:58 And so this is like six
2:00 lifetimes of human driving per week.
2:03 And so we're, you know, really excited.
2:06 We're also in four airports right now.
2:08 You can fly in to San Antonio
2:10 or Phoenix, San Francisco
2:12 or San Jose and jump in a Waymo,
2:15 use the Waymo app.
2:16 It'll take you from point A to point B.
2:19 And um so it's just we're at this point where
2:22 the technology has moved from
2:25 will it work and can we produce the kind of safety outcomes
2:29 that we care about to scaling.
2:32 And so we're really excited
2:34 and we are also
2:35 in London and Tokyo.
2:37 We've moved from manual
2:38 driving to fully autonomous driving.
2:41 We still have people behind the wheel,
2:43 so we haven't launched a service yet,
2:45 but those will be our first two international markets.
2:48 >> What's the rate-limiting factor?
2:50 Is it some notion of safety
2:51 or is it um regulation? What is it? >> It really depends.
2:56 In certain markets, it's absolutely regulation.
2:59 I think as a
3:00 when you think about the evolution
3:02 of this technology as a whole,
3:04 it's been making sure that we could have the safety outcomes that we want.
3:07 And all of that is the technology.
3:09 Like can the driver
3:11 produce these kinds of outcomes?
3:13 You know, we've driven over 200
3:14 million miles in our time
3:17 and based on 170
3:19 million miles of data,
3:21 you know, we are now reducing
3:23 13 acts reduction in serious
3:26 injury-causing crashes over a human
3:28 and the same amount of
3:30 reduction as it relates to injuries with pedestrians.
3:34 So we can now say that we are just over 10 times safer than
3:37 a human at 170 million miles.
3:41 And so we that's the kind of superhuman
3:43 performance that we were seeking
3:46 in order to then be able to scale this technology.
3:49 Now we have markets that are closed, markets that are open and we have
3:52 to do all of the work
3:54 with the cities, with the regulators,
3:55 first responders, everyone in order to advance our technology.
3:59 So, we're laser-focused on doing that.
4:01 And the reality is, you know,
4:04 citizens, consumers, riders, those who've been cut out of the mobility
4:08 systems in cities, they're demanding
4:11 and requesting and advocating
4:12 for us to come.
4:13 And so, that's a really exciting inflection point, also.
4:17 >> It's worth triply underlining
4:18 what you just said.
4:19 Over 10 times safer, at least, based on the current data.
4:22 We were talking earlier,
4:23 y'all have already driven
4:25 this the equivalent of 300 >> Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
4:29 >> 240 lifetimes is the Yeah, 240.
4:32 >> And and and you do you
4:33 a Waymo has not caused a death. >> That's right.
4:36 >> Knock on knock on wood.
4:38 And there's an argument
4:39 There's 40,000 people, roughly, in America every year who die of of a car accident.
4:44 I think in the world it's on the order of a million every year.
4:47 So, in theory, if this became
4:50 everywhere, you could be saving 900,000 lives globally.
4:53 You could be saving 30
4:55 You know, 35, 36,000
4:56 lives just just in the United States.
4:58 Why isn't there more
5:00 I I know y'all are growing maybe as fast, but why not roll out
5:02 as fast as possible?
5:03 What what what's what's what's stopping that from happening?
5:06 >> I think we are now focused
5:08 on rolling out safely,
5:11 um as quickly as possible.
5:13 There is an adoption
5:14 curve that has to happen, though, right?
5:16 Like, I think what you're saying
5:17 is what undergirds our entire
5:19 company, which is like safety is urgent.
5:23 You know, saving lives,
5:24 if this technology can perform at this level,
5:27 then we have a responsibility
5:29 to figure out how to do it.
5:30 Doesn't mean, though, that we're not being met with opposition.
5:33 And so, we also
5:34 we have the burden
5:36 of making those policy makers
5:38 who are not welcoming
5:39 us with open arms,
5:41 you know, we have to demonstrate our safety record.
5:43 So, we have a safety hub,
5:45 you know, we make all of this data transparent.
5:47 We hand it to researchers
5:49 so they can make their arguments
5:50 and so it's been really fun lately to watch
5:53 different sectors of the economy
5:55 start to talk about
5:56 how powerful this technology is.
5:59 You know, we have Dr.
6:00 John Slatkin, a neurosurgeon,
6:02 who has just calculated
6:04 that, you know, 900
6:05 billion to 1.25 trillion
6:08 could be saved if our technology
6:11 was rolled out if every car on the road was a Waymo.
6:15 But this is the problem.
6:17 People are really comfortable
6:18 with the number of people who die on the roads.
6:21 40,000 people dead, 1.2
6:24 million globally, and avoidable
6:27 in many cases isn't something
6:31 upon which we share
6:32 collective outrage or even moderate discomfort.
6:37 And so we have to introduce
6:39 sort of that reality
6:41 in order for the technology
6:43 to be viewed as solving
6:45 a problem that society
6:47 currently faces because we've just accepted it. Why?
6:50 Because we don't experience
6:52 these as 747s falling out of the sky every day.
6:56 But that's what it would be if we actually experienced
6:59 it as mass casualties.
7:01 We experience it, you know, this person's mom, that person, you know, my uncle.
7:06 And so because of that we sort of have to remind
7:09 people that the status quo is totally unacceptable
7:12 and it's even more unacceptable
7:14 when you have technology
7:15 that could help address it. >> Yes, definitely.
7:19 >> A couple of I think it was a couple of months ago, you would
7:21 know it much better, I saw a headline, you know, it was a very
7:23 click-baity headline, uh Waymo hits
7:25 like an 8-year-old uh outside of a school.
7:28 And I was like, "Oh my
7:30 And and I I I click on it and then they describe
7:32 what happened and it was outside of a school
7:35 and there was a
7:37 a car parked and if I remember correctly, there's a kid, he just darted into the street.
7:42 And the Waymo, everyone
7:44 who was observing that,
7:46 assumed the kid was going to die
7:48 cuz he just darted into a street where traffic was coming.
7:51 And the Waymo, I don't know what the reflexes
7:53 are, you probably know the numbers,
7:54 it just immediately came to a stop and it hit him at like 4 mph or something.
7:59 Like he literally just fell on his knees, brushed it off, and looked at
8:01 the Waymo kind of weird.
8:02 And then Why why isn't
8:06 you know, there's a lot of it's convenient.
8:08 I mean, we it's you feel like you're in the future.
8:10 It's What why isn't the safety?
8:12 I mean, it feels like that message.
8:14 Is that is that something that you you might want to lead with because
8:17 that seems like such a clear value proposition.
8:21 >> Yeah, I mean, you know, I I think what you're saying is
8:25 how comfortable are humans
8:27 with this technology being better drivers than humans.
8:31 You know, it goes back to the status quo.
8:33 There is people don't generally
8:35 view themselves or their neighbors or their friends or everyone they know as unsafe drivers.
8:40 Even when they're distracted,
8:42 drunk, tired, and angry,
8:43 we just kind of accept
8:45 that that's the human condition.
8:46 And so I think, you know, in the case of the
8:49 of the child in
8:50 Santa Monica, I mean, for us the our car was traveling 17 mph.
8:56 Um and we were able to get to 6 mph before making contact.
9:02 Obviously, we want to make no contact,
9:04 but we know that was superhuman performance.
9:08 And as so many of the bystanders
9:10 said after observing it, like
9:12 the child would not have survived
9:14 is what we were told.
9:15 We weren't obviously there.
9:17 Those moments actually cause
9:19 entire communities to think differently about this technology.
9:24 And so that's a we, you know,
9:26 to your point, it's clickbaity.
9:27 And on the other hand, it actually demonstrates
9:30 what superhuman performance >> Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
9:34 I I actually I assume most of the people I know are not good drivers.
9:37 I'm the biggest backseat driver.
9:40 >> The The economics of the industry, y'all are the first mover.
9:43 Obviously, uh there's a Tesla robo-taxi.
9:45 They've taken some different approaches.
9:47 Uh you have uh many other competitors.
9:50 Amazon's coming into it.
9:51 How are you thinking about the competitive space?
9:53 What do you think's going to happen to the economics of it?
9:55 I mean, it's already cost-competitive
9:57 with a typical ride-share drive.
9:59 >> Yeah, I think, you know, right now for us, we're the only company
10:03 operating at this scale.
10:05 We think it's really important
10:07 to just kind of stay laser-focused on that.
10:09 You know, the way to think about it, because everyone's
10:12 calling everything either autonomous
10:15 or robo-taxi or And so, the way we think about it is if you
10:18 do not need a driver's license
10:21 to be in the car by yourself,
10:23 which is for many, many people
10:25 who do not have a driver's license,
10:27 it's their first time ever in life.
10:29 And so, those are very special moments.
10:32 Um but if you do not need a driver's license to be in a
10:34 Waymo to get you from point A to point B,
10:36 that is fully autonomous,
10:38 what is referred to in the geeky
10:40 sense, level four and level five.
10:42 If it is anything
10:43 less than that, if you have to be behind the wheel,
10:46 if you have to take over
10:48 when there's a beep,
10:49 when there's a anything,
10:51 that's level three or level two or level one.
10:55 And it's really important
10:57 for people to internalize
10:58 this distinction, because what we found back in 2012,
11:03 when we had sort of a super cruise capability,
11:06 the Waymo driver was at that ability, we could go from
11:09 ramp to ramp, no problem.
11:11 But when we got to surface streets,
11:13 you needed to pay attention,
11:14 and we told employees,
11:16 "This is early days.
11:17 When we go from ramp to ramp, we have a camera in the car.
11:20 This was just for employees.
11:22 We need you to pay
11:24 And people immediately unplugged
11:26 from the driving task,
11:28 and they started shaving
11:29 and curling their eyelashes,
11:31 and they were like picking up things from the back seat and plugging things in.
11:35 And so that's when we decided,
11:37 you know, cars have gotten safer
11:40 over the years, right?
11:41 They've gotten airbags and seatbelts
11:43 and all of these things as a result of a lot of deaths.
11:46 But what hasn't gotten safer is a human.
11:50 And so we decided
11:51 we're patching around the problem.
11:54 Actually, the way to make sure that this multi-ton
11:57 vehicle is not as dangerous
11:59 is to actually let humans be humans.
12:03 Be distracted, make your phone call, do the thing you want to be doing.
12:07 Let the Waymo driver get you from point A to point B.
12:10 And so when you ask me about
12:12 competition, I think there are a host of companies
12:15 that are in the level two plus
12:17 and level three, they need an attentive
12:20 human after inviting the human
12:22 to be inattentive, to be the most attentive
12:26 at the moment when being most attentive is least convenient.
12:31 And so that to me
12:32 is not that is still patching around the problem.
12:36 Doesn't mean it won't result in safer driving
12:38 when you are attentive,
12:40 but it isn't actually level four >> Yeah. Yeah.
12:44 I mean if you extrapolate
12:45 all of this, how much do you all think about what the world is
12:48 going to look like just because of this?
12:50 Maybe just because of you all and and some of the other players, 10, 15 years.
12:55 What will it look like?
12:56 I mean is there a world that you mentioned if you don't have a
12:57 driver's license, could this be a replacement in some ways for traditional public transportation?
13:01 How are our roads different?
13:02 Are parking lots going to turn into parks?
13:04 What's what's going to happen?
13:05 >> Yeah, we've partnered from the early days with transit.
13:09 We think it's a really interesting
13:10 way to take some of the congestion
13:13 out of the city,
13:14 have sort of the kiss and ride from the suburbs
13:16 in, have people take Waymo rides.
13:19 We've gotten really favorable
13:21 sort of reviews in the reports that have been done there.
13:24 We've also partnered with people
13:26 who take public transit in LA.
13:29 You know, we've offered discounts
13:30 if you do public transit to a Waymo or vice versa.
13:33 You know, we want
13:34 to think about the ways that this could become part of that fabric.
13:39 Because we think it's important that this is also very accessible
13:42 to a lot of people.
13:44 So, that's that's one.
13:45 But, when we think about 10 to 15 years from now, it's really
13:48 fun to think about parts of cities
13:51 that would get recaptured.
13:53 You know, space right now where cars are just sitting all day.
13:56 People are at work, the cars are just sitting.
13:58 Most of those parking lots
14:01 in major cities around the world are are central.
14:05 And so, the idea that that could get recaptured.
14:07 There are city planners
14:09 who've reached out to us to try to understand,
14:11 you know, do we have to make these investments
14:13 for the next 10 or 15 years
14:15 or can we start imagining
14:17 a world where parking structures
14:18 could move out, parks could come back, community
14:21 life could sort of come back to the center of a city.
14:24 So, that's a vision.
14:25 I mean, who knows, right?
14:27 I think some of this is
14:28 as the technology rolls out more and more, I think people's imagination
14:33 actually starts to get sparked
14:34 in ways that are very exciting.
14:36 I I said to you before, it's like
14:38 in some ways people go from,
14:40 you know, is it safe
14:41 kind of to your poll, right? Is it safe?
14:44 Should I get in?
14:45 Okay, I got in.
14:46 It's kind of boring and amazing.
14:48 I really like it.
14:49 Oh, this is kind of not a big deal.
14:51 Now, I'm going to be the coolest
14:53 person I know in my friend group.
14:55 And then all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh,
14:57 what could I do in this thing if it got really exciting?"
15:00 So, I get pitched on like, "You should make it a yoga studio."
15:04 You know, on wheels.
15:05 >> that was what was pitched.
15:06 I thought this was going in a whole other direction. No, okay. >> is my point.
15:10 Is everyone kind of starts to imagine, "What do I want to do instead of commuting?"
15:14 So, that's the fun part.
15:15 >> I had a very G-rated
15:16 thought in a Waymo
15:17 on the highway on 101.
15:19 And then I I I I remembered,
15:21 but it would have been embarrassing.
15:22 And then I remembered you do have a camera without sound.
15:24 So I I didn't even act on my G-rated thought.
15:29 >> Just to be clear, I do not have a camera. >> No, no, no.
15:32 I was just going to do some grooming type of thing. Jobs.
15:37 And I you know, I don't see this as something that's your responsibility in in totality.
15:42 But my my uncle drives an Uber in New Orleans
15:45 and I I believe that one of the largest jobs for men globally,
15:49 and not just men, obviously women also drive vehicles, but definitely for men is
15:52 driving some form of a vehicle,
15:54 taxis, ride shares, long-haul trucking, etc. What happens?
16:00 >> Yeah, I think, you know,
16:02 I'll answer the question a few ways.
16:04 My uncle was actually a truck driver, too,
16:06 and that job was really important to him.
16:09 And and, you know, for better or for worse,
16:12 it was also a really hard
16:14 Um, and so, I think there's an opportunity
16:18 and it's going to take like
16:20 a really thoughtful approach, right?
16:22 Cuz I mean, I'm sitting here talking about
16:25 building the world's most trusted driver.
16:28 And so, it's a really
16:29 tough place for me to sit in and
16:32 kind of facilitate the dialogue around it.
16:35 However, over time, what I am starting to see
16:38 just from us is
16:40 there are new jobs being created.
16:42 So, we have running our fleet,
16:45 we have fleet technicians
16:47 who we need, fleet operators,
16:49 as well as smart depot um, professionals.
16:54 All of that didn't exist 10 years ago.
16:56 These are like AV-focused jobs.
16:59 One, two, jobs that exist today,
17:02 everyday drivers, we have to hire them, too,
17:05 in order to validate our software.
17:07 We have to accumulate
17:08 miles in order to validate our software.
17:10 So, we hire drivers
17:12 constantly or our partners
17:14 hire um, in different parts of the world.
17:17 We also need people who can, you know,
17:19 take care of our depots,
17:20 build our depots, EV charging infrastructure.
17:23 And so, what we've started
17:25 to see, as we have these partnerships
17:27 of fleet operators, is they are driving
17:29 a lot of job growth as we scale.
17:33 So, this is, you know, we're just too early to be able to really
17:36 quantify it, but in addition
17:38 to that, earlier this year,
17:40 we did a partnership
17:41 with TechForce Foundation, where we're helping
17:44 like people who are in school to be mechanics
17:47 to actually become mechanics
17:49 of autonomous vehicles, because we think that transition
17:52 doesn't have to pass anyone by.
17:54 We just need to be mindful about it.
17:57 So, that's one thing we're doing.
17:58 And then in addition,
17:59 we are doing apprenticeship programs.
18:01 We're doing one in LA.
18:03 Um, and we're doing curriculum
18:05 development with community college, Bronx Community College,
18:08 City University of New York,
18:10 because again, there's an opportunity
18:12 for people to learn the skills that are needed.
18:15 And then I think, while there's a lot of focus on
18:18 sort of the jobs, there's also the like small businesses
18:22 in these places where we're launching,
18:24 where because Waymo has launched, like in San Francisco
18:27 our first year, we actually drove $40 million
18:31 of economic development for local businesses
18:33 from out of towners,
18:35 because we were the number one destination
18:37 for tourists to try out a Waymo,
18:39 and then to go to a coffee shop and go to a restaurant.
18:42 And so, I think this is a long conversation.
18:45 Um, I appreciate you for saying, you know, we're one
18:48 we're one part of it.
18:49 We take this serious.
18:50 We think it's important for us to be focused on it.
18:53 And we're also really excited
18:55 when we get to go and talk to folks as they move from
18:58 logistics into now AV adjacent
19:01 roles with their current skill set.
19:03 So, it doesn't all require upskilling.
19:06 >> No, well, we could talk for hours about this.
19:08 Uh, but thank you so much, Kojo.
19:12 >> Thank you so much. That was awesome.
