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CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

blog.waymo.com

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Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#171

Post by ThalesX »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #92
endisneigh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the subject of automation. Humanity is on track to have the computational power to perform whole brain emulation decades before 2100. Even if we don't solve the general AI problem through other pathways, we will solve it through this path. Ethical problems aside, once this is achieved, everything will be automatable at a human level of competence. Is this actually true? I haven't heard of this. You're saying we…

Yes, and the methodology I've described (whole brain emulation/WBE) is the worst-case, brute-force, but guaranteed approach. The following diagram captures the expected growth rate of computing power, and contrasts it with several thresholds (in blue) for emulation fidelity ultimately required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading#/media/File:Who... The human brain works, therefore this technique will work, i…

Would it not be feasible yet for very simple organisms?

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#172

Post by [deleted] »

bumby wrote: post #169
anyfoo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so, so much easier to have a computer land a plane than to travel through a road infrastructure made for humans. There are no roads, no obstacles, usually not even other planes constraining your plane for any autopilot situation. With autolanding, "other planes" might start becoming an issue, but it's still a vastly different level from the momentary and immediate coordination necessary between cars on public r…

Also, the operating environment is rather stable for aircraft. You won’t find thing’s like construction cones blocking off airspace that was once available. Even if airspace availability was changed, its not likely to create an immediate hazard (with some caveats like military testing ranges)

[deleted]

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#173

Post by edwr »

jeffy90 wrote: post #18
endisneigh wrote: post #6

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

I wonder if perhaps we can't get self driving cars, but maybe we can can't self driving train carts and move completely away from cars?

self driving light rail would be interesting

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#174

Post by dealforager »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #146
dealforager wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment, but $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. I have a hard time thinking of a way it wouldn't be a loss given the added organizational complexity having those kinds of projects would bring. I thought the entire purpose of "other bets" was to pursue ideas that have the potential to become $XXB/year revenue streams. So of course they want 'moonshot' companies.

> $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. That's the thing though, it isn't a waste of time. One can hear very similar logic from people with investments. They will say "The stock market is returning X% / year and is way better than those bonds with only 3%/year. Investing in bonds is a waste of time." They say that because they have yet to internalize the value of having a diversified their in…

$900M/year is If something happened to their core business, it's unlikely that those tiny projects (What you said is mostly correct and is exactly what they are doing. The only problem is that at the scale of a trillion dollar company, they need 10, 20, even 30 business lines generating $XB - $XXB of revenue each.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#175

Post by pembrook »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #146
dealforager wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment, but $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. I have a hard time thinking of a way it wouldn't be a loss given the added organizational complexity having those kinds of projects would bring. I thought the entire purpose of "other bets" was to pursue ideas that have the potential to become $XXB/year revenue streams. So of course they want 'moonshot' companies.

> $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. That's the thing though, it isn't a waste of time. One can hear very similar logic from people with investments. They will say "The stock market is returning X% / year and is way better than those bonds with only 3%/year. Investing in bonds is a waste of time." They say that because they have yet to internalize the value of having a diversified their in…

Do you have any idea how insanely hard it is to create 30 separate $30M businesses from scratch?

Even with the weight of the Google brand, creating new businesses is HARD.

It'd be roughly 1,000X easier to squeeze an extra $900M in revenue out of search than it would be to incubate 30 new mid-size companies.

Instead of going on an insane boondoggle where your brand image is trashed by creating literally thousands of failed companies (the only way you're going to end up with 30 successful ones over the $30M hurdle rate)...why wouldn't Google just buy those 30 companies? They have enough cash on hand to buy 99.9% of Silicon Valley startups outright.

And even then, would the 30 companies they buy grow faster than their core business...or even the S&P 500 at 9% a year? Because otherwise they might as well just dump that money in existing products or return it to shareholders.

If Google buys a bunch of businesses that grow slower, then their valuation and stock price drops dramatically. If investors wanted to own a random sampling of 100 mid-size companies, they'd buy the appropriate index fund! They buy Google because they want a concentrated bet, not an index fund.

This is nowhere near as easy or simple as you think it is.

For all of Google's PR efforts around moonshots and only hiring "the best talent," a vast majority of their revenue still comes from only one product they incubated on their own, the google search engine. The next biggest bucket comes from external acquisitions (DoubleClick, YouTube, Android).

I think the fact that Google hasn't incubated any big success in the last decade is a good thing! It leaves more room for others to take their place. Why would we want one company to dominate everything forever?

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#176

Post by csours »

lumost wrote: post #123
ChuckMcM wrote: post #102

Having read hundreds of these sorts of CEO leaving letters I'm a bit jaded and cynical. If you're interested in what I see when I read that message, I rewrote it[1] in more plain language. Google demands a lot of its "other bets" companies. Some might say it asks too much. Mostly it seems to me that they want a 'moonshot' company that has the original profitability of search advertising, full stop. And while it would…

I swear that there is a resource curse for businesses with a singular "successful" product line. In order to expand the business and not have people sucked into the "successful" part, the teams need to be split. Once the teams are split the "successful" team wonders why the "new" team sucks. In the case that the successful business is Ads/Search... it's tough to compete. I'd imagine even within Ads/Search there is a…

Are you familiar with the Innovator's Dilemma? Because it sounds like you're describing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

And yes, splitting is part of a solution. I think discipline is another part.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#177

Post by summerlight »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #12

I'm curious about the co-CEO thing. That seems like it is universally something that doesn't work and is just what happens when nobody wants to make a tough decision. Is there any context on why it might be the right move here?

My suspicion here is simple; they couldn't find a proper candidate who can demonstrates technological and operational leadership from both insiders and outsiders. You can simply promote either of them (usually COO suits better though), but that risks departure of another candidate, so this compromise has to be made. Anyway, this might be okay for Waymo for a short term; unlike other companies, even if those two CEO don't agree on a specific matter, there's an escalation path to Sundar (and ultimately Larry and Sergey).

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#178

Post by mrDmrTmrJ »

username_my1 wrote: post #100
choppaface wrote: post #82

All of the big players in self-driving have shown that while they can try to solve the tech problem, nobody can solve the team problem. Self-driving brings together people with very diverse backgrounds (perception, planning, controls, hardware, safety, rideshare product, etc), very diverse incentives (established automakers vs start-up founders vs VC investors), and throws them in a pot with a huge amount of money an…

The problem is a venture problem / industry not teams and individuals ... VCs have been heavily investing in anything remotely promising because let's face it since smartphone tech hasn't found its solid step into the next level .. VCs have the money they throw it at promising companies, lots of people get rich in the process but the end result is delayed ether no working product or no working business (unit economic…

I hear you, in that since the smart-phone there has not been a new consumer platform shift, with all the value creation for new B2C companies that a platform shift implies.

That said other parts of the ecosystem are having incredible bursts of innovation and new products: B2B SaaS, Cloud providers, Space (e.g. Starlink), Bio-Tech (e.g. Moderna and mRNA technology), Semi-conductors/Chip companies (TSMC + Nvidia + many many others).

If you're wondering why VCs are eager to back new companies with small revenue but fast growth - it's because interest rates are very low, and the returns to winning are very high.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#179

Post by ChuckMcM »

dealforager wrote: post #174
ChuckMcM wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. That's the thing though, it isn't a waste of time. One can hear very similar logic from people with investments. They will say "The stock market is returning X% / year and is way better than those bonds with only 3%/year. Investing in bonds is a waste of time." They say that because they have yet to internalize the value of having a diversified their in…

$900M/year is If something happened to their core business, it's unlikely that those tiny projects ( What you said is mostly correct and is exactly what they are doing. The only problem is that at the scale of a trillion dollar company, they need 10, 20, even 30 business lines generating $XB - $XXB of revenue each.

In the case that I am completely familiar with the business was returning $20M/year in net profit margin on roughly $180M/year in revenue. Google threw it away.

Their reasoning was that the resource usage to net profit numbers wasn't "good enough." The comparison was always search advertising.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#180

Post by ra7 »

solutron wrote: post #151
dqpb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is full self driving, not partial

Waymo is little more than a Jurassic Park jeep ride. Only works on the tracks. Take a Waymo vehicle anywhere their engineering staff hasn't spent countless hours driving around back and forth with those ridiculous spinning lidar sensors and roof rack full of who-knows-what and see what's left of their 'self driving'.

So a 50 square mile city with live traffic, pedestrians and objects is a "little more than a Jurassic Park jeep ride"?

What are you going to say when they go to SF next? Just another Jurassic Park ride?

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