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Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

bloomberg.com

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Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#261

Post by okdood64 »

yfdrea wrote: post #131
bandofthehawk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems weird to me, maybe it's a generational thing. Is it really that bad to share a car with someone? You don't have to talk to them the whole time.

As a woman, while 95% of the ridesharing trips I take are perfectly pleasant and sometimes great with conversation the 5% of rides where you are trapped in a car with a creep asking you extremely off putting questions sours the entire concept of ride sharing for me.

Yea, I can't imagine being a woman and having to deal with some of these drivers.

This doesn't compare, but as a man I get really put off by the amount of invasive questions (where I work, where my family is from, etc) when I'm just trying to get from point A to point B.

I'm a mid-millenial FWIW, so I very much remember a world of only having old school taxis.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#262

Post by estearum »

ativzzz wrote: post #252
estearum wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you taken a Waymo? I don't hate Uber/Lyft (though many in NYC are legitimately horrible, just like taxis) Waymo is simply an order of magnitude better than the best Uber ride I've ever had

I've had some great conversations with uber drivers. Most don't talk, but I've had some memorable ones for sure.

Sure, yeah, same here. Waymo is still an order of magnitude better.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#263

Post by tsycho »

pm90 wrote: post #7

Why does Google need outside investors? Is it a play to get a “serious” valuation since it would be vetted by outside parties? I guess Im questioning why Waymo doesn’t just IPO, or raise 100% private raise by Google.

>> or raise 100% private by Google?

Isn't that what they are kinda doing? 13bn out of the 16bn is coming from Google itself.

I think the reason they are taking 3bn from outside high-profile investors is to validate the valuation, for legal or accounting reasons.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#264

Post by tfehring »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #225
tfehring wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving to work is the most common way of commuting everywhere in the US except NYC. So in that sense, no, taking a taxi to work daily is not normal, just as walking, biking, and taking public transit aren’t normal. When I worked in San Francisco I took Caltrain to the city, but I took Waymo from the train station to the office. San Francisco, like almost all US cities, has poor local transit coverage. In my case the…

not everywhere in the US except NYC. People take trains in Chicago, for example.

They do, at a much higher rate than the US as a whole, but cars are still dominant. Transit mode share in the city of Chicago is around 21%, down from 28% pre-pandemic, while driving is at 44%. For Chicagoland as a whole, driving is 63%, transit only 9%. The usual source for this data is the American Community Survey; I pulled these numbers from https://api.census.gov, but the same source is also cited in e.g. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...) and Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/how-ameri...)

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#265

Post by socalgal2 »

jFriedensreich wrote: post #35

No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i never want to interact with a human again". I feel about 100% less stressed and happier using a waymo or riding motorbike or bicycle next to a waymo than with human drivers. I hope this next phase will bring availability and prices down. We need this in europe.

I do too, except for the fact that Waymos constantly break traffic laws.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#266

Post by socalgal2 »

fragmede wrote: post #247
tfehring wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving to work is the most common way of commuting everywhere in the US except NYC. So in that sense, no, taking a taxi to work daily is not normal, just as walking, biking, and taking public transit aren’t normal. When I worked in San Francisco I took Caltrain to the city, but I took Waymo from the train station to the office. San Francisco, like almost all US cities, has poor local transit coverage. In my case the…

San Francisco's connection to Caltrain is deplorable, but as far as US cities go, the heart of it has pretty good public transportation.

> but as far as US cities go

That the load bearing part right there. SF's transportation is pretty piss poor

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#267

Post by tialaramex »

askl wrote: post #141
tialaramex wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will waymo even be available in less mainstream areas? Ever is a long time. It's not reasonable to predict beyond a decade or so. It's easily possible that this becomes huge and in the 2040s people are astonished that "driving yourself" was a thing, the same way it's hard to comprehend now that most people weren't literate . Not "Couldn't write an essay / read a newspaper" but "Couldn't sign their name / read a pos…

I mean, I can understand wanting to start in dense places. But those are also the places where public transit is a viable existing solution. Personal transit just looks incredible inefficient and unscalable if everyone would use it. I could totally see it as a last resort solution for situations where nothing else is available, but that's an unattractive market that isn't going to make anyone rich.

In an urban area the "last resort" cases add up. The last time I was in a taxi it was the middle of the night, and I'd just smashed my head open, so I had concluded that I must not trust my own judgement and should seek immediate medical attention, buses don't run in the middle of the night (on that route)

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#268

Post by socalgal2 »

biztos wrote: post #160
lazarus01 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis and Ubers, no Waymo yet. I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber. On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the driver and learn something new about humanity or myself. I really enjoy these interactio…

I’m surprised they don’t have opt-in LLM-based “chatty mode” where you can talk to the AI personality of your choice while riding. Obviously shouldn’t be the same AI that’s deciding whether to run over the child or crash into the oncoming train. [edit: riding not driving]

why would anyone need this when then can pull out their phone and use their LLM of choice, if they wanted. I expect some large percentage of social users will just facetime chat with their friends during the ride

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#269

Post by bluecheese452 »

josu wrote: post #88
lazarus01 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis and Ubers, no Waymo yet. I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber. On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the driver and learn something new about humanity or myself. I really enjoy these interactio…

>I wonder what will happen to the drivers if a large representation of the 1 million+ daily trips are displaced by automation? If it happens gradually enough, they will just find other jobs. After the transition, society will be producing more with the same labor force, and thus the aggregate utility will increase.

And homo economist lived happy ever after with his field of spherical cows.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#270

Post by socalgal2 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #103
bandofthehawk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems weird to me, maybe it's a generational thing. Is it really that bad to share a car with someone? You don't have to talk to them the whole time.

The human driver could be nodding off because they didn’t bother sleeping last night, or maybe they just had some food with lots of garlic, or…ya, this has all happened to me before. I’ll take the Waymo over uber.

I've had one driving while reading their phone and checking stocks and looking up for about 1/2 a second of every 4 seconds.
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