泰克德拉·马瓦卡纳：Waymo 无人驾驶的商业化与安全

David Sacks (00:00:00): Hop in a driverless taxi with the Google-owned self-driving company Waymo opening up its robo-taxis to all users in that city. Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:08): The technology, of course, is hugely expensive. David Sacks (00:00:11): Alphabet's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, completing another major round of funding. David Friedberg (00:00:16): Tekedra has served as co-CEO at Waymo since 2021. Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:21): We are on a mission to build the world's most experienced driver and make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they're going. This is not a safe and easy for people and things to get where they're going. David Friedberg (00:00:27): This is not a move fast and break things. This is a move with Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:27): great, great iterative pace and focus on safety. Please, join me David Friedberg (00:00:39): in welcoming Tekedra from Waymo to the stage. Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:44): Hi. Thank you for coming. Thank you. It's a pleasure. David Friedberg (00:00:47): Thanks for coming. Thank you so much. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:49): Hi. Hi, Chamath. David Friedberg (00:00:50): Good to see you. Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:51): Hi, David. Thank you. David Friedberg (00:00:53): Tekedra, thanks so much for being here. Tekedra Mawakana (00:00:54): Yeah. Thank you. David Friedberg (00:00:55): Tekedra has been co-CEO of Waymo since 2021, where she leads the company's business operations and expansion in autonomous driving. Recently, Waymo has been reported to be completing, I don't know if Waymo put this out or if it was in the news, but over 100,000 paid trips per week now. Is that public? Is that like a true thing? Tekedra Mawakana (00:01:13): It's completely true. It's been over 100,000. David Friedberg (00:01:16): Over 100,000. Tekedra Mawakana (00:01:17): Per week. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:01:18): That's all. And we can now see Waymo's autonomous ride-hailing services in Phoenix, LA, San Francisco, in the Bay Area, Austin. And I think on X, you announced $5 billion in additional committed funding from Alphabet, I don't know if that was recent, to support Waymo's expansion. Tekedra Mawakana (00:01:34): It was recent. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. David Friedberg (00:01:37): And, so thanks for joining us. The Waymo story started a long time ago. It was a Google X project. When did you join, and how did you kind of become co-CEO? Yeah. Thank Tekedra Mawakana (00:01:48): you. So Waymo started as the Google self-driving car project back in 2009. And, actually, my co-CEO was one of those founding team members, Dmitri Dolgov. And in 2016, at the end of 2016, we spun out and sort of became Waymo, and that's when I joined. At that point, it had been determined that the technology was on a good enough path to start to think about commercialization and scale. And so the fun thing about joining a moonshot is, you know, I came from big tech companies, so I'm like, oh, product-market fit. Like, it's all there. I'm gonna join, and we're gonna scale. And the reality is it was an opportunity to learn how much this is a process of discovery, how much this is a process of figuring out not only the technology roadmap, but also the external environment. And at that time, I had been head of policy at a lot of companies, and I joined under the idea that if the technology works, the market opportunity would come from being able to open markets. And so that was super terrifying to me because if you're at most large tech companies doing policy work, you're actually trying to avoid costs or you're trying to defeat legislation that's harmful. But this was really the opportunity of, like, how do you usher in this amazing technology? And so that's when I joined, and then I was asked by my prior CEO to help launch the first market, which was Phoenix. Back then, it was Chandler. And we launched that back in 2017. And we've been, since 2018, a lot of people don't realize, we've had a 24/7 ride-hailing service, around the clock. It was in 2020 during COVID, though, that we removed the driver from behind the wheel. So we have the Waymo driver that's driving the vehicles at all times, but there's no human behind the wheel, and we've been offering that service now. We're almost at four years, 24/7, not only in Phoenix, which is a 315-square-mile territory, but also in San Francisco and now here in L.A. So in that sort of ushering in from market one to this role, I moved through the COO role, and that's when we actually removed the driver. Tekedra Mawakana (00:04:02): And that's, you know, it was the we're the first company that's done that. And, so it was daunting, and I think that's one thing I love about Waymo. We call our team WaymoNauts is you just have to, every time, get to this point of determining what's good enough, what's safe enough. Yeah. And then make that leap. And then learn because you can't learn until you get to that next point. And so, of course, we have rigorous safety culture. But it was in that time that I was COO. And then in April of '21, I moved into the co-CEO role with Dmitri. David Friedberg (00:04:35): So now now that it's scaling, 100,000 paid rides a week, maybe we can talk a little bit. I mean, Jason's not a lot. Jason Calacanis (00:04:40): of time on it. Starting with security would be an interest safety rather would be a really good idea. You've done, it seems like, millions of rides now. No fatalities. Correct? Tekedra Mawakana (00:04:51): That's right. Jason Calacanis (00:04:52): But there have been accidents. So when you look at the the accidents that have occurred, how often does an accident occur, and in what percentage of the time is it just somebody running into the Waymo, versus the Waymo running into somebody else? Tekedra Mawakana (00:05:06): Yeah. So we've done 2 million sort of paid rides. So when we think about, we just released this week our safety hub, so you're sort of tapping into an issue that's really important. What we've been able to determine as of June of this year with over 22 million, what we refer to as RO miles, those are miles that are fully autonomous, we've been able to have 83% fewer airbag deployments, which, of course, is important because those are high impact, and 74 or 73% fewer injury-causing crashes. Now that's what we're focused on. David Friedberg (00:05:46): Over a human. Over a Tekedra Mawakana (00:05:47): traditional human. Traditional human. Overall. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:05:49): Meaning, the counterfactual in that area at that same point in time. Exactly. Via insurance claims and other data. Jason Calacanis (00:05:55): Exactly. We're not comparing in San Francisco, not on highways. It's an apples-to-apples comparison. Tekedra Mawakana (00:06:00): Comparing in San Francisco or in Phoenix. Jason Calacanis (00:06:03): Okay. Great. Because this is the next piece, which is you're not yet on highways. Tekedra Mawakana (00:06:08): That's right. We're testing on highways in Phoenix and San Francisco with safety driving? With employees. Yes. And a human behind the wheel. Right. At times. Jason Calacanis (00:06:15): And maybe you could explain to us why you're taking that approach. Because in my experience driving a Tesla since the beginning with full self-driving and autopilot before that, it seems like it's better on the highway than it is on local streets where you have people jumping out and weird things that occur. On the highway, you very rarely have a run into a weird thing. It's totally. It's pretty ABC. So I would think it was the opposite. But is it because speed kills? What's the thinking there? Tekedra Mawakana (00:06:44): So I think so just for everyone to orient, when you think about the levels of autonomy, we are only focused on Level 4 and above. Level 4 and above means you do not need a driver's license nor do you need to sit behind the wheel. So when you're focused on tackling the hardest challenge first, it's really important for the driver, the Waymo driver, to ingest dense urban environments, because that is where the driver is going to learn the most. Sitting on freeways, seeing the same thing every day can be predictable. It's not entirely predictable, but it's not additive to what the machine learns. Jason Calacanis (00:07:20): That's a great answer. Tekedra Mawakana (00:07:21): So we're trying to learn as much as we can learn. And we've always, from the beginning, been focused on freeways. It's just that freeways aren't actually how the machine learns the fastest in the most sophisticated environments. But because you brought up, you know, sort of a Level 3 or 2 or 1 system, I think it's also important that, for systems where you need someone to sit behind the wheel, you can have a completely different approach to this technology. But we're really I don't know how many of you here have had the chance to take a Waymo ride here in LA. It actually includes this campus where we're sitting right now. But you can't sit behind the wheel. So there's no ambiguity. You sit in the passenger seat, or you sit in the back seat. Jason Calacanis (00:08:01): So let's talk about the lidar versus camera bet. Elon's been pretty clear. Hey, you don't need lidar. It's a waste of money. The lidar on Waymo's, I believe, is still in the $10,000 to $20,000 in the incremental cost. Am I ballpark correct? I'm Tekedra Mawakana (00:08:14): not sure. Oh, okay. Jason Calacanis (00:08:16): So with Tekedra Mawakana (00:08:17): that as you scale, costs go down. Jason Calacanis (00:08:19): Yeah. Of course. So who's right? I mean, are you using the lidar, and is that a critical piece of this? Or do you think, eventually, hey, the cameras are seeing in 360 degrees, they have higher fidelity than human eyes, so—and if humans do a great job, and you just have to beat the humans at driving, why even have the lidar? What do you Tekedra Mawakana (00:08:38): think? So, obviously, we have conviction that we need lidar, radar, and cameras. We have all three. It's given us the opportunity to scale at this point. We're the only company that's doing Level 4 driving on public roads 24 hours a day. It's very different to get to the place of a demo. We learned that ourselves back in 2015, and '16, and '17. We had an autopilot highway product. We allowed employees at the time, Google employees, to ride in that product. We told them to pay attention. We told them you have to be alert and be prepared to take over. What did they do? They're human. We wanna do other stuff when we're in the car. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:16): In the car. Tekedra Mawakana (00:09:16): Like, I wanna be on the phone. I wanna get to that meeting. I need to send that last email. I need to check whether or not my son's doctor's appointment is tomorrow or next Thursday. We're distracted. And so what happens? The thing's beeping at you. It's telling you reengage and pay attention, and what we learned is that that's not a way to improve road safety. And so the question is, what's the end goal? Is it to improve road safety or not? For us as a company, we are obsessed. Our culture is about safety. This mission is about safety. And we want to expand the number of people who have access to mobility options. If you need a driver's license, then it's just like every other mobility platform. You have to be behind the wheel. David Friedberg (00:09:55): Can I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:55): have Sorry? Go ahead. I'm curious about when this flips from a technology problem and a go-to-market problem to one of public health, because that's a staggering fact. And, you know, we all know people that have lost somebody close to them, whether it's just a road accident or the drunk driving or the you know, I don't know if you guys saw anybody follows hockey, but the, you know, Johnny Hockey who was killed with his brother the day before his sister's wedding by a drunk driver. This is, like, so avoidable. So what does it take for a politician or a group of politicians and that I don't even know at which level this decision would get made where they say, okay. We've seen enough. That should be the only solution. And are you pushing for that? Tekedra Mawakana (00:10:38): So we are pushing to make sure people who put autonomous vehicles on the road have to demonstrate their safety case. We think the worst thing that could happen is introducing a new technology that doesn't actually improve this problem. Jason Calacanis (00:10:53): Right. I David Friedberg (00:10:53): think the whole industry. Tekedra Mawakana (00:10:54): Because it'll kill the whole industry and the state of affairs, 40,000 Americans, 1.35 million globally, dying annually from road crashes is avoidable. And so the challenge that we have to tackle with a lot of humility is, how prepared is the public at, you know, humans can kill other people. How prepared is the public to accept that this isn't going to be a panacea, and it's not gonna be perfect. You didn't hear me say 100%, 100%, 100%. Right? In the '70s. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:26): There'll be a small error Tekedra Mawakana (00:11:27): rate. There's gonna be a small and so that's the work that we're doing, which is we have community partners, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Safety Council, a host of organizations who've been trying to tackle this issue who we partnered with early because it's actually in both of our interests to figure out how to tell the story that if this technology can reduce 60% of the fatalities, then it's worth the exposure to the risk. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:53): Are you on any sort of internal shot clock? Meaning, there must have been a moment where you convened a meeting or you guys had a meeting, and you said, alright. We have enough data. Let's go. We're gonna pull the guy out of the car. Or, hey. This is it. We're ready. And then you show it to regulators, and they say, okay. Is there a set of these really important milestones that we're going to feel, like, goes to other cities? Like, is it only grid cities where this works? Like so where do you go from here? Tekedra Mawakana (00:12:19): Yeah. I hope I hope that what, over time, you start to experience is, one, because we are, you know, super focused on safety, you'll see us scaling. And because we're building a driver and not a car, you'll see us scaling in a number of ways. So we have partnerships right now. We have a partnership with Uber in Phoenix. Why are we doing that? People are like, oh my gosh. I got my Uber Eats in a Waymo. Like, why are you all doing that? It's because we're building a driver, and so we're trying to figure out all of the ways in which this driver could be applied to future use cases. And so over time, you're certainly gonna see us announce new places, but you're also gonna see like in San Francisco, we launched a 24-hour service in a limited territory, and over time, we've expanded that territory. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:04): Step function and complexity to go to cities that are more how would I call it? More chaotically city planned? Tekedra Mawakana (00:13:11): It is definitely an opportunity for the driver to learn more. And so coming to Los Angeles, for example, was more like being in Phoenix going to Austin exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Going to Manhattan, we will certainly benefit from our work in San Francisco. Same thing with D.C. Jason Calacanis (00:13:27): So start with the great cities and work your way into more complex cities. David Sacks (00:13:30): So can I follow up on the, on that last point? I have a friend who's the third or fourth investor in Uber. And and he's, he's very worried that once this product scales, there's not really gonna be a need for Uber anymore. More, right? Why would you need Uber if you can just summon the robot car directly or the robot driver, whatever you want to call it, right? Driver car, whatever. I mean, doesn't this logically disrupt Uber at, you know, once it's at scale? Tekedra Mawakana (00:14:03): I think, Jason Calacanis (00:14:08): Well, they are current partners. Tekedra Mawakana (00:14:09): As I said, we have a partnership with, right. I mean, I have, we have a partnership. David Friedberg (00:14:13): Your friend hasn't sold enough shares yet. Jason Calacanis (00:14:16): Your friend's doing just fine. Tekedra Mawakana (00:14:18): We have the partnership with Uber because we think it's important for us to create an AV ecosystem around this technology. Like, this isn't gonna be, we've created technology. We're gonna figure out everything ourselves. Like, that would be foolish and very expensive, and we'd never find ourselves profitable. But having companies that are experts in integration, having automotive partners, you know, we have, we're not building the car, having network partners, having fleet operating partners, public officials. Like, there's a lot that is built around us, and these are the early days, the early innings. And so that's part of it is learning. In the I'd say five years ago, people would say to me, you know, network operators would say, oh, this is exactly like, we know how to do this. Well, this is a constrained supply. It's not a supply you just surge. This is a driver that you need to understand actually how to operate with. And so I think we're going through those steps to learn together. And so what I would say is there's room for a lot of people are Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:18): just not. Is the insurance lobby and the insurance industry a proponent, or do they, would they try to constrain your progress? Tekedra Mawakana (00:15:28): So one of the largest reinsurers in the world, Swiss Re, has actually been doing our safety. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:35): Yeah. They would wanna underwrite this. Yeah. Tekedra Mawakana (00:15:37): Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:37): But I'm talking about more like the Geico's of the world. Tekedra Mawakana (00:15:39): Same. I think they're very eager to get the datasets that we're releasing. Like, we released 20 safety papers last year. They're all wanting to understand what the actual impact of this technology can be because, you know, one of the things I think that's hard for us to grasp as humans, or at least I'll say for me, I don't like speaking for everybody, is, you know, we drive in a week more than a human drives in a lifetime. And you can say that as a company that runs fleets, but we're the only company where it's one driver. And that's not, like, that's not the way the world is organized right now. FedEx has a lot of drivers. All of you who have Teslas have a lot of drivers. Like, everyone has a lot of drivers, and all of those drivers have different capabilities. This is one driver learning all the time in unison. And so, like, what can we demonstrate that's possible? And it really goes back to your other question of, like, what do what are policymakers five years from now really gonna wanna know? And how will they be able to derive from what we're doing today? Jason Calacanis (00:16:45): Where were you when you heard the news of Cruise dragging that woman in San Francisco 20 feet? And then, where were you, and what was your reaction internally to when you found out Cruise covered it up? Tekedra Mawakana (00:16:59): I don't remember where I was, when I learned, but I, you know, it's we're here to improve road safety. So, it was pretty upsetting, I think, to me and the whole org. I think as we learned about the lack of transparency, like, our view has just been be transparent. It's not perfection. Like, it's technology. Jason Calacanis (00:17:25): Yeah. But you're considered their contemporary, and you have a different approach. You would never cover it up. They obviously had something dysfunctional. Did that set the industry back significantly? How are regulators talking to you before and after that, if differently, if at all? Tekedra Mawakana (00:17:40): It definitely led to more scrutiny in San Francisco, because there was already an active, and continues to be, a fairly active voice against technology in San Francisco. And so we needed to continue to engage, which we are already doing, provide more data, which we're, of course, willing to do. And I think over time, what we'll see is, you know, we have to get to a place where the amount of data that we're providing actually advances the safety concerns. I think at that point, it was just providing a lot more engagement. Jason Calacanis (00:18:13): So if the mission is to reduce those deaths and to really scale this technology, Uber's doing a quarter a billion rides a week. You just raised $5 billion. It's a big number. That gives you another 50,000 cars, which is a fraction of the rides in but one city. It seems like you need a lot of partners in the car space to build this. So wouldn't the best strategy be to license this technology to every car maker and then allow the Ubers, the Lyfts, the DoorDashes, and fleet managers to handle cleaning the puke in the back of the cars and putting the air in the tires? Because I don't think Waymo wants to be in the back of that car cleaning up the puke and doing the air tire. Right? There has to be somebody who manages all that. So okay. Maybe talk a little bit about that possibility of and even a more beautiful thing would be for you to open it. So has there been a discussion internally about open sourcing this technology? Tekedra Mawakana (00:19:05): So I'll start at the beginning. I think what you just described is exactly the AV ecosystem that I'm talking about. And yes, out of necessity, and because we are the—I mean, whoever was first was gonna need to create this. It doesn't exist, right? So we're doing that. I think the second part of what you're talking about is to let everyone do what they're good at. Like, we're good at building this driver. There's, though, a period where we have to become really good at what it means to operate at scale. And that's where we are right now. What does it mean to operate at scale? What does it—you know, technology can work and not be delightful, not be reusable, not be repeatable. And that you know, we don't just want people having tourism rides. We want people actually integrating this into their lives, and we just did a UX study, and we found that a third of people use the service in San Francisco to go to their doctor appointments. We're like, that feels like real life. And 36 percent were using the vehicles to go to local businesses, which is also real life. And so these are the kinds of signals that we're trying to get. As far as, like, personally owned cars, we've always said as part of our strategy from the beginning that we would start with ride-hailing and local delivery, and that eventually, we would make our technology available to automotive companies so that this—you know, at some point, you'll find Waymo cars sitting on showroom floors for sale. Jason Calacanis (00:20:24): Oh, wow. So you—you—we could go buy one and then put it into whatever fleet we want. Yes. What does it cost to make one of these cars today, and where do you see it in five years? David Friedberg (00:20:32): Yeah. And just, I guess, on that question, where's the tipping point in unit economics? So if you look at the ride-hailing business, based on I know a lot of people drive during rush hour, and then they don't need rides the rest of the time, so there's a lot of excess inventory sitting around. So if you look at the utilization of a car over its lifetime and the cost of the car over the lifetime, what's the breaking point where the unit economics make sense? Tekedra Mawakana (00:20:53): Yeah. So your question of cost of car, we just don't break it out since we're not reported separately for Alphabet. We're just bundled out. The rumor is Jason Calacanis (00:21:02): a buck 50 right now. It's close. Tekedra Mawakana (00:21:05): K. David Friedberg (00:21:07): Buck 25. Tekedra Mawakana (00:21:08): Commenting on rumors. Not commenting on rumors. Okay. Wait. Wait. David Sacks (00:21:11): Wait. If that's that's just the, the system for Jason Calacanis (00:21:14): The car plus the system. David Sacks (00:21:16): The car plus. But what Jason Calacanis (00:21:17): if 125 to 150 is the rumored cost for the car today. David Friedberg (00:21:21): Actually, like, we're gonna call on the rumor, but David Sacks (00:21:23): I love that. But that's I mean, that's obviously a lot more than a Tesla. Right? So Jason Calacanis (00:21:28): Yeah. Tesla's 40,000, 50,000. Yeah. David Sacks (00:21:31): So do we do we know ballparks here? What can we say? Tekedra Mawakana (00:21:37): So keep on. Yeah. It's so fun. We're just Jason Calacanis (00:21:39): we're poker players, so we're trying to read you and bait you. I Tekedra Mawakana (00:21:42): And it's not worth it. Jason Calacanis (00:21:43): We didn't know you were a Jedi. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:45): So so so sorry. David Friedberg (00:21:46): Let me just ask, is it about reinventing the system or getting the next gen of the system before the unit economics break, or is it about volume? What's the breaking point of where the unit economics become profitable, become positive? Tekedra Mawakana (00:21:58): Yeah. Not gonna get into that other than to say to you, this is the thing I spend all of my time focused on, and we are on David Friedberg (00:22:07): But there's a path there. Tekedra Mawakana (00:22:08): There's completely a path there. David Sacks (00:22:09): Well, without getting into costs, is one of the plans here to sell this to, you know, all the carmakers so that they can compete with Tesla? Because most of the car companies do not have the technical capabilities to develop their own self-driving. It's just impossible. So are you guys gonna be like an OEM to all the carmakers so that they can provide Tekedra Mawakana (00:22:31): Yeah. We've said sort of publicly, and we've had partnerships where we've made the technology available. It's a question of when, you know, when will a Level 4 sort of product be available and interesting to consumers at scale? You know, that's part of the question. But absolutely, this is part of our strategy. David Friedberg (00:22:50): A friend of mine Chamath Palihapitiya (00:22:50): Can I get that? Sorry. Yeah. Of course. I'm sorry. friend of mine, who couldn't make it here, is an angel investor in Uber. And he—no. If you look at the business outside of the United States, actually, if you look at Uber's business, there's a lot of opportunity in other markets. And sometimes in other markets, they will prove probably more able and open-minded to taking, like, the public health priority around these things. So why such a heavy reliance on America, considering the scale and the imprimatur of Google, could probably pull you into any number of markets anywhere around the world? Tekedra Mawakana (00:23:31): Yeah. So we really think about it as this sort of learning journey, but it's also just where we started. Right? I mean, part of the conversation we get to have now is what would if the driver was at this level of maturity, where would we have started? That said, we have global aspirations. We're always thinking about Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:51): the climate. Just take one geography to prove this point? Or do you view it the problem that way? Like, it's like, we're training, we're training, we're training. And then at some point, there'll be some city or Tekedra Mawakana (00:24:02): Yeah. Which point? I just want to make sure I understand. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:05): This idea where you can prove that it's just so reliable and valuable. And that you're saving. Just I really care about that idea. Tekedra Mawakana (00:24:13): Yeah. To who? Who would it prove the point to? Sorry. People that Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:19): would make the rules, I guess. Tekedra Mawakana (00:24:20): Yeah. I think. I hope. I don't know. I think there's a lot of noise in the system. There's a lot of confusion about full autonomy versus partial autonomy. There's not a lot of legislative activity that's informed by experts. Jason Calacanis (00:24:39): Right. Tekedra Mawakana (00:24:40): So I don't know. Right? Like, certainly, it's my hope. And I think one of the things when you think about certain countries around the world, there is more of a nation-state, top-down approach to some regulations, and so that could be easier. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:24:54): Singapore? Tekedra Mawakana (00:24:55): Yeah. You prove it. It's codified into law. You launch. That hasn't been the primary way we've thought about market entry or opportunity, but certainly one of the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:07): Yeah. Tekedra Mawakana (00:25:07): areas we've David Friedberg (00:25:07): thought about. Adopt, the rest of the markets will see, and they'll fall behind. And, I mean, you just have to penetrate some markets. Tekedra Mawakana (00:25:14): Yeah. From a Jason Calacanis (00:25:14): Google had amazing success with Android and open source. So back to that open source question, you must have had this discussion many times internally. Why not open source the technology, and then provide, you know, the premium Android to people who wanna pay? Is that something on the road map? Because I hear there's a big discussion internally. To OEMs? To car OEMs? Just open sourcing the maps, the software, to make everybody contribute to it, to just get this out quicker. So where are you at with those internal discussions at Waymo? David Friedberg (00:25:43): Give away the whole business? Jason Calacanis (00:25:44): Yeah. Exactly. No. I mean, Android, it's worked. Right? It's David Friedberg (00:25:47): 20 billion in. It's like, let's just give it away. Jason Calacanis (00:25:49): Well, I mean, but, Friedberg, if you look at Android, that was definitely gotten stronger. Right? I think that Tekedra Mawakana (00:25:53): Yeah. But I think that David Friedberg (00:25:54): That was defensive on search, but yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:25:56): So you gotta know your answer. Tekedra Mawakana (00:25:57): No. I I like it when you guys answer each other's questions. Yeah. Because I get to learn what you actually do. See your answer. We talk. David Friedberg (00:26:03): We fight a lot. It's fine. Tekedra Mawakana (00:26:04): No. It's fun. It's actually fun for me. So feel free to keep. So on the question of open sourcing, that isn't something that we're spending a lot of time talking about right now. Jason Calacanis (00:26:17): Let's talk about Level 6, which I believe is inclement weather, and really, like, part Oh, Level 5 rather. Sorry. And I know when I'm in my Tesla, it gives me a little warning. Hey, inclement weather. Tekedra Mawakana (00:26:28): Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:26:29): And the FSD might be degraded, you know, extra attention time. How close are you, you know, to feeling comfortable with these things driving in snow, ice, rain, or when that happens, do fleets just pull over and game over? You know, you have you can't use this technology. Tekedra Mawakana (00:26:46): Yeah. We've been improving weather. We've tested across 25 cities specifically for that. So we had massive storms in San Francisco last year, and we didn't take down the fleet. Like, our fleet was able to handle all of the rain. Jason Calacanis (00:27:00): So rain and flooding pretty good. Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:02): Rain and flooding pretty David Friedberg (00:27:03): good. Because of, like, lidar and radar, maybe. Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:08): You said it. Jason Calacanis (00:27:08): Okay. Fog, snow, ice. Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:11): So we've tested in we've tested in snow and ice. We don't have any deployments there, but that's an area that we're learning. Fog, we've been able to master. Jason Calacanis (00:27:22): So that 280 same for sound. Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:24): No problem. No problem. Same thing with those sandstorms in Phoenix. That was an early warning. Like, those are actually, you know, very challenging. And then there are swarms of birds in Phoenix. Like, really and and heat. Right? You have a machine. That's brutal. David Friedberg (00:27:37): It's like a it's a revelation. It's like Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:40): Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot. At the airport. Right? And so, like Well, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:49): there's Well, Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:49): There's curbside pickup is a whole thing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:51): What has been the hardest challenge for you as CEO? Tekedra Mawakana (00:27:58): I think we've heard I Chamath Palihapitiya (00:27:59): mean, we've heard all these rumors about, like, cultural issues at Google or whatnot. But, you know, I I I get the sense that you're much more separated in terms of building a much more technical and specific culture. But what have been the hardest challenges for you? Tekedra Mawakana (00:28:12): I think one of the hardest challenges was making we made such a big decision in going fully autonomous, which is sort of the reason we're here, during COVID. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:25): You mean getting that person out? Tekedra Mawakana (00:28:26): The person from behind the wheel scaling this, and so then bringing the culture back together to now scale. So we just needed like, we needed a minute to lock back in. That's one of the things. And the other one, I would say, is what you just said, which is, you know, it's a brilliant team, and the team works really hard. But, like, bad things are gonna happen in the real world with human drivers around our cars. And the team takes that so seriously. And so that's it's it's like a it's like having worked at I mean, I worked at AOL. I know you were there too. But, like, other kinds of tech companies, I know every kind of company is stressful. It's a different kind of stress when people's lives are sick. They internalize it. Completely. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:07): And they personalize their work. Tekedra Mawakana (00:29:08): Yeah. And so that's it's just a different level of stress and accountability. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:13): And stress possible differently because of that pressure or no? Tekedra Mawakana (00:29:16): Well, you do when things happen in industry. Yeah. You know, we need people to sort of, you know, stay buckled in and believing that this is something that is worth it. It's audacious. It's hard, but it's worth it. And it's bigger. Most people come because they have lost someone. Like, they're very miserable. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:34): very honest with you, it's an incredible framing you gave, and I totally missed it for so many years, which is when you said we're building one driver. I thought for whatever reason, you were building an autonomous driving system, which I interpreted very technologically for a very long time. But you're absolutely right. You have one goal. It's very clarifying, actually. The world's greatest driver. One the world's greatest driver. Tekedra Mawakana (00:29:52): The world's most trusted driver. David Friedberg (00:29:56): Tekedra, thank you for... Yeah. I mean, it's incredible. Thank you so much. Yeah. Tekedra Mawakana (00:30:01): Thank you. It was awesome. Thank you so much.