Waymo duo will double down on AV expansion
Dmitri Dolgov believed from the beginning. A member of the Stanford University team that finished second in the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007, he was captivated by the early promise of self-driving technology. Soon after the race, he became an original member of Google’s self-driving car project.
“That got me hooked,” he said. “It became very clear to me that this is the most important thing I could be working on, and the most impactful, exciting thing I could be doing.”
Tekedra Mawakana arrived with an outsider’s trepidation. A Columbia Law School grad who practiced telecom law and led teams at eBay, Yahoo and AOL, she joined Waymo in March 2017 as the company’s global head of policy. She viewed autonomous-driving technology with the same lens as ordinary citizens.
“That healthy skepticism is important, and I think it just led me to ask all the right questions,” she said in October 2020. “How do you know when it’s safe? Do you have to have regulations before you advance the technology? Can you trust industry to really be safe stewards of this technology?”
An insider’s artificial-intelligence expertise and institutional knowledge. An outsider’s acumen in navigating global business operations and regulatory challenges. Together, the two executives intend to usher in the next chapter in the advent of autonomous transportation.
In a nod to their complementary experience, Waymo elevated Dolgov and Mawakana to co-CEOs this month, a somewhat unusual power-sharing arrangement that has the blessing of both Waymo’s board of directors and outgoing CEO John Krafcik.
“Tekedra and Dmitri are an incredibly talented pair who are ideally suited for this moment,” Krafcik wrote in a blog post announcing his departure after five and a half years. He will remain an adviser to Waymo.
Mawakana had most recently served as COO and Dolgov as chief technology officer. The two have developed a close working relationship and have been heavily involved in Waymo’s most high-profile milestones, including the ongoing driverless testing of AVs in Phoenix as part of the Waymo One ride-hailing service and the development of the Waymo Via delivery division.
“We’ve worked together on pretty much everything,” Dolgov told Automotive News. “I have a hard time thinking of something we did not work closely on in the past few years.”
Co-CEO structures are uncommon, though not rare. Netflix instituted a similar arrangement last July between founder Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos. Companies such as Oracle, Salesforce and SAP have curtailed forays into dual-leadership experiments.
The arrangement offers stability at a time when Waymo has made slow and steady progress in launching driverless operations for members of the public in its metro Phoenix operational hub.
Growing autonomous-driving service beyond Phoenix will likely be a priority for the new leadership team. In February, Waymo said it would expand its operations in San Francisco, and Dolgov affirms that will be an initial focus.
“We are on a path to expand in new cities, particularly in California,” he said. “Of course, we’ve been driving there since the earliest days. Now we’re working to map out the next steps.”
Beyond ride-hailing service, Waymo has reinvigorated its push into long-haul trucking, which many — including Waymo rival Aurora — believe will be the first practical operational applications for autonomous vehicles. On that front, Waymo has cultivated a partnership with Daimler Trucks, and it has another promising tie-up with UPS Inc.
“It’s been an amazing journey,” Dolgov said. “When we started, I and a few others believed in the long-term potential of this technology, and it’s just been so rewarding to see our team grow, to execute on the mission and see this thing becoming real.”
It has been a winding journey. Growing up in Moscow, Dolgov traveled abroad often. He lived in Japan for a year, attended high school in the United States, and then returned to Russia to study math and physics before coming back to the U.S. to earn a doctorate in computer science at the University of Michigan.
Mawakana was born in Mississippi but lived in Texas, Georgia and Virginia. After graduating from law school, she initially wanted to practice employment law or work on educational policy. Her initial work instead focused on tech — specifically surrounding potential interference in the orbital arc of satellites and issues involving the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It may have interfered with her initial plans but set her on a new trajectory.
“That sounds about as wonky as anything can sound,” she said. “That’s what moved me into tech, and I stayed in it. Why I’ve stayed is because I really do believe, fundamentally, that technology can improve people’s lives. And that’s a big part of how I landed at Waymo.”