Co-CEO
Distinguished Scientist and Head of Research
%20(crop).jpg?width=400){kind=small}
Co-CEO
Senior Director of Engineering and Head of Trucking
Professor & Staff Research Scientist
Technical Writer
Vice President, Head of Research
Technical Program Manager
Chief Product Officer
Head of Hardware
Free, one click with Google. Browse every guest and company across the catalog.
What if we could solve the problem of fatal car accidents? Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana joins TED's Sal Khan to explore why fully autonomous vehicles (where you never have to touch the wheel) are more than a tech novelty — they could help end the dangerous status quo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo, joins Sequoia partner Konstantine Buhler at AI Ascent 2026 to talk about the 20-year arc from the DARPA Grand Challenge to fully autonomous service in eleven cities and counting. He explains how Waymo persisted through every AV hype cycle by treating safety as the non-negotiable foundation, why exponential scaling is finally here (10 of Waymo's 20 million autonomous rides have happened in the last seven months), and how the Waymo Foundation Model — a multimodal world action model that powers the driver, the simulator, and the critic — actually works under the hood. Also: why Waymo is now 13x safer than human drivers, and the moment a Waymo detected a pedestrian behind a city bus by reading the LiDAR returns of their feet.
Waymo is now delivering hundreds of thousands of fully autonomous rides each week — but getting there required more than better models. It meant building a complete system for training, evaluating, and deploying a driver in the real world. In this episode — originally aired on the Cheeky Pint podcast — Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov joins John Collison to break down how self-driving actually works today: from sensor fusion across LiDAR, radar, and cameras, to simulation, “critic” models, and the role of AI in decision-making. They also explore why full autonomy is fundamentally different from driver-assist, what it takes to scale globally, and how recent advances in AI are reshaping the path forward. Resources: Follow Dmitri Dolgov on X - https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov Follow John Collison on X - https://x.com/collision Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Waymo’s VP of Research, Drago Anguelov, joins Practical AI to explore how advances in autonomy, vision models, and large-scale testing are shaping the future of driverless technology. The conversation dives into the dual challenges of building an onboard driver and testing that driver (via large scale simulation). Drago also gives us an update on what Waymo is doing to achieve intelligent, real-time performance while ensuring proven safety and reliability. Featuring: Drago Anguelov – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X Links: Waymo Research New Insights for Scaling Laws in Autonomous Driving AI in Motion Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco - The open source collective building the Internet of Agents. Backed by Outshift by Cisco, AGNTCY gives developers the tools to build and deploy multi-agent software at scale. Identity, communication protocols, and modular workflows—all in one global collaboration layer. Start building at AGNTCY.org. Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Upcoming Events: Register for upcoming webinars here!
President Trump announced this week that the U.S. government, in a highly unusual deal, had agreed to take a 10 percent stake in the chip maker Intel, and that he was considering similar investments in other companies. We discuss why Trump cares so much about Intel, what the government is trying to accomplish with this deal, and how people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are reacting. Then Waymo’s co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana joins us in the studio to discuss the company’s strategy for expanding its driverless car service to Miami, D.C. and the snowy Northeast. And finally, we introduce a new segment where we run through the most surprising technology projects the Trump family is getting involved in. Guests: Tekedra Mawakana, co-chief executive of Waymo. Additional Reading: Intel Agrees to Sell U.S. a 10% Stake in Its Business First Lady Melania Trump Launches Nationwide Presidential AI Challenge We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Today, we're joined by Drago Anguelov, head of AI foundations at Waymo, for a deep dive into the role of foundation models in autonomous driving. Drago shares how Waymo is leveraging large-scale machine learning, including vision-language models and generative AI techniques to improve perception, planning, and simulation for its self-driving vehicles. The conversation explores the evolution of Waymo’s research stack, their custom “Waymo Foundation Model,” and how they’re incorporating multimodal sensor data like lidar, radar, and camera into advanced AI systems. Drago also discusses how Waymo ensures safety at scale with rigorous validation frameworks, predictive world models, and realistic simulation environments. Finally, we touch on the challenges of generalization across cities, freeway driving, end-to-end learning vs. modular architectures, and the future of AV testing through ML-powered simulation. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at https://twimlai.com/go/725.
In this episode of No Priors, Dmitri Dolgov, Co-CEO of Waymo, joins Sarah and Elad to explore the evolution and advancements of Waymo's self-driving technology from its inception at Google to its current real-world deployment. Dmitri also shares insights into the technological breakthroughs and complexities of achieving full autonomy, the design innovations of Waymo’s sixth generation driverless cars, and the broader applications of Waymo’s advanced technology. They also discuss Waymo's strategic approach to scaling amidst regulation, deployment in cities like Phoenix and San Francisco, and the transformative potential of autonomous driving on car ownership and urban infrastructure. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Dmitri_Dolgov Shownotes: 00:00 Introduction 00:15 History of Self-Driving at Google 00:29 DARPA Challenges and Early Involvement 01:39 Formation of Waymo 01:53 Industry Lineage and Early Skepticism 03:05 Initial Goals and Milestones 4:33 Pivot to Full Autonomy 04:50 Scaling and Deployment 05:29 Generational Breakthroughs 06:59 Choosing Deployment Cities 09:26 Technological Advancements 11:01 Evaluating Safety 14:41 Regulatory Stance and Trust 16:52 Future of Autonomous Driving 23:19 Business Strategy and Partnerships 26:06 Changing Urban Mobility Trends 26:40 Challenges and Misconceptions in Self-Driving Timelines 28:43 The Role of Traditional OEMs in an Autonomous Future 30:54 Designing Cars for Autonomous Ride-Hailing 33:42 Scaling Responsibly 35:18 Generalizability and Future Applications of AI 37:10 The Complexity of Achieving Full Autonomy 42:58 The Importance of Data and Iteration in AI Development 46:13 Reflecting on the Journey and Future of Waymo
Waymo's autonomous vehicles have driven over 20 million miles on public roads and billions more in simulation. In this episode, a16z General Partner David George sits down with Dmitri Dolgov, CTO at Waymo, to discuss the development of self-driving technology. Dmitri provides technical insights into the evolution of hardware and software, the impact of generative AI, and the safety standards that guide Waymo's innovations. This footage is from AI Revolution, an event that a16z recently hosted in San Francisco. Watch the full event here: a16z.com/dmitri-dolgov-waymo-ai Resources: Find Dmitri on Twitter: https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov Find David George on Twitter: https://x.com/DavidGeorge83 Learn more about Waymo: https://waymo.com/ Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
This episode is sponsored by 1Password. 1Password combines industry-leading security with award-winning design to bring private, secure, and user-friendly password management to everyone. Companies lose hours every day just from employees forgetting and resetting passwords. A single data breach costs millions of dollars. 1Password secures every sign-in to save you time and money. Right now, my listeners get a free 2-week trial at: www.1password.com/eyeonai Dive into the world of autonomous driving with Dragomir Anguelov, Vice President, Head of Research at Waymo, in this captivating episode of Eye on AI. Drago offers a profound exploration into the technical and operational advancements driving the future of autonomous vehicles. With his rich background at Google and now at Waymo, Drago provides an insider's view on the evolution of machine learning technologies and their pivotal role in developing self-driving cars that are not only intelligent but also safe and reliable. This conversation spans the inception of large neural networks for image understanding to the intricate deployment of robotaxis in urban environments. Drago details the challenges of scaling these complex systems across different cities and the breakthroughs that have made autonomous driving a tangible reality in places like Phoenix and San Francisco. Drago's insights are invaluable for anyone interested in the convergence of AI, robotics, and transportation. If you are fascinated by the advancements being made in the autonomous driving space and how they could transform our daily lives, make sure to hit the like button and subscribe for more deep dives into the technologies shaping our future. Stay Updated: Craig Smith Twitter: https://twitter.com/craigss Eye on A.I. Twitter: https://twitter.com/EyeOn_AI
Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov is convinced that his company’s vehicles are better at driving than any human. Dmitri has spent thousands of hours riding in them, and recently Guy had the chance to try one out as well... This week on How I Built This Lab, Dmitri recounts the decade-plus journey of building Waymo into the world’s first company to operate a fully-autonomous ride hailing service. Plus, how Waymo’s approach differs from Tesla’s, and Dmitri’s take on when we’ll see more AV’s on the roads than human-driven cars (spoiler: sooner than you may think!) This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella with research help from Chris Maccini. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch. You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Tekedra Mawakana is the Co-CEO at Waymo. She joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the company's new partnership with Uber, which is making Waymo's driverless cars available through its app. We also discuss the safety of driverless vehicles, food delivery, Waymo's place within Alphabet, when these cars will drive on icy roads, the potential for driverless trucking, and more. Tune in for a revealing conversion with one of self-driving's top leaders. -- You can subscribe to Big Technology Premium for 25% off at https://bit.ly/bigtechnology Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Self-driving cars have been on the horizon for quite some time. But, they might actually be here. We got to ride around in one all over San Francisco with Waymo’s Chief Product Officer, Saswat Panigrahi. We discussed so much, including the five levels of autonomy, the infamous LIDAR vs video debate, regulation, UX, and the role of AI in fine-tuning these models. But most importantly, if autonomy is here… now what?! Topics Covered: 00:00 - Introduction 03:20 - A first look at Waymo 05:21 - 5 levels of autonomy 09:45 - Technology challenges 14:32 - LiDAR vs video debate 18:19 - How Waymo differentiates 19:01 - Technological unlocks on the horizon 20:39 - The role of AI in autonomous vehicles 25:37 - How Waymo views safety 32:05 - Collaborating with regulators 37:26 - Learnings from the first 2m miles 39:45 - Driving user retention 43:47 - Waymo’s expansion strategy 47:00 - Changing regulation 47:41 - Societal unlocks enabled by autonomy 52:21 - Will self-driving cars replace humans? 52:58 - Closing thoughts Resources: Check out Waymo: https://waymo.com/ Check out Waymo's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Waymo Find Saswat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/saswat101 Check out a16z's 8-part series on the autonomous vehicle ecosystem: https://a16z.com/2018/02/03/autonomy-ecosystem-frank-chen-summit/ Stay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
After Kara and Nayeema discuss recent moves at CNN and the ducking cool innovation at Apple, we launch into part two of “Car Week” and an interview with Tekedra Mawakana. The Co-CEO of Waymo (formerly the Google self-driving car project) discusses trying to change how society moves while dealing with obstacles to the autonomous vehicle transition, like angsty Teamsters and tetchy regulators. And Kara explains why she’s so bullish on driverless cars. BTW, do you have any burning questions on career, love or life where you’d like Kara or Nayeema’s advice? Call 1-888-KARA-PLZ and leave us a voicemail. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram. We’re @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Brought to you by Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security | Public—Invest in stocks, treasuries, crypto, and more | LMNT—Zero-sugar hydration — Shweta Shrivastava is a Senior Product Leader at Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company backed by Alphabet. Prior to joining Waymo, she was the CPO of Nauto, where she also worked on AI-assisted driver tools. Shweta has worked in product for over 15 years in senior roles at several companies, including Amazon and Cisco. In today’s episode, we discuss: • How Waymo builds trust with riders • Product management at Waymo vs software-only products • The state of self-driving technology • The importance of being a disruptor and why large companies need to disrupt more • Underrated product management skills — Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/product-lessons-from-waymo-shweta-shrivastava-waymo-amazon-cisco/#transcript — Where to find Shweta Shriva • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shshrivastava/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Shweta’s background (03:47) What Shweta and her team are responsible for at Waymo (05:30) About the autonomous driving vehicle hardware, software, and simulation tools (08:14) Differences in working at Waymo vs. a more traditional software company (11:02) How Waymo builds trust with riders and the difference between driver assist and fully autonomous (13:57) An example of how Waymo builds trust with riders (15:55) The commercial, operational, and system behavior metrics Waymo uses (20:38) What are L5 autonomous vehicles and why Shweta thinks L4 vehicles are good enough (22:53) How to keep investors enthusiastic when it’s a long-term investment (25:24) Building successful teams and successful products (26:39) Determining what you’re not building, especially before product-market-fit (27:49) Why large companies need to disrupt their own models (29:33) The most underrated product management skills (33:07) Tips for getting promoted (35:19) Where is Waymo and how to try it out (36:46) Lightning round — Referenced: • Waymo: https://waymo.com/ • Nauto: https://www.nauto.com/ • Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595 • Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986 • The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780 • Top Gun: Maverick on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Top-Gun-Maverick-Tom-Cruise/dp/B0B18G8R9B — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Drago Anguelov is a Distinguished Scientist and Head of Research at Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company and subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. We begin by discussing Drago's work on the original Inception architecture, winner of the 2014 ImageNet challenge and introduction of the inception module. Then, we explore milestones and current trends in autonomous driving, from Waymo's release of the Open Dataset to the trade-offs between modular and end-to-end systems. Drago also shares his thoughts on finding rare examples, and the challenges of creating scalable and robust systems. Show notes (transcript and links): http://wandb.me/gd-drago-anguelov --- ⏳ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:45 The story behind the Inception architecture 13:51 Trends and milestones in autonomous vehicles 23:52 The challenges of scalability and simulation 30:19 Why LiDar and mapping are useful 35:31 Waymo Via and autonomous trucking 37:31 Robustness and unsupervised domain adaptation 40:44 Why Waymo released the Waymo Open Dataset 49:02 The domain gap between simulation and the real world 56:40 Finding rare examples 1:04:34 The challenges of production requirements 1:08:36 Outro --- Connect with Drago & Waymo 📍 Drago on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dragomiranguelov/ 📍 Waymo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo/ 📍 Careers at Waymo: https://waymo.com/careers/ --- Links: 📍 Inception v1: https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4842 📍 "SPG: Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for 3D Object Detection via Semantic Point Generation", Qiangeng Xu et al. (2021), https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.06709 📍 "GradTail: Learning Long-Tailed Data Using Gradient-based Sample Weighting", Zhao Chen et al. (2022), https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.05938 --- 💬 Host: Lukas Biewald 📹 Producers: Cayla Sharp, Angelica Pan, Lavanya Shukla --- Subscribe and listen to our podcast today! 👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts 👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts 👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify
Docs for Devs: An Engineer’s Field Guide to Technical Writing can be found here. Jared worked as a technical writer at Google for more than 14 years and recently transitioned to Waymo, the self-driving car company spun out under the Alphabet umbrella. You can find him on Twitter and LinkedIn. Zachary has been a technical writer at GitHub and the Linux Foundation, and now works as a staff technical writer at Stripe. You can find all her online accounts at her website. Interested in exploring approaches for collaboration and knowledge management on engineering teams? Why not try a tool developers already turn to regularly? Check out Stack Overflow for Teams, used by Microsoft, Bloomberg, and many others. Tired of security bottlenecks? Today’s episode is sponsored by Snyk, a developer security platform that automatically scans your code, dependencies, containers, and cloud configs — finding and fixing vulnerabilities in real time, from the tools and workflows you already use. Create your free account at snyk.co/stackoverflow. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
About Johnny Johnny was born in Cleveland, OH and graduated from the University of Toledo with a Bachelor's in Computer Science Engineering. He began his career as a software engineer focused on embedded device protocols and systems engineering. Eventually he realized that Program Management worked better with the grain of his brain, so he took his career in that direction. In 2019, he was hired by Google Cloud to serve as a Communications Lead on their incident management teams. Most recently, he joined Waymo in November 2021 as a Technical Program Manager, acting as an anti-entropy agent for the self-driving car company's offboard infrastructure teams. Outside his day job, Johnny enjoys mountain biking, playing piano and trumpet, personal finance, coaching, and studying complex systems. He currently lives in Sunnyvale, CA with his wife Emily, and is expecting their first child in April 2022! Links: Original Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1436129343399346184 Personal website: https://jmpod.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmpod Twitter: https://twitter.com/gratitudeisfree/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gratitudeisfree/
Boris Sofman is the Senior Director Of Engineering and Head of Trucking at Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car project. He was also the CEO and co-founder of Anki, a home robotics company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack – Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil – ROKA: https://roka.com/ and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order – Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off EPISODE LINKS: Boris’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bsofman Boris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman Waymo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo Waymo’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/waymo Waymo’s Website: https://waymo.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (07:32) – Robots in science fiction (13:13) – Cozmo (38:28) – AI companions (45:23) – Anki (1:10:56) – Waymo Via (1:42:34) – Sensor suites for long haul trucking (1:52:30) – Machine learning (2:10:26) – Waymo vs Tesla (2:21:02) – Safety and risk management (2:30:06) – Societal effects of automation (2:41:11) – Amazon Astro (2:45:35) – Challenges of the robotics industry (2:50:03) – Humanoid robotics (2:57:06) – Advice for getting a PhD in robotics (3:04:37) – Advice for robotics startups (3:15:43) – Advice for students
Waymo is working on self-driving taxis. Which is a huge deal. Ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft have remade cities, allowed people to give up their cars, and generally connected the buttons you push on your phone to real things happening in the world more directly than almost any other app. Nilay Patel talked to Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, about expanding Waymo’s service to other cities, the hurdles in place, and how she thinks the company will make money over time. We also talked about the regulatory issues the industry faces as it tries to roll out self-driving more broadly, and whether things like Tesla’s “full self driving” are confusing the issue or helping it. This was a really fun conversation made even better because we recorded it live, on stage at Code Conference. Links: Meet the self-driving brains working with Tesla and Ford https://www.theverge.com/22627847/argo-ai-bryan-salesky-decoder-interview-lyft-self-driving Ford CEO Jim Farley on building the electric F-150 -- and reinventing Ford https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22444294/ford-f150-lightning-pickup-truck-jim-farley-interview Waymo CEO John Krafcik steps down, replaced by two co-CEOs https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/2/22364317/waymo-ceo-john-krafcik-stepping-down-self-driving-cars-google-alphabet Riding in Waymo One, the Google spin-off’s first self-driving taxi service https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/5/18126103/waymo-one-self-driving-taxi-service-ride-safety-alphabet-cost-app Waymo starts offering autonomous rides in San Francisco https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/24/22639226/waymo-san-francisco-rides-self-driving-service Tesla opens ‘Full Self-Driving’ beta software to more customers https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/26/22693610/tesla-opens-full-self-driving-beta-software-more-customers Waymo’s self-driving cars are now available on Lyft’s app in Phoenix https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18536003/waymo-lyft-self-driving-ride-hail-app-phoenix Google is spinning off its self-driving car program into a new company called Waymo https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/13/13936782/google-self-driving-car-waymo-spin-off-company Car companies will have to report automated vehicle crashes under new rules https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/29/22555666/nhtsa-autonomous-vehicle-crash-report-data Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/22472717 Credits: Host - Nilay Patel Lead Producer - Creighton DeSimone Associate Producer - Alexander Charles Adams Sr Audio Director - Andrew Marino Editor - Callie Wright Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
On Episode 15 of The Robot Brains Podcast, Pieter Abbeel is joined by Anca Dragan. Anca is a professor at UC Berkeley, where she is the director of the Interact Lab where she is working on the goal of enabling robots to work with, around, and in support of people. Because of her success in the field, Forbes magazine dubbed Anca: "the woman teaching AI about human values". Alongside her academic research, Anca is also a staff research scientist at the autonomous vehicle startup Waymo. In her discussion with Pieter, she explains why Asimov's three laws of robotics need updating if we want human robot interactions, why the future of robots probably isn't going to be a sci-fi dystopia, and how you teach a driverless car to understand human values. Host: Pieter Abbeel | Executive Producers: Ricardo Reyes & Henry Tobias Jones | Audio Production: Kieron Matthew Banerji | Title Music: Alejandro Del Pozo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today we’re joined by Drago Anguelov, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Research at Waymo. In our conversation, we explore the state of the autonomous vehicles space broadly and at Waymo, including how AV has improved in the last few years, their focus on level 4 driving, and Drago’s thoughts on the direction of the industry going forward. Drago breaks down their core ML use cases, Perception, Prediction, Planning, and Simulation, and how their work has lead to a fully autonomous vehicle being deployed in Phoenix. We also discuss the socioeconomic and environmental impact of self-driving cars, a few research papers submitted to NeurIPS 2020, and if the sophistication of AV systems will lend themselves to the development of tomorrow’s enterprise machine learning systems. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at twimlai.com/go/454.
Dmitri Dolgov is the CTO of Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Tryolabs: https://tryolabs.com/lex – Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off – Cash App: https://cash.app/ and use code LexPodcast to get $10 EPISODE LINKS: Waymo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/waymo Waymo’s Website: https://waymo.com PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (07:46) – Computer games (12:52) – Childhood (15:24) – Robotics (16:14) – Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (18:26) – DARPA Urban Challenge (28:46) – Waymo origin story (44:27) – Waymo self-driving hardware (53:00) – Connected cars (58:53) – Waymo fully driverless service in Phoenix (1:03:14) – Getting feedback from riders (1:11:28) – Creating a product that people love (1:17:18) – Do self-driving cars need to break the rules like humans do? (1:24:03) – Waymo Trucks (1:29:41) – Future of Waymo (1:42:53) – Role of lidar in autonomous driving (1:55:53) – Machine learning is essential for autonomous driving (1:59:55) – Pedestrians (2:06:32) – Trolley problem (2:11:00) – Book recommendations (2:22:26) – Meaning of life
Waymo’s mission is to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. After describing the state of the industry, Drago Anguelov - Principal Scientist and Head of Research at Waymo - takes us on a deep dive into the world of AI-powered autonomous driving. Starting with Waymo’s approach to autonomous driving, Drago then delights Daniel and Chris with a tour of the algorithmic tools in the autonomy toolbox. Sponsors: Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019 OR changelog2020. To learn more and get started head to linode.com/changelog. Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog. Featuring: Drago Anguelov – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X Show Notes: Dragomir Anguelov - Google Scholar Drago Anguelov – Machine Learning for Autonomous Driving at Scale Waymo Waymo - Twitter Waymo - LinkedIn Upcoming Events: Register for upcoming webinars here!
Anca Dragan is a professor at Berkeley, working on human-robot interaction — algorithms that look beyond the robot’s function in isolation, and generate robot behavior that accounts for interaction and coordination with human beings. Support this podcast by supporting the sponsors and using the special code: – Download Cash App on the App Store or Google Play & use code “LexPodcast” EPISODE LINKS: Anca’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ancadianadragan Anca’s Website: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~anca/ This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 02:26 – Interest in robotics 05:32 – Computer science 07:32 – Favorite robot 13:25 – How difficult is human-robot interaction? 32:01 – HRI application domains 34:24 – Optimizing the beliefs of humans 45:59 – Difficulty of driving when humans are involved 1:05:02 – Semi-autonomous driving 1:10:39 – How do we specify good rewards? 1:17:30 – Leaked information from human behavior 1:21:59 – Three laws of robotics 1:26:31 – Book recommendation 1:29:02 – If a doctor gave you 5 years to live… 1:32:48 – Small act of kindness 1:34:31 – Meaning of life
Satish Jeyachandran is the Head of Hardware at Waymo. Before that he lead the self-driving team at Tesla, so he was in charge of the Autopilot team, and his job change lead to headlines at the time. Today Satish gives us a history lesson on Waymo, tells us what the future holds for self-driving tech generally, and most importantly for me, answers a question I’ve always wondered. Why go for full autonomy? If you can give me the ability to let the car drive itself on highways, why not give me that now? Why try to solve the full 99.99% of the problem? It turns out, that Waymo learned you can’t do half measures. You have to do full autonomy or you do nothing. Very interesting conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
with Boris Sofman (@bsofman), Dave Touretzky (@DaveTouretzky), and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread) We're just now beginning to truly see the the first 'real' robots in the home, from Roombas to toys to companions to... well, much more. How are humans beginning to forge relationships with these robotic devices (/entities!) -- and how will those relationships develop? What do we learn as we begin to forge relationships and interact with robotic toys like Cosmo and Vector -- about robots, and about ourselves? And what do these learnings teach us about the possibility of adding a "personality wrapper" to new technologies? In this episode of the a16z Podcast, CEO and cofounder of Anki Boris Sofman, and Research Professor of Computer Science at CMU Dave Touretzky, discuss with a16z's Hanne Tidnam where we are in the human-robotic future, the history of robotics that has brought us here, and the next big breakthroughs -- in hardware, software, perception, navigation, and manipulation -- that will bring in the next waves of innovation for robots. The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments and certain publicly traded cryptocurrencies/ digital assets for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly) is available at https://a16z.com/investments/. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https://a16z.com/disclosures for additional important information. Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Anki, known for creating “robots that move you,” just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund their new home robot, Vector. Anki CEO Boris Sofman sat down with Nilay for this week’s interview episode of The Vergecast to talk about the new companion robot, why gendering the robots is important, and how to avoid the uncanny valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This week, Craig and Adam bring the news from Google Kubernetes Engine and elsewhere, and talk to SIG-Docs leads Zach Corleissen (from the CNCF) and Jared Bhatti (from Google). Do you have something cool to share? Some questions? Let us know: web: kubernetespodcast.com mail: kubernetespodcast@google.com twitter: @kubernetespod News of the week Google Cloud has updated Kubernetes Engine to bring Kubernetes 1.10 to General Availability Google Cloud releases Regional Persistent Disks in Beta for Kubernetes Engine to increase availability Beyond CPU: horizontal pod autoscaling comes to GKE container-dee's new 1.1 release is now generally available for use in Kubernetes New CNCF Sandbox projects: Cloud Events Launch blog post Telepresence Launch blog post Namely video talking about using Istio with Telepresence SAP launches "Gardener", an open source tool for managing and updating multiple Kubernetes clusters Happy Birthday Istio! Burndown for 0.8 issues CloudOps joins the Kubernetes Training Partner program Links from the interview Guests: Jared Bhatti Zach Corleissen Links: Kubernetes documentation Docs Special Interest Group (SIG) Slack
Anki CEO Boris Sofman talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of robotics and why his company is starting with robots that entertain people: The artificially intelligent toy cars Anki Drive, released in 2013, and the emotive pet-like Cozmo, which came out in 2016. Sofman says designing for cuteness makes it easier for humans to accept when the robot makes an error, and is a low-risk way to make all robots better at skills like computer vision. He also talks about the current state of self-driving cars and why the biggest danger robots currently pose to humanity is being misused by human operators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices