Supposedly. I am skeptical that Waymo will ever execute a major deal. It's a real shame, the tech is really good, but Waymo just isn't very good at business (this is true about Alphabet in general; beyond ads, and maybe cloud).
Looking at the current news cycle, I think their huge lead is eventually going to get squandered away. George Hotz said Waymo is like Xerox PARC of Autonomous Tech. I think it's somewhere in between.They're somewhat like Fairchild Semiconductor. A lot of their great engineers have gone on to found their own companies. Be it Anton or Chris.
Tesla already has the brand firepower on its side, to unknowingly create the perception that they're self-driving tech pioneers.
Perhaps overlooked is that Waymo also is coming at self-driving from a very different angle than the car companies. Waymo, based on everything they've said and done, is focused on full autonomy even if that takes quite a few years to roll out broadly.
The auto makers are more than fine with incremental tech so long as it sells more cars. In some ways they may actually prefer it to the degree it accelerates upgrade cycles. Yes, there are issues with intermediate ~ Level 3 stages. But, in general, the car companies don't really care all that much about full self-driving and, arguably, would actually prefer if it hits the streets later rather than sooner.
I'm in total agreement. I told everybody at Waymo (back when it was part of X) that the car companies are fully incremental- they roll features out over years and push them down from the luxury models to the cheapies. They would far prefer to gain knowledge through incremental improvements each year.
The Waymo folks absorbed this, agreed, and said they would proceed towards full autonomy- I kind of get this, for example I don't even use cruise control and don't plan on using L3 autonomous because I worry about losing attentiveness and getting in an accident.
Whether (and you say 'arguably') they are actively preferring to slow down the rollout of full self-driving is hard to say; I think they're just cautious and don't want a few dramatic events to scuttle this promising area of research.
If they can crack that nut, they’ll have a crazy moat for a coupl years. And if they scale like hell in that moment, they might have a real brand on their hands.
And there’s no guarantee at all that the incremental approach will lead to the same place in a reasonable timeframe.
So, risks all around. And people playing to their strengths.
They can hire the right people but the problem might be trust. IMO, no major car company wants to deal with Google, they'll be enslaved to Google who will tighten the screws little by little.
There is truth to it. A friend of mine used the HUGE opportunity Alphabet os missing by failing to offer a service that allows to buy from vendors through Google only ising your Goovle account. Combine that with dropship and you have a potential Amazon-Killer in your pocket.
