A Conversation with Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo

David Stiepleman (0:11)

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the San Francisco season of It's Not Magic, our podcast from Sixth Street. This is our last episode of the San Francisco season. On the show, as you know, we invite influential leaders and founders to get to the core of how they're creating innovative solutions to stand out in their industries. And this season has been no different, but it's been special. San Francisco has a motto, we say, it all starts here. And it does music, culture, food, tech, not incidentally Sixth Street. And we've spent this season focused on the leaders driving our renewed momentum. It's been very cool exploring with some of the people at the center of this. And on today's episode, we're at the cutting edge of the future, with San Francisco again leading the way.

Is it still like a novelty when you get in one of these things? Do you still feel like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this or no? I don't.

Tekedra Mawakana (1:01)

It's funny, I don't in the, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I do in the sort of being in awe of the team.

David Stiepleman (1:09)

Yeah.

Tekedra Mawakana (1:10)

And like all the work I know that they're doing to constantly improve, that's the awe for me.

David Stiepleman (1:16)

When people talk about Waymo, so like it's getting more aggressive. I've noticed people say that, by the way, approvingly. Is that true?

Tekedra Mawakana (1:22)

Yeah. I mean, it adapts to the environment. It's learning, it's improving. And the way that we've built the Waymo Driver is all of it is on board. And so the Waymo Driver is actually making all of those decisions.

David Stiepleman (1:34)

Right.

Tekedra Mawakana (1:35)

All the driving decisions. There's sort of four questions it's always asking, which is, where am I? What's around me? What are those things most likely to do? Therefore, what should I do?

David Stiepleman (1:43)

Yeah. Has it changed how you drive or no?

Tekedra Mawakana (1:45)

Completely.

David Stiepleman (1:46)

Yeah.

Tekedra Mawakana (1:46)

I think of myself as having better eyes in the back of my head.

David Stiepleman (1:50)

So, by the way, I took my parents and they were very excited. They hadn't done this before. My dad sat in the front. My mom sat here. And they loved it. We just went downtown and walked around downtown. And I think we took Waymo's back also. They loved it. No, it was really fun. They were like, this is amazing.

Tekedra Mawakana (2:03)

Does that amaze you, that kind of disbelief to full acceptance? Like, you've seen your parents go through it. You've gone through it. We've seen it again and again and again. I find it kind of amazing. And then there, I mean, I think there are just those use cases for people who are never alone, ever going from point A to point B because they don't have a driver's license. So it's a family member. It's a driver. It's a bus.

It's, you know, whatever it is, this is their first time being alone, going somewhere. So it's true independence. And for me, I think that's one of the most inspiring use cases is, you know, having spent time with some of those writers and they're like, you know, vision impaired person or someone with epilepsy, I get to pick up my girlfriend for the date. So there's just this way in which it fulfills needs and opportunities that we hadn't even imagined. Yeah. That's really fun.

David Stiepleman (2:56)

That is fun. I like that. That's Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, the Autonomous Vehicle Technology Company, on a mission to be the world's most trusted driver. And you just heard Tekedra and I enjoying a Waymo ride around San Francisco on a beautiful day in early March. You've no doubt heard of Waymo by now, and for those of us in cities like Austin, Atlanta, LA, Phoenix, and of course, San Francisco, they're a part of daily life. You've definitely shared the road with one of their driverless cars. Tekedra joined Waymo as Global Head of Policy in 2017 and became co-CEO in 2021 She's overseen the massive expansion of Waymo. They recently closed the $16 billion investment round at a valuation of $126 billion, and they're operating in 10 cities across the United States with plans to launch in Tokyo and London this year. Tekedra is based here in the Bay Area, and her journey to leading one of the most innovative technology companies in the world is another one of our stories of smarts, vision, and intentionality. Tekedra is a lawyer by training. She built her career as an intellectual property lawyer, navigating the regulatory thickets of telecoms, and realized this training at the intersection of technology and policy prepared her to run one of the most visible businesses in the world. We covered a lot of ground, including how the team's culture of speaking up and slowing down is critical to their safety record, and their overall goal of not going fast and breaking things, but earning trust and winning for the long term. How Tekedra and the company think about the broader societal impact of autonomous vehicles and AI generally, why autonomous vehicles stand to fundamentally reshape the infrastructure of cities, how a good manager made her think bigger about her career, and what's down the road for Waymo as they continue to scale their operations. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation.