Member News

April 05, 2021

Chief Operating Officer Tekedra Mawakana and Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Dolgov will take over as co-CEOs of self-driving company Waymo, which is a sister company of Google LLC.

Waymo LLC CEO John Krafcik has announced he is leaving the company.

In a blog post addressed to the company's employees, or "Waymonauts," Krafcik said he plans to take some time to travel and to be with friends and family. He will continue to advise Waymo, he said.

"My time leading Waymo has been the capstone of my career," Krafcik, who has run the Alphabet Inc.-owned company for more than five years, said in the post. He continued: "It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve on this mission together with you."

Mawakana has been with Waymo for four years, joining after top legal and public policy jobs at eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. She is also on the board of directors at Intuit.

Dolgov is one of the original engineers at Waymo. He joined Google's self-driving car project in 2009 after working on autonomous vehicle technology for several years at Stanford University and at the Toyota Research Institute.

"We’re committed to working alongside you to build, deploy and commercialize the Waymo driver and drive the success of our incredible team and this company," Mawakana and Dolgov said in a statement directed at the company's employees that was attached to Krafcik's post. "We’re energized by the road and opportunity ahead of us.”

Considered by many to be the leader in autonomous vehicle technology, Waymo was valued at more than $30 billion after taking outside funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Magna International, AutoNation, Fidelity and Silver Lake Management.

The company has operated the Waymo One autonomous ride-hailing service in the Phoenix area since 2017. It's testing its Waymo Via autonomous hauling service at trucking hubs in Arizona and Texas.

Waymo has also announced a partnership with Daimler’s Freightliner to develop fully autonomous trucks.

The company has a growing presence in San Francisco, with a new facility in Bayview and a proposal for one on the Central Waterfront. Sources say it is also looking for up to 80,000 square feet of office space.