John Krafcik has spent the past five and a half years shaping Waymo from a self-driving project into arguably the world’s leading autonomous vehicle (AV) developer. AVs promise to revolutionise the entire mobility ecosystem, and Waymo’s developments have been at the fore of the movement. “Waymo was not the first to develop autonomous driving technology but it was the first to really start this new chapter of automation that began in 2008,” says Pedro Pacheco, Senior Director of Research for Automotive and Smart Mobility at Gartner. “At that time, most of the big names in the segment today—Argo, Cruise, Motional—weren’t around yet.”
Waymo quickly paved the way for others to follow, establishing itself as the industry pacesetter. However, corporate leadership is now passing into new hands, as Krafcik stands down.
