Organisation
Waymo
Autonomous driving; runs a commercial driverless robotaxi service across several US cities.
Waymo is Alphabet's self-driving car unit, spun out in 2016 from the Google project begun in 2009 that pioneered much of the field. It operates one of the only paid, fully driverless robotaxi services running at commercial scale, carrying passengers with no safety driver in cities including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, and the company reported more than fourteen million rider-only trips in 2025. Long the most-watched name in autonomous driving, it raised external capital at a valuation reported at around $126bn in a 2026 round — a scale that reflects both its lead and the enormous cost of building the technology out city by city.
- Category
- Robotics & embodied AI
- Founded
- 2016
- HQ
- Mountain View, US
- Funding
- Alphabet subsidiary; valued ~$126bn in a 2026 external financing round
- Key people
- Tekedra Mawakana, Dmitri Dolgov
Featured in threads
Tracks
- Culture & impact 1
- Compute & infrastructure 1
- Money & business 1
- Security & misuse 1
Waymo launches fully driverless rides in San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa and Denver
Las Vegas went fully driverless immediately, with Denver, San Diego and Tampa to follow, as Waymo pushed toward a stated goal of 1 million paid rides a week by the end of 2026.
Culture & impact · Compute & infrastructure
Waymo raises $16 billion at $126 billion valuation
The round funds expansion into more than 20 new cities in 2026, including Tokyo and London, as Waymo says it now provides over 400,000 rides a week.
Money & business
Waymo robotaxis reported passing stopped school buses at least 19 times
Austin school officials said Waymo vehicles illegally passed stopped buses at least 19 times since the school year began; NHTSA opened a probe and Waymo recalled software on over 3,000 vehicles.
Security & misuse