How Waymo Made Self-Driving Cars a Reality | Dmitri Dolgov, Co-CEO

<p>Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo, joins South Park Commons Partners Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi to discuss the 17-year journey from early self-driving experiments to putting fully autonomous cars on public roads.</p><p>They talk about how Waymo built its self-driving system, why simulation and evaluation became so critical, and what it takes to move from something that works in a demo to a product that can operate safely and reliably at scale.</p><p>Dmitri also explains why Waymo’s real advantage goes far beyond the model itself, and what it takes to keep improving a system where the margin for error is incredibly small.</p><ol><li>Dmitri Dolgov: <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/dmitri-dolgov" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">linkedin.com/in/dmitri-dolgov</a> </li><li>Aditya Agarwal: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityaagarwal3/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityaagarwal3/</a> </li><li>Ruchi Sanghvi: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsanghvi/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsanghvi/</a> </li><li>South Park Commons: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/southparkcommons/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/company/southparkcommons/</a> </li></ol><p><br></p><p>Apply to SPC:<a href="https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"> https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply</a></p><p><br></p><p><strong>Chapters:</strong></p><p>(00:00:32) - The First Time Waymo Felt Real</p><p>(00:03:39) - How a Fleet of Waymos Coordinates</p><p>(00:07:47) - How People Change the Way They Travel With Waymo</p><p>(00:12:51) - How Waymo Started: Understanding the Problem Before Building a Product</p><p>(00:14:58) - Inside Waymo’s AI System: Driver, Simulator, and Critic</p><p>(00:22:00) - How Waymo Adopts New AI Breakthroughs Without Breaking the Product</p><p>(00:27:02) - Why the Last 1% of Autonomous Driving Is So Hard</p><p>(00:25:16) - Where Startups Should Build in Physical AI</p><p>(00:44:30) - Can the Waymo Driver Become a General Physical AI Agent?</p>