Tekedra Mawakana

Co-CEO of Waymo, where she leads overall company strategy with a focus on commercializing and widely adopting the Waymo Driver autonomous-driving technology. She previously served as Waymo’s COO and has held senior policy and legal roles at eBay, Yahoo, AOL, and Startec.

Waymo Frames Driverless Cars as a Safety Imperative, Not a Novelty

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana tells TED’s Sal Khan that the case for fully autonomous vehicles is no longer mainly about whether the technology can drive, but whether cities and regulators will allow it to scale. Her argument is that Waymo’s safety data should be judged against the existing human-driving system, which she says society has grown too willing to accept despite tens of thousands of deaths in the US each year and far more globally.

TEDMay 25, 202612 min read