Sebastian Thrun, the godfather of the self-driving car industry, explains how Larry Page taught him to be a visionary, not just an ‘expert’
The self-driving car company, Waymo, took another big step forward this week in its ambitions to usher in a new era of robot taxis. The company received permission in its home state of California to carry passengers in its cars, as long as they don’t pay for the ride and there’s a human safety behind the wheel. Waymo launched the first commercial autonomous ride-hailing service in the US, Waymo One, in parts of Arizona in 2018. But, Sebastian Thrun, the man who birthed Waymo into the world back when self-driving cars was just a crazy idea inside of Google, says the whole thing might not have happened if Google founder and then CEO, Larry Page, didn’t have a stubborn streak.