To start, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the current Waymo strategy. Why has Waymo chosen to go through Waymo One instead of partnering with other players? Why go direct instead of using someone else? How do you expect that to evolve in the future?

They are operating as a robotaxi company to demonstrate the market. This context helps clarify their actions. If they only wanted to be a robotaxi company and compete as a first-party service, it wouldn't make sense. Their aim is to license their technology. Currently, they are experimenting with different models. They will maintain a robotaxi presence in the U.S. with a first-party ride-hailing service in select markets, maybe 10 or 12.

To start, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the current Waymo strategy. Why has Waymo chosen to go through Waymo One instead of partnering with other players? Why go direct instead of using someone else? How do you expect that to evolve in the future?

In the future, they would prefer if the Waymo Driver is not just in Waymo One but also with other fleet operators on networks like Lyft and Uber. They want as many Waymo Drivers in a market as possible. The relationship between Waymo, Uber, and Lyft is more collaborative in the long term, they are partners. They probably are competing right now with Waymo and Uber being the major players in this value chain. They are figuring things out and negotiating.

Is the idea to just showcase with a thousand cars in each city and prove capability, or to scale and compete with Uber in those cities?

Yes, I think it's more of a showcase. As a first-party robotaxi fleet, Waymo is working hard to outsource parts of the value chain. For example, the Moove partnership announced recently. Moove will be the fleet operator for certain markets, and they want Moove and others to operate fleets in all their markets. They want to exit the robotaxi business and not own hardware.