Short answers, pulled from the story.
Google officially launched its self-driving car project on the 17th of January 2009 at the secretive Google X lab. The initiative was led by Sergey Brin and Sebastian Thrun who had previously built Stanford's autonomous vehicles Stanley and Junior for DARPA challenges in 2005 and 2007.
Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov replaced John Krafcik as co-CEOs of Waymo in 2021 to balance operational oversight with technical direction. This dual-leadership model aimed to guide the company through its commercialization phase following Krafcik's departure from his role since August 2015.
Waymo operated more than 2,500 robotaxis across six U.S. cities offering paid rides to the public by late 2024. Service areas included Phoenix San Francisco Bay Area Los Angeles Atlanta and Austin with plans to expand further into additional cities by mid-2026.
A May 2023 collision resulted in the death of a dog running into traffic while being struck by a Waymo vehicle. This event was one of several notable incidents recorded between July 2021 and January 2025 that involved injuries despite NHTSA reports not assigning fault directly.
Google officially renamed its self-driving initiative Waymo and spun it out as an independent subsidiary under Alphabet Inc. in December 2016. The new name reflected a strategic shift toward mobility innovation rather than just automotive engineering.