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Editor 's Note: Business Insider has maintained with Waymo employees from different parts of the company to find out more about their work. What we have discovered are among the most interesting jobs of Alphabet, Waymo's parent company. This is the fourth profile of the series. To read the others, click here. For a brief history of Waymo, click here.
Imagine sitting in the Chrysler Pacifica Autonomous Waymo One minivan in the Phoenix area, taking advantage of your self-driven ride when the vehicle makes an unexpected turn.
This is not new to anyone who has already hailed a taxi. In New York, where I work, if a taxi driver picks a road I disagree with, I can immediately start a conversation about why we should follow my path. And for the moment, Waymo One has human screens at the wheel.
But the company's plan is to move to a driverless service. Person driving. Instead, a screen for pbadengers to use for interactions with technology.
"When there is no driver, we are the voice of the car," said Priscilla Knox, who heads Waymo's technical support team. She oversees a team of 30 people – nine directly – who monitor what is happening in Waymo vehicles in places where the service has already been launched and where it is currently being tested.
Read more: The woman in charge of setting the stage for Waymo's autonomous taxis in several US cities shows why humility is the key to the future of the company
"We support the first driverless cars," she said in an interview with Headquarters of Alphabet, the parent company of Waymo, CA (until 2016). Alphabet).
"We are guiding the riders through the experience because we do not know how people will react," she added. "It was an amazing learning experience so far."
Waymo takes the time to do his service
Waymo is the first company to offer a commercial transportation service using driverless technology, introducing Waymo One last year. But he certainly did not rush into the market. In fact, it is only two years since the commercial ambitions of Waymo have clearly taken shape, under the leadership of CEO John Krafcik, a veteran of the automotive industry hired by Alphabet in 2016.
Waymo takes his time – he develops the hardware and software that powers his "pilot", initiating discussions with communities and local governments before launching his service, and helping clients understand what they are facing when they are not. they enter Waymo. vehicle.
Society does not throw engineers out of its challenges either. Waymo, in particular, employs people with non-technical training. Knox, who grew up in Maine, went to George Washington University to study in America and, during his studies, worked for small garment companies. She cordoned off the San Francisco Bay Area because she wanted to join Levi's. Work with a small brand of clothing followed, but she later decided that she wanted to do something more meaningful.
This urge led to what she thought would be part-time work on the Google Car project in 2011, namely driving vehicles. Part-time work quickly turned into a full-time job, and before he knew it, his permanent disinterest in driving had changed.
A breathtaking experience for someone who has not thought much about driving before Waymo
"I did not follow the technology of autonomous cars," she said.
"I took driving lightly, living in Washington and thinking that I did not need a car, taking public transport and walking. [Google] 40 hours a car a week, it was amazing to see the impact of technology on the world. "
According to Knox, the idea of customer support took root when the Google Car evolved into a fully driverless telecom service – which is currently happening in the Phoenix area as Waymo One.
"We started thinking about how we would communicate to better interact with people," said Knox. "We knew we had to have the components of a customer support organization."
The way it works is that if a problem occurs in a Waymo vehicle, baduming there is no human driver, a pbadenger would press a button on the vehicle to contact an agent. (Currently, pbadengers' concerns expressed to the person monitoring the system in the driver's seat may be forwarded to the pbadenger badistance team.)
"My team is the human element," said Knox. Agents have a system that reflects the information that pbadengers see in the vehicle, so they can address concerns if needed. Interactions can be managed by voice, email or chat. For the moment, Waymo has dozens of agents in Phoenix and Austin, Texas, another test location.
A quick ride – but travel to Arizona and Texas
Knox's head office is in San Francisco, but she spends a lot of time in Arizona and Texas, and sometimes still has to go to Mountain View as she has for seven years, although it is now possible to get to work on foot or by bike. She directly manages her reports, which in turn work with shift operators.
Technical support is a responsibility 24/7, which Knox has acknowledged is an adjustment.
"I am an eight to six year old," she said of her schedule, which usually involved an alarm clock at 7:30, followed by her extremely short drive, meetings with product engineers, his contacts with his team, and a review of urgent emails with an eye on Waymo's maneuvers that were strange or were posing new questions to customers. At home, she could spend an extra hour and she will be available if something usual needs your attention.
She is also Social President of Women of Waymo – "WOW" as it is called. What started as a small group at lunch time has reached a hundred people and meets monthly to provide different types of support to women in the business. The main goal is to have more women in management positions.
It's a goal that Knox said that Waymo's current leadership had fallen behind. And other employee groups began to emulate the success of WOW. It's a myth that there are no women in the technology industry; Waymo, in particular, has demonstrated that there are some. But there is a lack of female leadership in Silicon Valley and WOW members want to fix it.
It makes sense that Knox is participating in the effort. It is also logical that Waymo wants its employees to be organized for change. Increasingly, the company is focused on engagement and interaction – with customers and communities. Of course, in the end, Waymo's business plan is based on the release of cars.
Knox has been there from the beginning, a Waymo veteran at this point, and her journey has been one of constant surprise.
"I've been in the car at every stage," she said, adding that she now considered "archaic" the return to her old habit of thinking that the Waymo vehicle could do nothing. .
"I trust cars more than most people," she said. "I know the car is thinking about every possible scenario."
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