7/30/24-Waymo Growth🤫, Steve Jobs🍎, Crowdstruck 🤦🏽♂️
The Blue Screen of Death ☠️ Edition
Welcome back. In a busy world we can be distracted with the trivial many things or we can focus on The Vital Few.
Something that I am thinking about
In Google’s Alphabet’s recent earning calls they gave some updated statistics for its autonomous driving subsidiary Waymo.
WAYMO HAS SERVED MORE THAN TWO MILLION TRIPS TO DATE, AND DRIVEN MORE THAN TWENTY MILLION FULLY AUTONOMOUS MILES ON PUBLIC ROADS.
WAYMO IS NOW DELIVERING WELL OVER 50,000 WEEKLY PAID, PUBLIC RIDES, PRIMARILY IN SAN FRANCISCO AND PHOENIX. AND IN JUNE, WE REMOVED THE WAITLIST IN SAN FRANCISCO SO ANYONE CAN TAKE A RIDE. FULLY AUTONOMOUS TESTING IS UNDERWAY IN OTHER BAY AREA LOCATIONS WITHOUT A HUMAN IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT.
Well over 50K Weekly paid rides.🤔 My curiosity was sparked💥 and I wanted to bend, twist and connect numbers to better understand how this future revenue stream is progressing. Don’t view my numbers as exact, rather think of them as me artistically exploring the possible.
Waymo robotaxis logged almost 2 million driverless ride-hailing miles between March and May, roughly a 54% increase from the prior quarter, according to data the company reported to the California Public Utilities Commission.
Quarterly haul of about 434,000 passengers was up 49% from the quarter covering December through February, when Waymo carried about 292,000 riders. The latest figures represent a huge jump from this time last year, when the company’s robotaxis shuttled about 13,000 people on unpaid rides.
As of June 25, 2024, Waymo had around 700 driverless cars operating on public roads in the United States. The fleet is spread across several cities, including:
-San Francisco: About 300 vehicles
-Los Angeles: Around 50 vehicles in March 2024, with plans to expand into 63 square miles
-Phoenix: Has logged more than 7 million miles since March 2019
-Austin: Ramping up its service in this city
🧮“Well over 50K weekly Paid trips.” → Assume 60K week trips x $30 average fare (reasonable fare estimate from Uber and Lyft) x 52 weeks = $94M annual run rate, which is ~$100M ARR.
Uber’s ARR for mobility (passengers) is about $76B, obviously gigantic and serves as a logic check on Waymo’s delicious😋 TAM opportunity.
When might Alphabet break out Waymo’s revenue, currently included in Other Bets? Well, they started to share GCP revenue in Q1 of 2020 at $2.8B. Even if we are optimistic about revenue growth it will be several more years for Waymo. The data above suggests that Waymo is growing at > 40% QoQ, and that is > 160% YoY. If I round down and use a lower 100% annual growth rate, Waymo will hit ~ $1.6B ARR revenue in 4 years, around 2028.
In summary, I am more impressed with Waymo at the end of this exercise than I was at the start. Google has a habit of throwing money at lots of projects and then unceremoniously shutting them down. At the same time, Google is impressively shrewd and holds the cards on its future revenue bets close to its chest. Rightly so! Competition is a bear🐻, and some times a killer. Waymo is growing quickly in plain sight, quietly 🤫. SHhhhhh!🤐
[Take a virtual test drive in a Waymo, video at the bottom of this post 👇🏽]
Investing, Companies, Market Past/Future
(I invest in Companies, not in stocks.)
Interesting companies that hosted earnings results or information sessions since my last edition that I reviewed-
Technology- GOOG 0.00%↑ , ASML 0.00%↑ , TSM 0.00%↑ , TXN 0.00%↑ , NXPI 0.00%↑ , TSLA 0.00%↑ , NOW 0.00%↑
Housing & Banking - BAC 0.00%↑ , DHI 0.00%↑ , PHM 0.00%↑ , JOE 0.00%↑ , NYCB 0.00%↑ 🤢
Others- TSLA 0.00%↑ , UNP 0.00%↑
(With data and charts it is not what you look at, it is what you see that matters.)
Podcasts
14 Min, Nearly nine million Windows machines were taken out by the Crowdstrike🦅 CRWD 0.00%↑ problem in July 2024, but why was the impact so problematic? Dr Steve Bagley and Dr Mike Pound of the University of Nottingham discuss the problem. CS professors, brilliant, but also easy to understand explainer video. PS- They should have called this “The Blue Screen of Death Edition.” 🤭
Videos
55 Min of Steve Jobs in 1983. I thought it was fantastic! He is such a great communicator.
We had three options-
One was to do nothing and as I mentioned we're all pretty young and impatient so that was not a good option. ✊🏼
The second one was to put a piece of garbage computer in a book and we can do that but our competitors are doing that🗑️ and so we don't need to do that. 💥 🫳🏻🎤🤣
The third option was to design the computer that we want to put into the book eventually even though we can't put it into the book now. And right now it fits in a bread box and it's $10,000 and it's called Lisa. It just so turns out that fortunately there is a giant office market out there that is buying these things a lot faster than we can make them. We're sold out for the next year and we'll sell over $100M of those things the first year..
You might see the vintage footage and wonder how relevant it still is. But, around minute 21 Steve contemplates an LLM. 😲 Steve is a visionary, an artist🎨, a master🙏🏻. Enjoy! AAPL 0.00%↑
🏆🏆Bonus- If you like Steve Jobs, I shared another short video of him in my 12/2022 post, link here. ←
Books and Articles since my last edition
(Reading Great books is like a conversation with the finest minds of the past. Descartes. If I get bored of a book I quit and move on.)
Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide by Roddy Boyd Business, Finance
Activation Degradation by Marina J. Lostetter Science Fiction
The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby Business, Finance
Here is a link to many of the books I have read and my 1-5 star rating- Goodreads Books Read
Wild Card🃏
The Future is what you make it. The Future is NOW.
Waymo…The Real Driverless Car Has Arrived. Excellent 12 minute, high quality review. GOOG 0.00%↑
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Disclaimer: All of my posts are for informational purposes only. I might own some of the companies discussed in these posts. This is NOT a recommendation to buy or sell securities discussed. Please do your own work before investing your money.
I was surprised to learn how much Waymo has been growing in the past year. Its growth has been pretty quiet, especially on the east coast where they are not present. It will be interesting to see what other competition might enter the market.