Product lessons from Waymo | Shweta Shrivastava (Waymo, Amazon, Cisco)

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

April 9, 2023

Duration

42m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Shweta Shrivastava is a Senior Product Leader at Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company backed by Alphabet. Prior to joining Waymo, she was the CPO of Nauto, where she also worked on AI-assisted driver tools. Shweta has worked in product for over 15 years in senior roles at several companies, including Amazon and Cisco. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• How Waymo builds trust with riders
• Product management at Waymo vs software-only products
• The state of self-driving technology
• The importance of being a disruptor and why large companies need to disrupt more
• Underrated product management skills

— Brought to you by Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security | Public—Invest in stocks, treasuries, crypto, and more | LMNT—Zero-sugar hydration Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/product-lessons-from-waymo-shweta-shrivastava-waymo-amazon-cisco/#transcript Where to find Shweta Shriva

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shshrivastava/ Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Shweta’s background (03:47) What Shweta and her team are responsible for at Waymo (05:30) About the autonomous driving vehicle hardware, software, and simulation tools (08:14) Differences in working at Waymo vs. a more traditional software company (11:02) How Waymo builds trust with riders and the difference between driver assist and fully autonomous (13:57) An example of how Waymo builds trust with riders (15:55) The commercial, operational, and system behavior metrics Waymo uses (20:38) What are L5 autonomous vehicles and why Shweta thinks L4 vehicles are good enough (22:53) How to keep investors enthusiastic when it’s a long-term investment (25:24) Building successful teams and successful products (26:39) Determining what you’re not building, especially before product-market-fit (27:49) Why large companies need to disrupt their own models (29:33) The most underrated product management skills (33:07) Tips for getting promoted (35:19) Where is Waymo and how to try it out (36:46) Lightning round Referenced:

• Waymo: https://waymo.com/
• Nauto: https://www.nauto.com/
• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595
• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986
• The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780
• Top Gun: Maverick on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Top-Gun-Maverick-Tom-Cruise/dp/B0B18G8R9B

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Shweta Shrivastava

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Shweta Shrivastava and Lenny Rachitsky, Product lessons from Waymo | Shweta Shrivastava (Waymo, Amazon, Cisco) explores waymo’s Product Playbook: Safety, Trust, and Long-Game Autonomy Strategy Shweta Shrivastava, Senior Director of Product at Waymo, explains how Waymo builds, validates, and scales fully autonomous ride-hailing, and how this differs from traditional software and driver-assist systems. She dives into how the team encodes human-like “body language” into cars, balances extreme safety with practical progress, and measures performance against human driving. Beyond Waymo, she shares broad product lessons from Amazon, Cisco, and startups, emphasizing working backwards from customer problems, self-disruption, and disciplined focus. She closes with career advice for PMs on listening, challenging assumptions, and optimizing for impact rather than promotions.

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