Dmitri Dolgov

He earned BS and MS degrees in physics and mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.⁠[1]

In February 2006 he received a PhD in computer science from the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a university founded in Detroit in 1817 that moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837; it is governed by a statewide-elected Board of Regents and also has campuses in Dearborn and Flint.Open the full entry, supervised by Edmund Durfee, with the thesis Integrated Resource Allocation and Planning in Stochastic Multiagent Environments.⁠[2]

Before Google he worked on self-driving cars at Toyota and on Stanford’s DARPA Urban Challenge team.⁠[1]

He was then a senior research scientist at the Toyota Research Institute and a visiting researcher working with Sebastian ThrunSebastian ThrunSebastian Thrun is a German-born computer scientist and entrepreneur who led the Stanford team that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, led Google’s self-driving car project and Google X, and founded the online education company Udacity.Open the full entry, handling path planning for Stanford’s car Junior.⁠[2]

In November 2007 Junior was awarded second place in the DARPA Urban Challenge, with a $1 million prize.⁠[3]

In 2008 IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine named him one of “AI’s ten to watch.”⁠[4]

In 2009 he co-founded Google’s self-driving car project, known internally as Project Chauffeur, which became Waymo in 2016.⁠[5]

In 2010 he, Sebastian Thrun, Michael Montemerlo and James Diebel published a paper in The International Journal of Robotics Research, volume 29, issue 5, describing a practical path-planning algorithm for autonomous vehicles in unknown semi-structured environments.⁠[6]

In December 2016 Alphabet spun the self-driving car project out of its X lab as an independent company, Waymo, with John Krafcik as CEO; since 2009 its cars had logged 2.3 million self-driven miles in California, Arizona, Texas and Washington state.⁠[7]

He later served as Waymo’s CTO and vice president of engineering, leading development of all its self-driving hardware and software.⁠[4]

In December 2018 Waymo launched the commercial self-driving ride-hailing service Waymo One in Tempe, Mesa and Chandler around Phoenix, initially open to a few hundred riders who had tested its fleet and supervised by safety drivers.⁠[8]

On October 8, 2020, Waymo announced it was opening its fully driverless service to the public in Phoenix, starting with existing Waymo One members, and said its driverless paid rides over the previous year had covered an area larger than the city of San Francisco.⁠[9]

He appeared on episode 147 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast as Waymo’s CTO; topics included his childhood, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the DARPA Urban Challenge, Waymo’s origin story, the fully driverless service in Phoenix, Waymo Trucks and the role of lidar.⁠[10]

On April 2, 2021, John Krafcik announced he was stepping down as Waymo CEO to become an adviser, with Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana, a lawyer who had been chief operating officer, named co-CEOs; he would focus on the autonomous technology and Mawakana on the business.⁠[11]

In October 2024 Waymo raised $5.6 billion in a round led by Alphabet, its largest ever, with the valuation undisclosed; it was then providing more than 100,000 rides a week and running commercial ride-hailing in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.⁠[12]

Speaking with his alma mater’s Michigan Engineering, he likened full autonomy to “the software equivalent of putting a human on the moon” and said he avoids specific predictions about Level 5 timelines.⁠[5][13]

In February 2026 Waymo announced a $16 billion round at a $126 billion valuation, led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST GlobalDST GlobalDST Global is a technology investment firm founded by Yuri Milner in 2009 that focuses on growth-stage investments in internet companies worldwide; it has invested in companies including Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba, JD.com, Airbnb and Spotify, and in 2026 led the US$400 million Series B round of the AI visual content company Higgsfield.Open the full entry and Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry, with Alphabet remaining majority shareholder; it then had more than 450,000 weekly rides in six US metro areas and planned to enter cities including London and Tokyo. He and Mawakana wrote: “We are no longer proving a concept; we are scaling a commercial reality.”⁠[14]

As Waymo co-CEO he is responsible for overall strategy, focusing on developing and deploying the in-house fully autonomous Waymo Driver.⁠[1]

Waymo: Official website: https://waymo.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[10]