14 Questions About Waymo Coming to NYC (and 10 ways Jeff Bezos would run the Yankees)

Waymo is coming to New York City! They can’t operate autonomously yet (or pick up passengers), but they are going to conduct testing with humans behind the wheel. If NYC DOT grants their request for a permit, the cars can operate autonomously with a driver behind the wheel keeping one hand on the wheel. A change is needed to New York State law for the cars to operate fully autonomously.  

As Waymo arrives, what should we anticipate? 

(1). How do taxis respond? Unhappily, but they have limited political sway at this point. Mayor Eric Adams is tech friendly. Taxi has few friends left. They couldn’t stop Uber 15 years ago let alone Google today (although Marblegate owns or controls about 4,000 medallions so they could mount a serious political effort if they really wanted to).

(2). How does Uber respond? I have not worked with Uber in a long time but their government relations people are smart and they will seek to find ways to make Waymos more expensive or more restricted — something to put them at a competitive disadvantage. Most importantly, they will fight the legislation in Albany that would allow fully autonomous taxis in the first place. 

(3). How do riders respond? I think well. New Yorkers generally like change and new things. That’s the culture. Some people will find it terrifying but they don’t need to use it. But some people will love it (I do) and fully embrace it. There are plenty of interested customers to launch the product and it will likely grow in popularity and acceptance as people see that it’s safe.

(4). How do pedestrians respond? This one gets trickier. There are some walking sections in San Francisco, Austin and LA (not much in Phoenix), but it’s still nothing compared to New York. In my experience in Waymos in those cities, the cars are programmed to be very cautious. It is possible that in the chaos of New York City, that leads to absolute paralysis and that leads to a raft of stories saying that Waymo isn’t working (the good news is that with humans doing the driving and testing, this won’t be a problem just yet).

(5). How should Waymo respond to that? Just keep going. All kinds of new technologies start with challenges and there is always a class of people looking to make fun of that at every turn. Those people are losers and they ultimately always lose (they criticize because they can’t create anything useful of their own). If the quality of Waymo in NYC is the same as it is in the other cities, people will want them and they will succeed. There’s also the opportunity to position New York as at risk of falling behind other cities and states in the innovation game. 

(6). What unique risks does Waymo have in NYC? My teenage son thinks that there will be a lot of problems: that riders will vandalize the cars, that pedestrians will mess with them, that people will steal or break the sensors. I am not as pessimistic, but the wear and tear may be a lot greater than the current Waymo cities (more total usage, shorter distances between stops so just more total people and more chances of someone misbehaving, more weird shit on the streets that causes confusion and issues). So Waymo has to be prepared for that.

(7). What does the likely shift in the mayoralty mean for Waymo? It means they have to do their politics right and depending on the outcome in the primary (and potentially the general), they will have very different potential partners in Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani. A DOT permit is needed for fully autonomous vehicles, so whether or not Waymo rides in NYC is up to the mayor. In theory, Mamdani should be more anti-tech in general (like AOC and Amazon) but he’s young and this is much cooler than warehouses so he might not be that opposed. Cuomo personally loves cars so he might just find the whole thing intriguing but history says he will pay close attention to the politics of the issue. 

(8). Where does Albany fit into this? New York State law says that all vehicles must be operated by a human being with one hand on the steering wheel. Waymo tried to change the law in Albany this year and failed. Without changing it, they cannot succeed in NYC because their model only works if the cars are fully autonomous. And there will be lots of opposition to the bill from both entrenched interests and street safety advocates, so it will take a very skilled campaign to succeed.

A large part of the opposition comes from the Teamsters, who are afraid of autonomous trucking happening along the way. There’s clearly the possibility of passing a bill that addresses the Teamsters’ concerns and still allows autonomous taxis to happen. Also, we have a Governors race in 2026 and if someone other than (current Governor) Kathy Hochul wins, the politics there may shift too. 

(9). So how does Waymo win this politically? This is just a question of prioritization. Waymo is a division of Google, the company of, well, Google and gmail and YouTube. A company with a market cap of two trillion dollars. If they want to make this happen, they can. And hopefully they realize that whatever happens in New York is not only seen nationally, but globally (what happens when you’re the global home of the media) so their success here will yield real benefits everywhere else and their failure here will cause real problems everywhere else. 

Google has the money to win this in both NYC and Albany. If the opponents are the Teamsters, Uber, the taxis and then various advocates, collectively, their power can be eliminated with a big enough campaign. If Google tells Kathy Hochul, “If you are against progress, we are against you” and then spends $10 million in ads attacking her during session, she will find a way to make it stop. Same with Andrew Cuomo (Mamdani is more of an unknown quantity). If they run a big enough campaign with the right resources and strategy and team, they can win. But it has to be a top priority for them and we don’t know if it is. 

(10). Does this spell the end of human beings driving taxis and rideshares? In the short term, no. New York City has 13,000 taxis, another 5,600 green taxis and over 100,000 Ubers and Lyfts (mainly Uber). Waymo is starting with a small fleet with humans behind the wheel and there are major regulatory hurdles to overcome so it’s going to be quite awhile until that happens.

(11). What makes Waymos better than taxis or Ubers (if anything)? In my experience, they’re more fun (at some point, I’ll stop getting a kick out of it, but I’ve probably taken them 15-20 times by now and still enjoy it), cheaper than an Uber black, and while an Uber driver can be fantastic and is almost always fine, driving an Uber, especially in a city like NYC, is a really, really hard, grueling job. Sometimes drivers are having a hard day and are really stressed out. That stress comes across almost no matter what, so to the extent you are sensitive to that, Waymos avoid that problem (although arguably my answer is also devoid of humanity, which is potentially a larger issue for both AI and human connectedness overall).

(12). How should Waymo start driving demand? They can use their current restricted model as a way to make access exclusive and therefore desirable. Google already did this successfully a long time ago (2004-2007) with Gmail, which required someone initially to recommend you to be able to use it. With relatively few Waymos available, if you have to get yourself on a wait list and every so often someone new is “chosen”, that gets people more invested.

(13). Should Mobileye, Tesla and other autonomous companies try to launch in NYC now too? Why not? In reality, these are just Waymos (specifically, they use Jaguars) or Teslas with a driver — the same as any other ride for hire. And yet because the car will look and feel different, the first mover will get more attention and capture more market share. No reason for others to cede that advantage (unless they feel like they couldn’t launch technologically or operationally even if all of the regulations go their way). 

With that said, if Tesla applies for a permit, the politics could be tricky. Current mayor Eric Adams would likely ask the White House what they want and that would be an interesting window onto the status of the Trump-Musk relationship. Either way, the next mayor will feel a lot of political pressure to reject Tesla and Musk. At the same time, Waymo could use Tesla’s unpopularity with Democrats to position themselves as the good alternative and try to build a regulatory moat along the way. 

(14). What if all cars in NYC were autonomous? Autonomous taxis are a way to make the experience cheaper and potentially safer. If every car were autonomous (which will one day be the case but possibly not for a long time), in theory, traffic would move a lot faster, there would be far fewer accidents, you could eliminate the need for most on-street parking and use current parking lots (often mandated by zoning) to build more housing. On the other hand, if it meant no one owning their own cars anymore, some would feel a loss of autonomy, especially in the more car-centric parts of the city (South Brooklyn, Northeast Queens, Northeast Bronx, much of Staten Island). 

There’s a lot that has to happen before New Yorkers can jump in an autonomous taxi but deploying any major new technology takes time and process and this is an important step. I hope it works. 

Here’s What Happens When Jeff Bezos Buys the Yankees

Dodgers owner and Guggenheim CEO Mark Walter just bought 75% of the Los Angeles Lakers at a valuation of $10 billion. There are only a handful of franchises in sports that could command that sort of premium and the Yankees are certainly one of them. Hal Steinbrenner has to be quietly talking to investment bankers about what he could get for the team.

I took a look at the richest people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. There are plenty of people who could afford the Yankees at a $10 billion valuation but none of them are known to be Yankees fans (you want an owner like Steve Cohen of the Mets who is passionate about the team and a lifelong fan). But guess who is a Yankees fan? Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is worth an estimated $225 billion so cutting a check for $10 billion isn’t even 5% of his net worth, plus it’s an asset that only seems to grow in value anyway. But the benefits of a Bezos ownership go way beyond his wallet. 

Here are the top ten things that would come with Jeff Bezos buying the Yankees:

(1). Katy Perry sings the National Anthem before every game (and then kisses the mound).

(2). Hot dogs are delivered to your seats via drone.

(3). Every Yankees game is available on Prime.

(4). Lauren Sanchez redesigns the uniforms with sleeveless shirts, plummeting necklines and the Yankees logo encrusted in diamonds.

(5). The Yankees move spring training to Ibiza. 

(6). A copy of the scorecard appears on every Kindle whenever the Yankees win. 

(7). Blue Origin delivers a set of Yankees championship rings to the International Space Station.

(8). Rudy Giuliani becomes a columnist for The Washington Post.

(9). Bezos’ endocrinologist becomes the new Biogenesis. 

(10). As part of the deal, Mackenzie Bezos gets the Jets.