Google’s Self-Driving Unit’s CEO John Krafcik To Step Down

John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, Google's self-driving unit said that he was stepping down from this position and would be replaced by a pair of executives. Krafcik has been an auto industry veteran and has been at the helm of affairs at Waymo for more than 5 years. His stepping down from the post is a setback, however, in a note written to all the 'Waymonauts' has said that he will stay on as an advisor.

Waymo said in a statement "This is a choice John has made after a long and successful career in the automotive industry," Krafcik says in his note that Dmitri Dolgov, one of the founders of the Google self-driving car project and Tekedra Mawakana, who was Waymo's chief operating officer and has worked at a number of tech firms, will serve as co-CEOs.

Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana will serve as co-CEOs.

He goes on to describe his journey at the company saying "We launched Waymo as an independent Alphabet subsidiary, partnered with an amazing group of OEM, supplier, and service companies, and raised our first external investment round of $3.25 billion. As co-CEOs, Tekedra and Dmitri will continue to drive Waymo's technical and business leadership in the rapidly advancing autonomous industry."

Waymo was formed in 2009 as a project within Alphabet's Google unit. It is one of the leaders in the development self-driving technology.