Leader profile

Dmitri Dolgov

Dmitri Dolgov is a Russian-American engineer who is the co-chief executive officer of Waymo. Previously, he worked on self-driving cars at Toyota and Stanford University for the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Current role

Role: CEO
Company: Waymo
Official link: https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov?lang=en

Recent viewpoints

Physical AI requires moving fast while shipping safely

Dmitri Dolgov says that in physical AI, breaking things is not acceptable, so the principle is to move fast and ship safely rather than move fast and break things.

Dmitri Dolgov Four Gaps in Physical AI Source at 2:21

Physical AI faces life-cost errors, extreme latency, no digitized internet, and pre-deployment safety validation.

Dmitri Dolgov describes four gaps between physical and digital AI: the cost of errors is measured in lives, latency requirements are extreme, there is no digitized internet for the physical world, and safety must be validated before deployment.

Dmitri Dolgov Four Gaps in Physical AI Source at 3:29

An 18-month demo versus a 15-year scalable service with over 200 million miles.

Dmitri Dolgov notes the massive difference between a one-time demo and a scalable service; Waymo's demo took 18 months, while the product took about 15 years, but now operates over 200 million autonomous miles with exponential scaling.

Dmitri Dolgov From Demo to Product Source at 10:13

Reliability follows an exponential ladder of nines; at fleet scale rare events become daily.

Dmitri Dolgov explains that reliability and performance follow an exponential ladder of nines: each additional nine takes about ten times more effort, and at fleet scale, rare events become daily realities.

Dmitri Dolgov From Demo to Product Source at 11:33

Complementary camera, LiDAR, and radar with active sensors provide redundant, superhuman safety.

Dmitri Dolgov says Waymo uses complementary camera, LiDAR, and radar sensing modalities, with active sensors providing redundancy and enabling detection in darkness, dust, and glare for superhuman safety.

Dmitri Dolgov Sensing and Hardware Source at 16:04

Recent interviews

Dmitri Dolgov: Seven Lessons From Building AI for the Physical World

Aug 4, 2026

Major topics

Design IterationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 TypographyLast interview Aug 15, 2026 InternationalizationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Visual PrototypingLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Logo DesignLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Project PlanningLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Creative CollaborationLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Meaningful DesignLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Accessible ComputingLast interview Aug 15, 2026 Design ConstraintsLast interview Aug 15, 2026