Context:
I want to share a key market signal I’m seeing on the ground here in the Bay Area as Waymo expands: everyone’s talking about autonomous cars replacing Uber drivers, but that’s missing the real story.
The actual disruption? Waymo is coming for the parent-chauffeur job. It’s coming for nannies. And honestly, the impact here—especially in upper-middle-class suburbs—is going to be way bigger than most people realize.
Here’s the context: If you talk to families in the Peninsula, the East Bay, or Silicon Valley, the #1 logistical headache isn’t commuting to work. It’s getting kids from point A to point B—school, sports, playdates, music lessons, whatever. For years, this has been a hidden time and money sink for parents (and a core reason why nannies are so prevalent in these communities). Waymo flips this dynamic on its head. Suddenly, kids can get to their activities safely—no parent or nanny required.
Short term: This is an instant expansion of labor supply. Parents (and nannies) get back hours a day. Imagine what happens when tens of thousands of highly productive, upper-middle-class parents reclaim 1-2 hours daily. That’s a massive shift in available time, attention, and economic output.
Medium term: Here’s the spicy take—this could actually impact the birth rate. One of the biggest “costs” of having more kids is the logistical burden. If self-driving cars solve the kid-shuttling problem, having a third (or fourth) child gets a lot more feasible for busy dual-career families.
Long term: The big question: what do we do with all this extra parent-time? Automation always brings this up, but here it’s particularly acute. The time parents spend driving is invisible, but it’s a huge drag on productivity and career progression (especially for white-collar parents). Waymo doesn’t just “free up drivers”—it unlocks a whole new class of labor and creativity. But how do we monetize this? Historically, transportation tech creates value elsewhere: railroads made land valuable, Uber made “unlivable” neighborhoods hot, etc. My hunch is that Waymo could dramatically improve the value proposition of suburbs for families. If the #1 pain point of suburban life disappears, what does that do to real estate, services, and the structure of family life?
Ask: I genuinely want to hear from founders and investors—how do we play this? Where does the value accrue? It’s not about shorting the nanny market. It’s about spotting the second-order effects: new services for kids, suburban real estate, family productivity tools, or something else entirely?
DM me if you’re building or investing in this space. I think we’re just scratching the surface.