I used to live in Mountain View and at one point I saw a few Waymo vans (this was 3-4 years ago when they were more active) speeding on El Camino (just barely, and being manually driven at the time, but even though I work for a competitor I was concerned if an accident happened it'd be a bad publicity event; i.e., Waymo vehicles should always be extra, extra careful, etc.); and it just made me wonder what was going on. So I connected with him on LinkedIn; and then ended up reaching out to some QA folks I believe.
Anyway, John was super responsive and I always appreciated that. From what I could see (just one anecdote), he was a CEO who dived deep into customer concerns. There's a lot to be said for that.
My two cents is it's a very delicate space. One bad event and the whole industry can be set back. So it's an area (despite extremely cutting-edge tech; deep learning, etc.) that has to roll out gradually.