Waymo subleases S.F. office from its former rival Uber

Robot-car company Waymo is subleasing a corporate office in San Francisco’s Financial District — ironically from Uber, once its fierce rival in the race to develop driverless vehicles.

Waymo, which is the autonomous-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, will occupy more than 48,000 square feet at 555 Market St., the onetime Chevron headquarters. Mountain View-based Waymo plans to house hundreds of employees at the location starting early next year.

It’s one of the city’s largest office leases during the pandemic, which has seen minimal business expansion and office vacancy rise above 20%.

Waymo in late August became the first company to offer robot-taxi rides to the public in San Francisco. The free transport in self-driving Jaguar I-Pace cars, which includes backup drivers behind the wheel, is available to locals who apply to be selected for a test program.

“We’re growing our

team in San Francisco and we’re excited to expand into this new beautiful space right on Market Street as we build and deploy the Waymo Driver to support both cars and trucking,” Boris Sofman, Waymo head of trucking and perception, said in a statement. “This new space will allow us to support not only our growing operations in San Francisco but also globally.”

Waymo is using a hybrid approach to its return to the office over the coming months, with

various employees working part time at home, others “geo-flexible” and others in the office full time.

Ride-hailing company Uber, which long occupied four big offices along Market Street, had already said that it would sublease those spaces as it moves to a new 1 million square foot headquarters in Mission Bay.

Waymo and Uber have a tortuous history. Uber has now bowed out of developing its own robot cars after pouring billions into the effort. In 2017, Waymo sued Uber, claiming it hired a key Waymo engineer as a ruse to steal self-driving trade secrets. A year later, after four days of a packed courthouse trial, the blockbuster case was settled when Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed “regret” about its actions and agreed to pay Waymo $245 million in Uber stock.