Google Ventures partner Joe Kraus just made a bold prediction.
"In five to 10 years, your smartphone will replace your car," he says.
This isn't so much about new tech like driverless cars—which Google is working on—but rather a change in behavior.
Instead of relying on their own cars to get from point A to point B, people will say, "I'm here, I want to go there," Kraus explained.
They'll fire up their smartphone, see a dropdown menu of their transportation options, and order one.
Kraus cited the wide range of ride-ordering and car-sharing services already emerging, including Uber, Lyft, SideCar, RelayRides, and Getaround.
Today, he says it's too hard for the typical suburban family to go carless but he thinks that it won't be long before the no-car family is a common thing.
Kraus has a pretty good eye for what's next. In 1993, he cofounded Excite.com, an early Web search engine. He landed at Google in 2006 and worked on projects like Blogger, Picasa, Sites, Friend Connect, and OpenSocial. He was also an angel investor in LinkedIn.
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