Roger Fingas
Potentially giving Apple some breathing space with its own project, people have been leaving Google's self-driving car division — now a separate company known as Waymo — because they were actually paid too much money, a report said on Monday.
A number of veteran staff have left Google/Waymo since late 2015 because a payment scheme rewarded them with so much cash, they were free to choose other opportunities, sources told Bloomberg. The system granted people deferred bonuses and equity, eventually including a multiplier based on valuations of the division.
When payouts came in 2015, some people reaped millions of dollars. One person is said to have reached a multiplier of 16 over the course of four years.
Payouts were so high, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat was allegedly referring to them when mentioning "project milestones in Other Bets" as a central reason operating expenses rose 14 percent to $6.6 billion in Q4 2015.
Departures only increased in 2016, the Bloomberg sources said, driven not just by the financial situation but worries about Google's progress and the project's new head, John Krafcik.
Some exiles included the co-founders of Otto, a self-driving trucking firm now owned by Uber, and Bryan Salesky, who launched Argo AI — which recently got $1 billion in funding from Ford.
Waymo is thought to have a testing advantage over the likes of Apple, but a weaker talent pool might limit the size of that gap. Currently, Apple's self-driving car efforts — known as Project Titan — are thought to be limited to developing a platform rather than a full-on vehicle, using VR and AR to test some technologies.
The company is reportedly waiting until later this year to decide if it will resume designing a first-party vehicle or partner with an established automaker.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
William Gallagher
31 Comments
Beware -- if you actually do say F-u and drop out of the workforce, you better be darned sure you'll never need a job again. I know a couple from Microsoft that left back in the 90s. They lived it up for over 10 years, but then along came some stock market crashes, and suddenly they needed jobs again.
It turns out that taking F-u money doesn't look good on a resume, nor does over a decade of unexplained unemployment.
Um...ooops?
At the end of the day, it appears the division met Google's milestones or the awards wouldn't have been paid out. Without that staff they may or may not have achieved what they did.
Its a classsic case study for those who have been to buisness school.
I dont recall which company.. but anyways.. they setup manufacturing in an island nation......And offer huge salaries to the locals relative local standards.
.. intention was to gain loyalty and inspire motivation for hard work..
after one year almost all quit... they had earned more money than they ever had dreamed of and did not need more... (relative to their mind set, standard of living and expectations ).....
Hear that fizzle?
Can someone reply with information about the person or firm who designed Google's SD car? I've tried wikipedia and general a web search and came up with nothing. Thanks!