Lawsuits fly in self-driving car talent war
SAN FRANCISCO — With nearly three dozen companies large and small now working in the self-driving car space, it's no wonder the war for top tech talent is getting nasty.
The latest salvo, according to an anonymously sourced report from Recode, involves a lawsuit filed Thursday by Tesla against its former director of Autopilot, Sterling Anderson.
The suit alleges he was attempting to lure Tesla engineers over to a new startup he launched with the man who once steered Google's autonomous program, Chris Urmson.
Earlier Thursday, Recode had reported that Urmson, who abruptly left Google last August, was in contact with employees at Uber, Apple and Tesla.
According to Recode, the lawsuit states that Anderson took proprietary coding data from Tesla. It also claims that to try and skirt breach of contract rules, Anderson reached out to Google employees while Urmson approached Tesla staffers. Only two accepted offers to join the new company, which is called Aurora, is self-funded and may launch in 2018.
As automakers (from Audi to Volvo), tech companies (including Uber and possibly Apple) and suppliers (such as Nvidia and Mobileye) look to develop the building blocks that will power a new generation of robotic transportation, the battle to hire the best minds in the autonomous business has intensified.
Sometimes prized engineers are poached through outright acquisition, such as with Uber's $670 million purchase last year of Otto, a self-driving truck company started by Google car veteran Anthony Levandowski.
And earlier this month, Tesla announced it was hiring 11-year Apple veteran Chris Lattner, an engineer who was primarily responsible for creating Swift, the programming language for building apps on Apple platforms. Lattner took the wheel of Autopilot, Tesla's self-driving car program, replacing Anderson.
More recently, Uber hired another Google veteran Amit Singhal, who will be in charge of developing the ride-hailing company's proprietary mapping system. Uber is road-testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh and in Arizona.
Urmson, who could not be reached for comment, has remained silent since leaving Google. His exit blog post simply said that he would jump back in the autonomous car game if a project caught his fancy.
As the man who quickly became the face of Google's effort, now renamed Waymo, Urmson was also its chief evangelist. He often said that his goal was to get self-driving cars on the road by the time his oldest son needed to apply for driving permit, which would be about three years from now.
But Urmson's fate at the search giant's car project, which launched seven years ago, took an abrupt turn in 2015. Hyundai North America CEO John Krafcik was brought in to lead the team with a mission to commercialize Google's growing store of self-driving tech. Urmson became CTO.
Last May, Krafcik inked a partnership deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to have the automaker build 100 Pacifica minivans that would be outfitted with Google's sensors. Over the summer, Urmson bowed out. Google renamed its program Waymo, and reemphasized its commitment to the commercial deployment of its intellectual property.
Last month, those FCA-Waymo minivans were unveiled to great fanfare at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava @marcodellacava