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Uber's Self-Driving Unit Gets New Head of Hardware After Levandowski Firing (gizmodo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.

A little more than a week ago, Uber fired Anthony Levandowski, the former head of its self-driving car project who is accused of stealing some 14,000 documents from Google's Waymo and using that information as the technological basis for Uber's self-driving cars. Uber is now appointing Brian Zajac as company's new head of hardware engineering. Gizmodo reports: Brian Zajac has worked at Uber since the early stages of its autonomous vehicle development in 2015, and previously developed robotic systems for the US Army and Shell Oil. He also contributed to research and development of a disaster-response robot at Carnegie Mellon University. (Uber poached extensively from the university to beef up its autonomous vehicle staff, though it's unclear whether Zajac's coming on board was part of that hiring spree.) With his promotion, Zajac will report directly to Eric Meyhofer, who took over Uber's Advanced Technologies Group after Uber fired ATG's former lead, Anthony Levandowski, for refusing to cooperate in a trade secret theft investigation.

9 comments

  1. Justice served by SPopulisQR · · Score: 1

    Since Trump did not fire Levandowski, CNN did not fire, Uber did the right thing.

  2. Levandowski abused HR policy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Senior employees are allowed to choose which gender bathroom they want built near their offices, and he ticked three of the boxes which is clearly an attempt to game the system.

  3. UBER! UBER! UBER! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Is anyone else really bored by all the stories about this huckster company? Give it time, they will implode.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:UBER! UBER! UBER! by youngone · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Give it time, they will implode

      The current investors are losing $2 billion or so per year, so there needs to be an IPO so they can offload their shares to some suckers and get their money back.

      Then it will implode.

  4. Breaking news: business fills empty position! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't believe it, a company actually filled a position? With a person????

  5. Rofl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a fucking dallas lol...

  6. Scape goat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anthony Levandowski, didn't award himself Uber shares the day after he resigned from Google, that needed Uber CEOs sign off.

    The subsequent setting up of the Otto self driving car company, and sale of Otto to Uber was clearly cover given the shares were handed over before Otto existed, the deal had already been done.

    So Uber are complicit and there will be an evidence trail leading straight to their CEO.

    That deal was done, so there was a contract and negotiations and meetings and those meetings would have been BEFORE he left Google.

    Firing Levandowski (presumably with a big payoff) won't end the evidence trail. Likewise staff shredding memos, destroying emails are really committing crimes themselves. "Licensing" the 'Trump' brand name won't fix that.

    Uber staff should really recognize the CEO will end up in jail if Levandowski does, and they need to protect themselves by preserving evidence.

    Uber will survive, its CEO.... not so much.

  7. An Uber Story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't care.

    +5 Insightful.