Some Google self-driving-car experts were paid so much that they quit

Chris Urmson, Google's former head of self-driving cars.Reuters/Stephen Lam

GOOG Alphabet-C

819.24

5.57 (+0.70 %)

DisclaimerGet real-time GOOG charts here »

Google's parent company, Alphabet, lost some of its leading self-driving-car experts because they were offered large payouts based on the valuation of the company's self-driving-car division, according to a new Bloomberg report.

The large payouts gave the employees little incentive to stay at the company, and some left to begin their own self-driving-car startups and initiatives. Essentially, the staff members were paid so much that they quit, the Bloomberg report says.

To be clear, it's likely the large payouts weren't the only factor that caused the employees to quit, but it appears to be a significant reason.

A spokesperson for Waymo, the self-driving-car company that launched under Alphabet, declined to comment on the report.

It's unclear how much the payouts were or who received them, but the division has lost several key employees over the last year or so, including Chris Urmson, the former head of the division, and Bryan Salesky, who started a company called Argo AI that received a $1 billion investment from Ford last week.

Waymo was spun out of the Alphabet X subsidiary, which focuses on ambitious "moonshot" projects, in December. Waymo's goal is to partner with third-party car manufacturers to add self-driving capabilities to vehicles. It already has a partnership with Chrysler and is said to be in talks with Honda. There's also a possibility Waymo could offer a self-driving ride-hailing service that competes with Uber.

Comments

Bitcoin Laundering” Study: Where Do Criminals Turn to Mask Illicit Cryptoassets?

A recent study ( PDF ) from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance and blockchain analytics company Elliptic explored the “bitcoin laundering” ecosystem. In the study, Elliptic’s forensic analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain and other publicly available data were used to track the flows of illicit funds from 2013 to 2016. “This study aimed to identify where individuals turn in order to cash out or transmit bitcoins (BTC) acquired from illicit entities and to discover typologies for criminals ‘laundering’ bitcoins,” the report says. The study describes bitcoin laundering as a special type of money laundering that exists within the Bitcoin network where a user moves some bitcoins to a new address in a manner that obscures the original source of funds. The conversion of bitcoins into fiat currency on exchanges that lack adequate anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) policies can also fall under the category ...

How to cancel an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction

Crypto Beginners Guide / Bitcoin Beginners Guide When sending Bitcoin , it can be easy to make a small mistake causing you to want to cancel your Bitcoin transaction. Oftentimes, funds can become stuck if the miner fee you enter isn’t high enough for any miner to confirm your transaction. Unfortunately, the steps to cancel a Bitcoin transaction are a little more complicated than just pressing an “Undo” button. In this brief guide, I’ll walk you through the process to cancel an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction. Has your transaction been confirmed? The first step in canceling your Bitcoin transaction is to check whether or not it has any confirmations . When you made your transaction, you should have gotten a transaction ID that looks something like this: 240615b6ab59a5adb19ba52cb969aeb16ff82d2082b7a72cb2912c5d38c297cf Take your transaction ID and enter it into a block explorer. Blockchain.info is a great option. On the ...

Soaring Bitcoin Price Leads $159 Billion Crypto Market Recovery

Bitcoin Well, somebody bought the dip. Just as critics were rushing to proclaim that the bitcoin bubble had burst, the markets staged a $159 billion recovery. The rally was headlined by the bitcoin price, which rebounded from its sub-$10,000 fling and is currently flirting with $12,000. Several other top-tier coins, meanwhile, returned single day increases in excess of 40 percent. Source: CoinMarketCap Altogether, the cryptocurrency market cap clawed its way back to $574 billion, representing a 38 percent recovery from Wednesday’s intraday low of $415 billion. Bitcoin Price Eyes $12,000 Wednesday served as a trial-by-fire for recent bitcoin investors, some of whom had purchased the flagship cryptocurrency for $19,000 at the height of the rally in mid-December. Bitcoin Price Chart The correction forced the bitcoin price below $10,000 for the first time since early December, but Thursday’s rally enabled bitcoin to regain a bit...

Gsbt

Search This Blog