Thanks to leadership changes, strategy doubts and new startup dreams luring self-driving technology Google’s car projects have been a talent sieve. It’s been found out that early staffers had a different system that awarded them based on project’s value.
By the end of 2015 the payments have become this high that many veteran members didn’t need the job security anymore. In December, the car unit morphed into a standalone business called Waymo, and the system was replaced with a more uniform pay structure that treats all employees the same, according to a person familiar with the situation. Still, the original program got so costly that a top executive at parent Alphabet Inc. highlighted it last year to explain a jump in expenses. A spokeswoman for Alphabet, the holding company that owns Google and "Other Bets" like the autonomous car business, declined to comment.
People started to leave after the new way of payment was established. Staff departures from the car division increased in 2016. Some were frustrated with the pace of progress and had doubts about new leader John Krafcik, while others wanted to start their own autonomous vehicle companies, people familiar with the matter said. The big payouts exacerbated the situation because team members had less financial incentive to stay, the people familiar with the situation said. Chris Urmson, previous leader of the project, departed in August and is working on a startup. Other early project members left to form Otto, a self-driving trucking company that was quickly snapped up by Uber Technologies Inc. Bryan Salesky, a former Google car executive, started Argo AI, which got a $1 billion investment from Ford Motor Co. on Friday.
