A family tree of autonomy
As recent lawsuits show, many California companies developing self-driving cars are related to each other. It’s not always a happy family. Key engineers and executives from pioneering companies such as Google and Tesla have jumped ship to form their own self-driving startups, such as Lucid Motors and Otto.
Google’s program, in turn, was shaped by a handful of engineers from two universities: Stanford and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, a hotbed of self-driving research since the 1980s.
Given the high stakes, it’s not surprising that some of the companies where these engineers landed don’t get along.
In January, Tesla sued one of its former selfdriving executives, Sterling Anderson, and the startup he joined, Aurora Innovation. Aurora was founded last year by Chris Urmson, the former head of Google’s self-driving unit, which is now known as Waymo.
And last month, Waymo sued Otto, founded by former Google researcher Anthony Levandowski. Waymo also sued Uber, which bought Otto last year. Both Tesla and Waymo accused their former employees of stealing trade secrets (Aurora denied the allegations and Uber said it is reviewing the suit).
Here’s a partial family tree of the selfdriving industry, showing how some of the key players have moved from one company or school to another. Give it a year, and the tree may well grow a few more
branches.