Android creator reportedly subject of probe
Entrepreneur Andy Rubin, creator of the Android operating system, has taken a leave of absence from his Palo Alto startup. A news report this week said he had been investigated at Google, his previous workplace, for potential misconduct.
After leaving Google in 2014, Rubin co-founded incubator Playground Global, where he developed Essential Products, which makes technology devices, including a smartphone released this year. He received board approval this month to step away from Essential after he requested time off to “deal with personal matters,” the company said. A spokeswoman declined to comment on what those matters are.
The Information, a technology news site, reported that Rubin had been the
subject of an investigation at Google that concluded in 2014, before he left the company. Rubin, who oversaw the Google robotics team, was investigated over a relationship with an employee characterized in the Information report as a subordinate. The company found that he used “bad judgment” and recommended disciplinary action, the Information reported, citing unnamed sources. The woman who filed the complaint worked for Google’s Android division when Rubin was in charge of that unit, the site said.
Rubin’s spokesman said that any relationship that Rubin had at Google was “consensual” and did not involve anyone who reported to him.
Rubin “was never told by Google that he engaged in any misconduct while at Google and he did not, either while at Google or since,” the spokesman said in an email. He did not immediately answer a question about whether Rubin will take a leave of absence from Playground Global, which also invested in Essential.
Google did not return a request for comment.
The Information’s report came out after Rubin told Essential that he would take a leave of absence.
Rubin joined Google as part of the company’s acquisition of Android in 2005. Since then, Android has become the world’s most used smartphone operating system. When Rubin left in 2014, he told the Wall Street Journal he wanted to do something else.
In August, Essential sold its first Android smartphone for $699. The company touted its simplicity: it comes with few apps installed, and a separate 360-degree camera can be attached to the phone, whose price has since dropped to $499.
Essential said its president, Niccolo de Masi, will continue to run operations at the company.
It’s unclear what impact if any Rubin’s leave of absence will have on Essential’s sales. Smartphone customers are generally looking for devices that will meet their needs, and it’s very rare when the choice of one item or another is based on the designer, said Ramon Llamas, a research manager with IDC, a market research firm.
“A lot of people out there may just not care,” he said.
When Andy Rubin left Google in 2014, he told the Wall Street Journal he wanted to do something else.