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Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

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Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#51

Post by sillysaurusx »

ra7 wrote: post #42
sillysaurusx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the SF accident you mean? I hadn’t heard of it, but this seems not at all worrisome: > At approximately 9:30 p.m. on October 2, a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV. The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicl…

https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/24/dmv-immediately-suspends-c...

Ah, thank you. Them not disclosing the full video from the outset was a mistake, but it’s surprising that it escalated so much. A human driver could’ve easily made the same mistake — pulling over isn’t uncommon after an accident, and there’s no way to detect someone under your car other than getting out, which is usually not very safe.

Oh well. Maybe next decade.

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#52

Post by monero-xmr »

nyxtom wrote: post #3

GM is getting ready to absorb. Watch

No this will be cut off, likely it's the end. Self driving cars are extremely expensive, terrible business model, despite 20 years of promises of they still need babying by a team of humans in a tightly controlled area. Too much capital is necessary in the high interest rate environment. Waymo is probably going to die too.

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#55

Post by JBiserkov »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Not sure if it's a coincidence but I feel like a lot of companies are taking advantage of the OpenAI brouhaha to release their news of major exec firings/resignations with the thought that their announcements will get buried by that bigger story. Trying to remember but there was another big firing on Friday I believe, and it felt like all the tech companies were making big C-level changes now to lessen the impact.

Maybe this? "Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38311144

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#56

Post by ra7 »

w10-1 wrote: post #45
ra7 wrote: post #22

To the surprise of no one. This is on the back of GM appointing a Chief Administrative Officer to “work with” the CEO after their recent controversies. One unfortunate accident (though Cruise was at fault for making it worse) has put the entire company in disarray. I suppose it’s the result of accumulation of so many minor issues in San Francisco and a lack of a strict safety culture. It feels like a repeat of Uber f…

> One unfortunate accident I think it was covering up for the accident that caused regulators to pull the plug. If that were traced directly to the CEO, then he's out for good reason. Otherwise, the CEO likely has to take the fall anyway to satisfy regulators who want consequences for executives who don't ensure regulatory submissions are credible.

Oh yeah, they’re definitely guilty of trying to cover it up.

But I suspect Cruise was already on CA DMV’s bad books after having so many publicized issues in SF and this was just the last straw.

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#57

Post by kbenson »

eklitzke wrote: post #48
tsunamifury wrote: post #11

I’m guessing cruise is pretty much over. What’s really unfortunate is I worked with many people who worked with Kyle and no one had a single good thing to say about him. And I’ve often heard that before with people who knew other CEOs but they kinda grudgingly admitted they did what was needed to get it done. However over and over I just heard phrases like “lost” “aimless” and “confused mess” with Kyle and it never w…

I worked at Cruise (I left about 2.5 years ago) and I have the opposite impression about Kyle. Kyle was a very charismatic leader who was really in the trenches. Unlike a lot of CEOs he was really visible in the office, he would drop in on meetings if he had breaks in his calendar, he was active on Jira and Slack, etc. Even though I was just a rank-and-file engineer I was in a number of meetings with him and some of…

> Some of these are qualities that I could see leading to someone thinking he was "aimless" or a "confused mess", but these are also things that engender a lot of respect from employees.

Respect from employees is a fickle thing. If someone can do all that you describe and still succeed as a CEO then power to them. When it comes time to choose between one or the other, I think most employees would rather an effective boss than one that seemed to understand them. Their opinion on the CEO might change rather quick were they to be laid off because the CEO just can't cut it.

It's sort of like the cool parent that's also a friend. If they can do that and effectively parent, they're better at it than me. If it comes down to being a friend to your child or parenting them, one is nice and the other is a responsibility and has major repercussions when done wrong.

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#58

Post by amacneil »

Since there is so much negativity in this thread, let me balance it with my take as someone who worked at Cruise for 5 years (left 3 years ago).

Kyle is the smartest, most technically capable, driven person I have ever had the opportunity to work for. He had a deep technical understanding of the system, a great intuition for unnecessary complexity, and a constant desire to find and resolve engineering bottlenecks. And he was deeply motivated by a goal of safety and saving lives.

After the GM acquisition, he could have enjoyed an early retirement. GM were eager to give us all Windows laptops and turn us into a San Francisco outpost, just as they had done with their Sidecar acquisition. But instead, Kyle worked tirelessly to ensure we had sufficient freedom and independence to build.

I know this wasn't everyone's experience with Kyle. I know plenty of people he pushed too hard and who left much earlier than I did. But for every person who burned out, there were others motivated by his energy and loved who working for him.

Is Cruise over? Probably not. There are still a ton of extremely smart people working there, and they are still in possession of a world-leading AV technology (probably second only to Waymo, who had a 5 year head start). But I hope they can maintain their Silicon Valley culture and not succumb to becoming a complete GM outpost.

Re: Kyle Vogt resigns from Cruise

#59

Post by oldgradstudent »

tempsy wrote: post #39
cheeselip420 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this was more of a fake-it-til-you-make-it situation

Hiding a video from regulators has nothing to do with faking it til you make it

It's not just hiding the video. It was mainly the content of that video.

And then we had all the other leaks.

That they couldn't reliably distinguish children from adults, making them (even by their overly optimistic models) more dangerous to children than humans - which is why they started operating mostly at night, when there are few children.

And then it was reported they had 1.5 employees per car in operations, requiring support every 2-5 miles. Very surprising given that they've reported a disengagement every 95,000 miles last year.

Cruise was a company that could not withstand transparency.

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