'Startling Paranoia': Ex-Autopilot Director Sued by Tesla, Fires Back
The former director of Tesla’s Autopilot program has choice words for his former employer.
Sterling Anderson is being sued by Tesla for stealing confidential information, which he allegedly put to use at a new autonomous vehicle start-up. According to Bloomberg, the electric automaker isn’t happy about his attempts to hire away Tesla employees, either.
In his response to the suit, Anderson doesn’t have very nice things to say about Tesla.
“Tesla’s meritless lawsuit reveals both a startling paranoia and an unhealthy fear of competition,” Anderson’s company, Aurora Innovation LLC, said in a statement Thursday.
“This abuse of the legal system is a malicious attempt to stifle a competitor and destroy personal reputations. Aurora looks forward to disproving these false allegations in court and to building a successful self-driving business.”
Anderson left the automaker in December, but not before laying the groundwork for a new company specializing in self-driving technology, Tesla alleges. During his tenure, the former director had full access to Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving technology. Aurora Innovation was formed with the help of former Google self-driving car head Chris Urmson.
With its suit, Tesla isn’t just looking to block the use of any of its proprietary information. It also wants to slam the brakes on Aurora’s go-to hiring practice. (That is, hiring away Tesla employees and contractors.) If granted, Tesla’s demand would see Aurora cease and desist from hiring these employees for a year following Anderson’s termination date.
Anderson had yet to announce the company when Tesla filed its lawsuit.
[Image: Tesla Motors]
More by Steph Willems
Comments
Join the conversation
I don't know why anyone would buy an autonomous car for personal use. Driving is one of the great remaining freedoms we get to regularly enjoy. Should a three-pedal car become 'quaint' in my lifetime then I suppose I'm OK with being quaint. My two boys will learn to drive a manual transmission well, then they will get to work on an old Chevy pickup truck, before either get a driver's licence.
With Tesla producing nothing but crap, what person in their right mind would poach any of it? Autopilot has killed numerous people, it's a technology to avoid.
Silicon Valley is losing it's once were edge; one lawyer, VC and other leech at a time. If Tesla can't do what Aurora does better than Aurora, it's best if Tesla close up shop and leave the field to more competent people.
Autonomous may not work until everyone is forced to have communications and mandatory cooperation among vehicles. I don't know about you but if I see an autonomous vehicle, especially a commercial one, that is the one I know I can merge in front of without fear it will run me over. I'll have time to steal its parking place. Or maybe make it hold still while I siphon its gas. Intimidation of robots could be great sport! UPS/Amazon would have to lengthen their delivery times, milk would go bad in transit and organ transplants could only be sent reliably by drones. Oh the humanity!