Jim Keller leaves the autopilot team

[scottm]

People should not be buying Tesla cars on the FSD promise anymore. That was early hype and ahead of its day... So yes, should probably let that go...

People should be buying these cars because they're excellent EV's with a great charging network.

 

[Pentium2004]

Tell that to the sales people at Tesla. I didn't now much about Tesla before I bought and relied on sales (bad idea) to answer my questions.

 

[TriTexan]

I'm starting to grasp the idea that my car will never come pick me up . Walking to the parking lot sucks especially when I paid a lot of money hoping one day I wouldn't have to lol. Losing key employees like Tesla has been sets things way back. Just to get a new employee started and up to speed takes some time. If I was Karpathy knowing how badly Tesla needed me I would be requesting some crazy money. If he was to leave who knows what would happen to the Autopilot program.

I think you may be thinking about this wrong - the kind of people who will change the landscape aren't ones you "need to get up to speed" - they are the ones that come in and shake things up (in a good way). They are the ones getting the rest of your company up to speed.

FWIW - Netflix is exactly the same way. Their policy regarding employee performance is simple: Average performers are quickly given a generous severance package.

I'm totally fine with this guy leaving if he's not the best-of-the-best and isn't the one who will put Tesla ahead of the pack.

All I'm saying is not to read too much into things. It's quite possible Elon is cleaning house, figuring out who the trend setters are and who can go to other companies and not compromise Tesla's position.

Now this could be totally wrong - time will tell of course!

 

[MHarrigan]

This is nothing new - Tesla has a long history of high-level people leaving the company. The closer an employee is to the top (Elon) whether organizationally or functionally, the more at risk they are. Like many great company leaders, Elon is very demanding and has a firm belief in his own concepts. If, as an employee, you differ with Elon, you must have incontrovertible proof that you are correct or you will find yourself leaving the company - either being asked to leave or put in a nearly impossible work situation. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing for a fast moving technology company like Tesla. Apple (Steve Jobs) and Oracle (Larry Ellison) are two examples of technology companies with brash and demanding CEOs.

 

[pipplo]

Not sure if this is good or bad, but the timing is certainly suspect...

Tesla Autopilot chief departs, may be headed to Intel

What about the timing is suspect?

 

[ebmcs03]

Awww crap should I ask for a refund on EAP? It’s going to be at a stand still now. No further upgrades?

 

[xav-]

I think the day Karpathy leaves is the day i lose a lot of hope for autopilot, especially given how amazing his work in computer vision and neural nets has been

Agree

when I realized that Karpathy wasn’t the exec who left I felt relieved.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

This guy apparently also oversaw Infotainment. Given the sad state of Tesla's infotainment system, this guy should have been canned a long time ago!

Tesla's Autopilot Chief Keller Steps Down After Two Years

 

[Pentium2004]

High turnover is never beneficial. It's OK to be demanding but your demands also have to be realistic. Elon is just a dreamer, it's the people standing behind him that make things a reality. I feel like if we gave Elon some Adderall maybe then he could focus on one task and actually complete it.

 

[drawfour]

Awww crap should I ask for a refund on EAP? It’s going to be at a stand still now. No further upgrades?

Why would that be? You think the hundreds of engineers and the entire management chain that reported up to the VP are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a new boss? You think they don't already have a plan in place with lots of stuff to work on?

 

[Kant.Ing]

This guy apparently also oversaw Infotainment. Given the sad state of Tesla's infotainment system, this guy should have been canned a long time ago!

Tesla's Autopilot Chief Keller Steps Down After Two Years

I am sure the biggest contribution is MCU2!

 

[John Lamoureux]

What about the timing is suspect?

Given the current focus on EAP and media attention on crash fatalities (warranted or otherwise), I'd like to see them double down rather that lose their top executive covering that area.

 

[bhzmark]

High turnover is never beneficial.

5 Benefits (Yes, Benefits) of High Employee Turnover

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4114620-staff-turnover-ge-good-thing

If losing 20 percent of the top performers, then the turnover is definitely negative, but if the majority of the people leaving are bottom performers, or they have done all that they can do, then a high turnover rate is positive.

During GEs glory days they had high turnover.

People got burned out, they contributed all they had and wanted to get off the treadmill, or they were never the right person to begin with.

All good reasons for turnover. Lots of high performing profitable industries have high turnover. And lots of good people simply say "that was fun for a while, but I want a change a scenery, or to put my kids to bed once in a while."

Here is an informative stat: What company had longest employee tenure and low turnover? Eastman Kodak! Full List of Employee Tenure at Fortune 500 Companies

 

[Jonny Custom]

Not sure if this is good or bad, but the timing is certainly suspect...

Tesla Autopilot chief departs, may be headed to Intel

In the article it reads that it was his passion to work on microprocessors. With intel he can do that.

 

[ebmcs03]

Why would that be? You think the hundreds of engineers and the entire management chain that reported up to the VP are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a new boss? You think they don't already have a plan in place with lots of stuff to work on?

Beats me. I’m not in their management chain. I don’t know what they do. Haha I don’t want to gamble $5k

 

[Phrixotrichus]

Sounds like another top manager doesn`t approve of Musk`s timelines and promises...

 

[classicjoy]

Doh.
The least he could've done is get the software out of its Beta after all these years before leaving.

 

[Packetdancer]

I believe the software is still headed up by Andrej Karpathy, one of the foremost deep learning and computer vision experts in the world. I'm sure autopilot software will be fine under his guidance.

Keller was apparently a hardware guy, and even if he was getting the chance to work on custom chips for the AI processing, I'm guessing he found the software-heavy side of things less compelling.

 

[Marsnaut]

From what I read, Keller is likely moving on because he's done all there is to do with regards to chip architecture. He's a go-getter who always needs to be involved in challenging and engaging products. He's done it in the past with AMD and Apple (leaving around the time of major advances). He builds the framework and leaves Tesla to execute.

If anything, I take this as positive news as a testimony to the progress that has been made. We'll see if there are any major announcements from Tesla over the next few months.

 

[scottm]

He likes chips
He likes vectors
He like code optimization
And Intel hired him

Maybe he can go fix or ensure there'll never be another security attack vector like this one in Intel chips.

And while he's at it, optimize the firmware or microcode fix they put out for that breach to regain some lost speed.