Why Tesla's AP team is constantly changing?

[Matias]

Elon Musk was the reason one of Apple's most famous developers left Tesla after only 6 months


"in the past seven months, three executives overseeing the Autopilot software have left the company: Sterling Anderson, David Nistér, and now Lattner."

 

[Krugerrand]

*yawn*

 

[lunitiks]

Did you not answer the thread title question in your FIRST sentence?

 

[animorph]

Very high demand.

 

[Tam]

...Elon Musk was the reason one of Apple's most famous developers left Tesla after only 6 months..."

Are you citing the article to say that Elon Musk is the cause for the high turnover of employees?

 

[Matias]

Are you citing the article to say that Elon Musk is the cause for the high turnover of employees?

I don't know the reason(s).

 

[Tam]

I don't know the reason(s).

According to public statement from Tesla:

"Chris just wasn't the right fit for Tesla, and we've decided to make a change. We wish him the best."

"fit" could mean personality fit, technological skill fit...

The article says:

"A source close to the situation tells Business Insider that Lattner loved his job at Tesla but that he and Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn't get along."

It suggests that there's a personality conflict and it doesn't mention any competency problem for this particular case.

In other cases, they've gotten another job waiting for them so most likely their quitting are motivated by more attractive offers.

 

[22522]

Chris appears to have done a lot for putting foundation down.

Might have been he was the perfect guy at the perfect time.

 

[BluestarE3]

Also, it's Silicon Valley. Skills in high-demand disciplines such as automotive autonomy can command high wages, perks and freedoms. Jumping to another company for a better offer is accepted as the norm.

 

[Bladerskb]

so you are saying that after bragging so much how self driving is solved that tesla won't even release L5 self driving as elon vowed to do before the end of 2017?

Elon Musk: Tesla is 2 years away from a fully self-driving car

 

[Ugliest1]

so you are saying that after bragging so much how self driving is solved that tesla won't even release L5 self driving as elon vowed to do before the end of 2017?

Elon Musk: Tesla is 2 years away from a fully self-driving car

"vowed to do before the end of 2017"?

Are you forgetting the part in the article that you linked to, that Elon also said it could be one to five years after that before regulations would make it possible to actually release?

 

[verygreen]

"vowed to do before the end of 2017"?

Are you forgetting the part in the article that you linked to, that Elon also said it could be one to five years after that before regulations would make it possible to actually release?

I am also of the opinion this is just a smokescreen claim.
If you have FSD today - there's nothing holding you from releasing that in the wild with a "hold your hands on the wheel" nag bolted on for compliance purposes. (besides there are a handful of states that in one way or another allow selfdriving cars already).

 

[Tam]

"...one to five years after that before regulations would make it possible to actually release?

I've been posting on other threads about 3 states that allow self-driving cars for consumers (not just for testing):

9/20/2016 Florida
12/10/2016 Michigan (no controls for human needed)
5/30/2017 Georgia

So citing lack of regulations to withhold self-driving feature is only good in other 47 states but not for those 3 states.

 

[verygreen]

I've been posting on other threads about 3 states that allow self-driving cars for consumers (not just for testing):

9/20/2016 Florida
12/10/2016 Michigan (no controls for human needed)
5/30/2017 Georgia

So citing lack of regulations to withhold self-driving feature is only good in other 47 states but not for those 3 states.

There are like 8 states that allow it, I think.
TN for one is on the list, there are selfdriving buses Knoxville is getting as a trial later this year for example.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I wonder how much of it has to do with the extremely competitive market there.

So competitive I'm really beginning to wonder if Silicon Valley will be first.

With Tesla it's not just the executives, but three people recently left with a lot of expertise in computer vision. Then you have other companies like Google which paid their self-driving researchers so much it essentially gave them FU money.

I used to be pretty enthusiastic about self-driving cars, and now I'm seriously wondering if it's just some gold rush where there is so much arguing and bickering that no one will find any gold.

Maybe we would have been better off making intelligent stop lights.

 

[Tam]

...I'm seriously wondering if it's just some gold rush where there is so much arguing and bickering that no one will find any gold...

It's a gold rush alright.

If you were Google engineer Anthony Levandowski and got paid only $120 million, wouldn't you want to leave for a greener pasture?

And once he left Google for his new startup Otto self-driving truck, he was able to sell that off in a few months for $680 million, and he personally got $250 million in Uber stock.

Hundreds of million dollars here, hundreds of million there, why would anyone want to stay put in one place for a mere one million dollars?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Hundreds of million dollars here, hundreds of million there, why would anyone want to stay put in one place for a mere one million dollars?

And how can we surprised at there being cases of people being willing to steal code and/or data as a way to get at the pot of gold?

I think the good news is that even if full autonomy is never achieved we'll definitely see much better driver assistance.

My only desire for full autonomy is that it be pretty cheap. If it's cheap enough to replace paid drivers, but not cheap enough dramatically to cut the number of private cars by consumer choice, I think that the overall effect could be harmful due to much increased centralization of wealth.

 

[lunitiks]

To make an FSD demo is easy, they say. Heck, Tesla made two of them before they got rain sensing auto wipers to work. (Still crickets on that front BTW.)

So release the effing SW where I can make my own demo. I'm driving the same route to work every single morning!!!

 

[verygreen]

To make an FSD demo is easy, they say. Heck, Tesla made two of them before they got rain sensing auto wipers to work. (Still crickets on that front BTW.)

It's coming, the "light and rain sensing" code was added in 17.22.46 (but probably not yet fully enabled).

 

[Tam]

The press is stirring up the pot again.

It seems to suggest that the high turn over rate is due to the lack of trust that existing AP2 hardware could become Self-driving someday.

Tesla's Autopilot team reportedly became divided over Elon Musk's self-driving car plans