That sucks. But these types of situations usually end up good. When he left for Tesla, no one else probably knew he was looking. Now everyone knows and his chance at finding a good match for what he is looking for has increased.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Swift Creator Chris Lattner Leaves Tesla After Only Six Months in the Job
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The fact Tesla immediately named his replacement (Andrej Karpathy, a leading expert in computer vision and neural nets, formerly worked at another Musk venture, OpenAI), while Chris Lattner took to twitter to say he's looking for a job leads me to think this wasn't a mutually agreed upon decision.
Chris Lattner was blindsided by his firing from Tesla. Tesla already had everything lined up to fire him, and Chris didn't see it coming. If he'd seen it coming or had chosen to leave, I think he'd already have some leads set up. The fact he's looking for leads on Twitter says he only began his search for a new job a few hours ago.
Chris Lattner was blindsided by his firing from Tesla. Tesla already had everything lined up to fire him, and Chris didn't see it coming. If he'd seen it coming or had chosen to leave, I think he'd already have some leads set up. The fact he's looking for leads on Twitter says he only began his search for a new job a few hours ago.
Are some of you bitter that he left Apple?
Because it definitely doesn't sound like that...
Because it definitely doesn't sound like that...
Fully autonomous cars are this decade's "active suspension" technology. We'll see extensive driver augmentation but full autonomy isn't happening soon.
Notice most of the bullish views on autonomy come out of silicon valley where the weather is pristine and roads are well maintained with clean bright lines. The MI auto companies are more reserved in their goals because they understand the challenge of autonomy on bad roads with faded lines and snow drifts. And they understand it would be disastrous for a vehicle to drive itself only in good conditions but demand the driver take control in challenging conditions. We can't have drivers take the summer off and then face winter driving with rusty reflexes. A 98% solution won't work.
Notice most of the bullish views on autonomy come out of silicon valley where the weather is pristine and roads are well maintained with clean bright lines. The MI auto companies are more reserved in their goals because they understand the challenge of autonomy on bad roads with faded lines and snow drifts. And they understand it would be disastrous for a vehicle to drive itself only in good conditions but demand the driver take control in challenging conditions. We can't have drivers take the summer off and then face winter driving with rusty reflexes. A 98% solution won't work.
Must be tough going from working on toys to autonomous vehicles and systems. Hope he took advantage of the internship opportunity Tesla provided to him and absorbed as much as he could from those six months to secure the next gig. Even though it didn't work out long term he's much better off having Tesla on his resume as it opens doors versus having Apple only which Elon Musk refers to as a graveyard.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
Last edited:
I have never once quit a job with another lined up. I have many friends working in similar fashions. There are some jobs so toxic to your mental health the best option is to quit. The ability to do this is liberating and it comes when you don't get yourself into a situation of living pay-check to pay-check.
There is a good chance this was a bit mutual on both sides with Latner knowing it was coming; butting heads with everyone he worked with; not feeling like you are moving forward;
[doublepost=1498055060][/doublepost]
Toys? LLVM is a toy?
Welcome to the software development business. The guys with the big plans most of the time don't know anything how software development works and what the requirements are. When a CEO says it can be done in a day, it's not very uncommon a CTO needs to tell him it takes a week, but the CEO will not give you extra time because the plan is already sold to the customer or audience.
People move around in tech jobs all the time. Sounds to me like Tesla/Elon Musk have unreasonable expectations of how quickly an autonomous driving system can be developed, and are demanding it be done faster than Lattner was comfortable with. Personally, I'm glad he's not a good fit for a company that irresponsible. It's a self-driving car - take your time and get it right.
Also, I think you meant "wary" and not "weary."
Based on California at-will employment laws, the current Silicon Valley hiring climate, and the fact that this guy has many employment opportunities, my guess is that nothing can be deduced if he was terminated by his employer or if he left on his own.
My own guess is that he signed some sort of confidentiality agreement regarding his departure and was compensated in some manner by Tesla.
In all likelihood, MacRumors readers will never know the true reason about Lattner's departure from Tesla.
My own guess is that he signed some sort of confidentiality agreement regarding his departure and was compensated in some manner by Tesla.
In all likelihood, MacRumors readers will never know the true reason about Lattner's departure from Tesla.
Ditto. People who have savings don't wait to find a new job. I've quit twice, both times without jobs lined up. Take some time off, life's short.
Heck, I have gone on multi-month vacations a couple of times after I've quit jobs with nothing lined up on the back side.
funny that this was a big g headline on MR when he left apple, suggesting DOOM, but now that he's leaving Tesla it's a minor story. so can we conclude it wasn't such a big deal in the first place either?
I've personally known several people that bounced off Tesla after fairly short tenures, which makes me question how healthy their work culture is.
Retarded comment of the millennia, the guy is responsible for LLVM, basically a monopolist in compilers/related tools. If anything cars are toys for him
Tesla is burning through cash like fire in a dry windy cornfield. Their business model only works as long as the government provides Tesla buyers healthy rebates. The President is not of the same persuasion for outlandish cash giveaway as his predecessor. You do the math. I expect there is tremendous pressure on the management at Tesla, based on how oversold the idea is. I'm pretty sure I would not enjoy working at Tesla.
Tesla firing Chris is all anyone needs to know about the state of their software division.
The guy is pretty smart, but as far as I can dig into his resume he has no experience with machine learning and automated systems at the scale of something like ambitions of Tesla. Probably he himself and Tesla thought he could come up to speed quickly, but perhaps it didn't work out. Being a language and compiler designer is a different skill set than building an artificial intelligence to drive a car.
His replacement has a much stronger resume with experience at Google, DeepMind and OpenAI. All world class in AI and not a graveyard. Doesn't bode well for Apple's autonomous driving efforts when one of their best employees only lasts six months at Tesla. It's pretty much a failed project.
http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/
While we'll never know if that's true or not, in either case such a short term for such a high prominence role is unmistakably a failure on Tesla's part. Anywhere, really -- the hiring org and its recruitment process should be able to determine the fit prior to the hire. To lose someone in less than a year is an error because of the resources invested to make the hire in the first place -- recruiting, wooing, on boarding, upsetting internal candidates, and opportunity cost.
Definitely a screw-up on Tesla's part.
This begs the question of what do these large companies do. Apple was a computer company that moved into music ( both hardware and actually providing music) and then into phones, then maps, then tablets, then car audio systems and guidance and is trying to do/be something in tv original content creation. Amazon, Tesla and Google are similarly engaged in multiple projects like this.
There's an old saying that I think is usually true: Jack of all trades, master of none. All of these companies are looking to handle these different projects on their own, not sell a product that some other company designed and makes. These giants are already wealthy, but they aren't staffing each division as if it was their core business, they try to shift the workforce around. And from a customer and product standpoint, it really isn't working, at least not across each companies line of offerings. They don't put the resources that a medium to large company that specializes in their product puts into that product. And sooner or later people will question why they should buy a lesser product with a famous name. And this isn't just aimed at Apple, it's aimed at all of these companies.
There's an old saying that I think is usually true: Jack of all trades, master of none. All of these companies are looking to handle these different projects on their own, not sell a product that some other company designed and makes. These giants are already wealthy, but they aren't staffing each division as if it was their core business, they try to shift the workforce around. And from a customer and product standpoint, it really isn't working, at least not across each companies line of offerings. They don't put the resources that a medium to large company that specializes in their product puts into that product. And sooner or later people will question why they should buy a lesser product with a famous name. And this isn't just aimed at Apple, it's aimed at all of these companies.