Google Car: Why Urmson Quit

Reasons for last week’s departure from Google of Chris Urmson, leader of the company’s self-driving Googlecar project, are beginning to emerge.His departure follows
Google’s decision last year to hire John Krafcik, the former CEO of Hyundai
America, to head up the car project.

Urmson has been unhappy with the direction of the car project under Krafcik’s
leadership and is said to have quarreled privately several months ago with
Google chief Larry Page over where it was headed, according to two former
Google employees. A spokesman for Google declined to comment on those
discussions.

Following the dispute, Urmson decided to take the US summer off and after some
thought decided to leave the company. He told members of the self-driving car
team about his decision last Thursday, the former employees said.