Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Uber’s vice president of mapping, Brian McClendon, has resigned

McClendon is leaving the company after close to two years.

Google Holds News Conference
Google Holds News Conference
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Brian McClendon, the vice president of maps at Uber, is leaving the company after close to two years, the company has confirmed. McClendon joined the ride-hail company after more than 10 years of working at Google’s mapping department.

“Mr. McClendon is departing amicably from Uber and will be an adviser to the company,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement, noting he was “moving back to Kansas where he is from to explore politics. His exit has been in the works for some time and his last day at Uber is March 28.”

McClendon’s is the latest in a series of departures from the company, which has been shaken by recent accusations of sexual harassment and sexism, leading CEO Travis Kalanick to admit he needs to “grow up” and commit to hiring a chief operating officer.

Yesterday, Recode reported Uber’s president Jeff Jones was leaving after just six months. Before that, the company’s head of AI Gary Marcus also announced he was leaving after a few months, days after the company’s vice president of product Ed Baker resigned.

Earlier, Kalanick asked for the resignation of his newly minted SVP of engineering Amit Singhal for not disclosing accusations of sexual assault at his previous employer, Google. The list goes on: The company’s former director of the self-driving group Raffi Krikorian stepped down a few months after the entity saw the departure of three other top self-driving engineers, as Recode first reported.

But the timing of McClendon’s departure is a bit different. For one, the company’s employees expected to receive their bonuses on March 15 after employee reviews. Sources say it’s likely we’ll see more departures now that staffers have cashed out their additional pay.

McClendon was also recently named in a major lawsuit levied against Uber by his former employer, Alphabet. The suit is centered around Uber’s head of self-driving, Anthony Levandowski, who joined the company as part of the acquisition of his self-driving startup Otto, and alleges Levandowski stole the design of a key aspect of the self-driving system before leaving Google.

According to the suit, Levandowski met with McClendon in the summer of 2015 — well before Levandowski left Alphabet.

“Mr. Levandowski had previously told me, in or around the summer of 2015, that he had talked with Brian McClendon, an Uber executive involved with their self-driving car project,” Pierre Yvez-Droz, an engineer at Waymo, wrote in a sworn testimony. “We were having dinner at a restaurant near the office, and he told me that it would be nice to create a new self-driving car startup and that Uber would be interested in buying the team responsible for the LiDAR we were developing at Google.”

Uber’s self-driving effort needs to show progress on how smoothly — and safely — it drives. That all requires incredibly thorough and accurate 3-D maps. While McClendon wasn’t the only one working on the company’s maps, at least six people who were on the company’s mapping team have also left the company to join Argo.ai — a startup founded by former self-driving engineer Peter Rander.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
The importance of space toilets, explainedThe importance of space toilets, explained
Podcast
Podcasts

Houston, we have a plumbing problem.

By Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram
Technology
What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputerWhat happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer
Technology

How they’re using AI at the lab that created the atom bomb.

By Joshua Keating
Future Perfect
Humanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious missionHumanity’s return to the moon is a deeply religious mission
Future Perfect

Space barons like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t seem religious. But their quest to colonize outer space is.

By Sigal Samuel