Andy Rubin, former Android chief, leaves Google
Andy Rubin has done a lot for smart phones: the Google executive oversaw development of the Android OS, which is now the world鈥檚 most-used phone platform by a mile. Google bought Mr. Rubin鈥檚 startup company Android Inc. in 2005, and over the next few years Rubin guided the OS as it matured into a competitor with Apple鈥檚 iOS. Now Andy Rubin is leaving Google, the company announced on Thursday, to create an incubator for technology hardware startup companies.
Rubin stepped down from running Google鈥檚 Android division in March 2013, and has since been overseeing the company鈥檚 robotics efforts. After becoming the head of the robotics division, he helped Google to acquire several robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics and Schaft. Boston Dynamics is known for two robots it has built: BigDog, a four-legged robot designed to carry loads across rocky or unstable surfaces, and ATLAS, a six-foot-tall humanoid robot made for search-and-rescue jobs. Schaft, a Japanese company, won the DARPA Robotics prize shortly after being acquired by Google, building a two-legged robot that could climb stairs without losing its balance.
At the time, Google鈥檚 acquisition of these companies made many observers wonder what its plans were. Would the robotics technology be used to improve Google鈥檚 self-driving car? Or was the company planning to build robots to automate daily tasks? The New York Times that Rubin thought robots could be put to use delivering consumer goods, although executives also admitted that Google鈥檚 robotics efforts were 鈥渁 moonshot.鈥�
The task of integrating Boston Dynamics and Schaft into the rest of Google will be left to Rubin鈥檚 successor James Kuffner, a research scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, whom Google tapped to fill Rubin鈥檚 shoes as the head of the robotics division. Mr. Kuffner has years of experience in the robotics field, , and has even spent several years working on Google鈥檚 self-driving car. He鈥檚 also a driving force in the field of cloud robotics, in which robots can use the information and computing power from distributed data centers to reason and perform more efficiently.
Rubin isn鈥檛 the only major player to leave Google this year: Vic Gundotra, who was in charge of Google Plus and the company鈥檚 other social-media efforts, left in April; and Nikesh Arora, Google鈥檚 chief business officer, left in July. Still, Google isn't in any trouble: after all, when you鈥檙e one of the world鈥檚 most admired companies, you don鈥檛 have any trouble attracting top-shelf talent.
