David Drummond, a long serving executive of Alphabet Inc., has left the board of directors for Uber Technologies Inc. couple of weeks ago. His stepping down reflects mounting competition between the two arch rival tech giants over self driving cars. Mr. Drummond has joined the Uber board in August 2013.
The 53-year-old Alphabet executive has confirmed the resignation through an emailed statement while acknowledging overlap between the two companies. Representing GV as a enthusiast investor, the veteran executive predicts for continuity of the Google- Uber partnership, reports Nasdaq.
Travis Kalanick, the Uber CEO has recently announced test running the first fleet of self driving cars in Pittsburgh anytime soon, even in this month. Hence the resignation is not at all surprising for the industry insiders considering possible tug of competition with alphabet's self-driving car.
According to a TechCrunch forecast, the testing fleet will comprise of 100 modified Volvo XC90s. The testing cars may be co-piloted by a single engineer capable of controlling the wheels when deems necessary.
Notably mentioning, both Alphabet and Uber are in immense competition along with other industry-rivals while developing their own varieties of self driving cars. Uber's efforts in this competition are less known to the public and Mr. Drummond has served the tech conglomerate's board of directors during the entire development process. Ever increasing competition within the same field of interest and a change in effective planning has probably acted behind his resignation decision.
However, such event of stepping down is nothing new in case of Alphabet. Eric Schmidt, an Alphabet exec resigned in 2009 from the board of directors for Apple Inc. following allegations for copyright violation against Google for infringing ideas from iPhone. Analysts observe the recent stepping down event as another instance for repetition of history.
David Drummond, a longtime exec for Alphabet has been confirmed resigning from Uber's board of directors. Though details of the resignation hasn't been made public, but industry experts smell repetition of history at least in case of Alphabet. A similar event has taken place in 2009 when Alphabet exec Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple's board amid allegations for patent infringement by Google from iPhone.