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Tim Kentley-Klay, the co-founder and CEO of secretive self-driving vehicle company Zoox, was fired suddenly Wednesday by the company’s board. Kentley-Klay’s departure was first reported by
The Information, which cited an unnamed source. Kentley-Klay later tweeted a statement confirming that he had been fired by the board. Kentley-Klay and Zoox could not be reached for comment.
TechCrunch will update the story as it develops. https://twitter.com/TimKentleyKlay/status/1032410392927002626 In the tweet, Kentley-Klay wrote: > I came to this town as a founder only
to build the future of > mobility, and by the metrics shared here was crushing it against the > biggest. But the shocking reality is that this—without a warning, > cause or right of
reply—the board fired me. Today was Silicon > Valley up to its worst tricks. This town sells the story that it > backs founders to create real change. Rather than working through >
the issues in an epic startup for the win, the board chose a path of > fear, optimizing for a little money in hand at the expense of > profound progress for the Universe. Cheers to
the true believers > that have built Zoox from scratch these last four years. Don’t let > anyone stand between you and what you know is right. TKK. He also posted a graphic comparing
with Zoox the capital efficiency of top autonomous vehicle programs like Waymo, Uber, and Cruise. Kentley-Klay has since posted more than a dozen tweets, quoting others who have contacted
him to express support and disappointment. He doesn’t name anyone, but the presumption is that these are Zoox employees. The firing comes just a month after Zoox closed a massive $500
million funding round at a $3.2 billion post-money valuation. The round, led by Mike Cannon-Brookes of Grok Ventures, brings its total amount of funding to $800 million. Kentley-Klay founded
Zoox with Jesse Levinson about four years ago. The company is infamous for its secrecy. The first real inside look into the company, and Kentley-Klay, came just a month ago in a feature by
Bloomberg’s Ashlee Vance. The company, which employs about 500 people, wants to deploy autonomous vehicles on public streets and launch a ride-hailing service with its fleet by 2020.