Tesla Motors Inc needs to watch its back because its rivals are advancing like a pack of wolves looking to usurp its first-mover advantage. Traditional automaker such as General Motors and Ford are already showing interest in self driving cars. Other Silicon Valley giants such as Google are building self-driving cars. More so, other small upstarts such as Comma.ai are also trying to overtake Elon Musk’s firm.
Hiring data that Paysa provided to USA TODAY provides insight into the emerging rivalry among firms building self-driving cars in Silicon Valley. Paysa reported that a number of firms posted jobs looking for people with skills on self-driving technology. In the last six months, the firms posted about 350 job listings but it seems that they are trying to outdo Tesla in seeking and attracting self-driving talent.
Rivals outdoing Tesla in self-driving talent search
The breakdown of the number of jobs posted by each firm with known interest in self-driving tech suggests that Tesla Motors Inc is lagging behind in hiring. To start with, out of the 350 self-driving jobs posted in the last six months, Alphabet’s Google takes the lead by posting 52 job openings.
You’ll observe that Tesla and Google are the two main rivals in the race to a self-driving future. Tesla believes that gradual improvement to Autopilot will help the self-driving cars of the future evolve. Whereas, Google believes that full self-driving cars must be built from the ground up with full autonomy in mind.
Interestingly, Tesla didn’t make the second position as well. The second position goes to HERE, a startup working on mapping tech for self-driving cars. HERE posted some 36 self-driving jobs in the last six months. The Germans are also coming up strong as Robert Bosch posted some 31 self-driving jobs with the same period. Relatively new upstart, Zoox posted 24 job listings as its gets ready to give Tesla a run for its money.
You’ll also be surprised to find out that Tesla lagged Ford and General Motors in hiring top talent for driverless cars. Tesla posted 19 self-driving jobs in the last six months – whereas, Ford Motors posted some 23 jobs while General Motors posted some 22 jobs. Strangely, Apple didn’t not post any job opening for self-driving talent in the last six months; hence, rumors that the firm has disbanded its Project Titan team might be true after all.
Musk runs the risk of losing talent to rivals
One could easily argue that Tesla Motors Inc doesn’t need to post hundreds of job openings to show that it is still leading in the self-driving race. In fact, one could submit that Musk has already picked the best talent in the industry and that’s why he has left rivals to scavenge for self-driving talents. Nonetheless, the fact that Tesla is not actively seeking for self-driving talent while its rivals can’t seem to find enough capable hands is another reason for the firm to watch its back.
Silicon Valley has a culture of babysitting employees with mouthwatering perks and incentives. Elon Musk however doesn’t offer many of such perks as he believes that an opportunity to build the future is a perk in its own right. In essence, Musk runs the risk of losing talent to other rivals who are coming up from behind to steal the spotlight.
