George Hotz steps down as Comma AI CEO, saying he can't run a $100M-revenue company

Driver-assist technology: openpilot software plus hardware that adds self-driving features to cars people already own.

That scaling from a 20-person hacker shop to a $100M+ consumer electronics company takes 'different people at different company sizes' — not him.

In 2015 Hotz picked a fight with Elon Musk by claiming he could build better semi-autonomous software than Tesla's Autopilot — Tesla called the claims 'extremely unlikely' — and founded Comma AI that year to build fully autonomous vehicles.

He demoed a self-driving 2016 Acura ILX on the I-280, drew a cease-and-desist from California's DMV, and after a stern letter from US safety regulator NHTSA dropped full autonomy for driver assist, publishing openpilot free online. He called robotaxi rivals Waymo and Cruise a 'scam' — first to The Verge in 2018, repeating it to Bloomberg — and by 2022 was running a ~20-person company short on revenue that constantly needed to raise.

On October 31, 2022 Hotz announced on GitHub he was stepping down, writing 'It's no longer a race car, it's a boat' and that he'd stay 'a cheerleader and court jester'. He was mulling The Tiny Corporation, a deep-learning company of under 3 people.

A founder-CEO voluntarily stepping down at a 20-person startup because he judges himself wrong for the next size up is a rare, transferable decision.

He declined to chase $100M+ revenue he believed was within reach — separating what a company can do from what its founder should do.

His contrarian calls aged well by the article's own account: the robotaxi 'scam' verdict of 2018 held as the industry's timelines stretched.

The trait that gets a hacker lab to 20 people is not the one that runs a $100M hardware business; naming that gap yourself, and stepping aside, is cheaper than being pushed later.

As of the October 31, 2022 announcement, Comma AI continued without Hotz as CEO while he described himself as 'a cheerleader and court jester' for the company, and he was weighing The Tiny Corporation, a tiny deep-learning framework play.