Aurora Tech vs Argo AI
I got offers from Argo ai and Aurora Tech (Chris Urmson). I am a Software ML Engineer. Which one should I choose considering financial stability of the company for the next 2 years along with work life balance and work culture quality? Argo has $3.6 Billion in funding (got $2.6 Billion recently) whereas Aurora lost Volkswagen as a partner recently and has only $690 million in funding. Both companies however have the same number of employees. I am also considering the possibility of a recession in the next few years. I am on visa and want the company to apply for my Green Card which means that they should not have any lay-offs for the next 2 years as per the USCIS rules. I worry if Aurora falls in the same line as Zoox where they have not been able to raise funding since the last year in July 2018. My current company is just awfully unstable with a constant worry of when the bankruptcy might happen. Hence, I would want to avoid a similar situation in the near future.
Why not Cruise or Waymo? Did you try Cruise? It's a good option if you want financial stability and don't care about bit of a bad culture. Waymo does not pay as much as Cruise, and haven't hrd bad things about Waymo culture.
Not all teams bad just some
At present I have only 2 options and only a few days left to choose. So Waymo or Cruise are not an option at this point of time.
Congrats for the offers! How do offers look like?
Aurora has some cool people, but Jinnah can be a jerk. He's very proud of having 'worked for a psychopath' while at SpaceX. Also be mindful they fired a ton of people around Christmas due to internal politics. Maybe their head of HR is still their General Counsel too? Which is just asking for trouble. They have a lot of upside, but don't believe the polished facade. Argo's equity is a scam. They've been giving offers at an $8b valuation for most of 2019, yet they were definitely less than that before July, and $8b is not true today because VW deal hasn't cleared Euro. Also the deail puts them below $8b anyways. It takes a lot of stupid to lie about your valuation. They also don't give options or RSUs but rather 'investor units' in a LLC structure tax dodge that Ford invented. Argo tacked on VW's European team as part of the investment, so good luck finding projects at that place, it's way over-crowded now.
Fired due to financial reasons or just politics? Was it a proper layoff that is reported in WARN notice or just normal firing because of HR’s power/politics? Aurora’s Office seemed to be quite overcrowded and less maintained. It was difficult to find parking when I visited it. Argo’s Office seems to be quite nice and well maintained. However, financial stability is kind of important given how none of these companies are close to actually shipping a viable product.
Your post is purely a scam or at best faceless speculation. The deal puts Argo at 8b for sure and we are doing a lot of cool things with a very clear objective in mind. Wait and see
I've been very happy at Aurora, and wouldn't really worry about funding for the next couple years at least. It's a great blend of top notch tech, a motivated team and a friendly culture. Argo is clearly doing well financially and I don't think that's going to change in the near term either. I do know folks from Argo that have moved to Aurora and are happy here. Feel free to DM me if you want to know more.
What’s TC like?
Refer me man
I myself leaning towards Aurora. They have huge potential for growth. Their leadership needs no introduction.
They might not need any introduction but any news I hear about Aurora they certainly take that introduction with fireworks and confetti.
I think you’ll be fine if you choose either in terms of financial stability. Where do you see yourself having career growth?
You’ll be fine at anywhere but NIO 😂
Argo all the way. Automaker partnerships matter, Aurora doesn’t have strong ties, just ‘get to know you’ investments. I can’t speak to culture at Aurora but I can say Argo has realistic goals and extremely strong talent and treats it’s employees very well. They hire doers, not talkers.
Lol
Aurora has better talent and IP. It's backed by Amazon. My speculation is, Amazon will push for Rivian Aurora merger at some point. Amazon, Aurora and Rivian would be a killer combo. I have few friends working for Aurora and they love the company culture a lot. I have heard very good things about the company culture and the no jerks policy. The 2.6 billion funding from VW for Argo AI is not all cash it includes people assets etc. I would bet my money on Aurora. I don't find Argo AI talent to be top notch compared to Aurora.
Amazon + Rivian + Aurora —- make sense to me, they prolly are already in talks
Ford invested $500M in Rivian.