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Last Co-Founder of Otto Robotic-Truck Unit Leaves Uber

All four co-founders of Otto, the self-driving-truck company acquired by Uber Technologies Inc. in 2016, have left the ride-hailing service.

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All four co-founders of Otto, the self-driving-truck company acquired by Uber Technologies Inc. in 2016, have left the ride-hailing service, Bloomberg News reports.

Otto generated headlines two months after the acquisition by demonstrating its retrofit kit-based autonomous-driving system on an 18-wheeler in Colorado.

But the merger, once valued at $680 million in Uber stock, quickly turned sour when Otto cofounder Anthony Levandowski was accused of stealing tech secrets from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit. Uber fired him last May.

Bloomberg says Uber hasn’t paid a large portion of the original acquisition price because the Otto team failed to requisite achieve performance goals.

The three other Otto co-founders are Don Burnette and Lior Ron, who left Uber earlier this year, and Claire Delaunay, who exited the company in 2017.

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