Why is andy rubin out

So why is he moving on after almost a decade at the helm? If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. The decision came as a surprise, even to his coworkers inside Google. However, the influential hacker-entrepreneur had already had a requiem, nine months earlier.

There has been speculation over whether Android is called "Android" because it sounds like "Andy. So when a rumor started last June that Rubin was leaving Google to join a small startup called CloudCar, it set off a panic. Actually, Android is Andy Rubin — coworkers at Apple gave him the nickname back in Android had outgrown Rubin, and Rubin had grown tired of Android. In under a decade, Rubin took Android from an idea on a whiteboard to the most popular smartphone platform on the planet.

Even though three Android phones are now sold for every iPhone, Google has still yet to fully figure out how to leverage the open system to its advantage. In other instances, Android has completely run away from Google. Rubin is a visionary and an architect, a hands-on hacker who worked as an engineer at Apple and a manager at Microsoft before founding and leading two innovative and successful startups, Danger and later Android.

Praise for Rubin tends to revolve around his talent for getting things started. I'm not sure anyone else could have made Android happen.

But Rubin was unwilling or unable to make big industry partnerships that could turn Android into a moneymaker for Google. Android has outgrown Andy and honestly, I don't think he knows where to take it next.

Rubin and Danger are credited with making one of the first smartphones, a web-enabled device with its own app ecosystem that debuted in the US as the T-Mobile Sidekick. A hot, well-funded startup in the midst of the dot-com crash, Danger felt like an exceptional club house. The company had a Sparrow electric car, a Segway, and a version of the Pole Position arcade racing game, on top of whatever new color-screen phone Rubin had picked up that week.

Danger was a technical powerhouse with a product far ahead of its time, but it remained a business underdog. In , Rubin was nudged out by his board of investors in favor of an ex-military, telecom industry veteran, a gray-haired deal maker named Hank Nothhaft.

There was already innovation in the product. Hank was a CEO who could really take the company to the next level. Despite the fact that Rubin had ridden Android to a high position of popularity and power, Moorhead did not see Rubin's departure as a huge loss for Google.

Sharon Gaudin is a science writer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an experienced technology reporter. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register. Latest Insider. Check out the latest Insider stories here.

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