Tesla's Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash with CEO Musk

Re:Tesla's Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash with CEO Musk by swalsh on Thursday April 27, 2017 @03:03PM (#14213893)

This sounds familiar, reminds me of when Amazon acquired Kiva, they too had rivals as customers. Amazon decided to slowly stop supporting existing customers, and focus only on its internal operations.

I think the lesson here, for something as crucial as automation, you're taking a risk when purchasing robots from vendors.

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Re:Tesla's Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash with CEO Musk by Animats on Thursday April 27, 2017 @03:22PM (#14214007)

That was a shock to the material-handling industry. Vendors have gone out of business before, but usually someone acquires the assets and services the existing machinery. That didn't happen with Kiva. Existing Kiva customers were no longer able to buy more Kiva robots. It's not even clear they can get replacement parts. "Amazon Robotics ... encouraged prospective users of Kiva technology to let Amazon Robotics and Amazon Services provide fulfillment within Amazon warehouses using Amazon robots."

[1] https://www.therobotreport.com/news/filling-the-void-left-by...

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Re:Tesla's Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash with CEO Musk by jacquesm on Thursday April 27, 2017 @03:41PM (#14214119)

I predict a lot more attention to 'change of control' clauses in supply contracts.

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Re:Tesla's Klaus Grohmann Ousted After Clash with CEO Musk by dnh44 on Thursday April 27, 2017 @05:45PM (#14215011)

It's standard practice already in at least one industry I know of.

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