Monday, September 14, 2015

Google Poaches TrueCar's President For Self-Driving Car Project

Google said over the weekend that it has hired on John Krafcik, most recently President of Santa Monica-based TrueCar, as CEO of its self driving car project. Krafcik had been President of TrueCar since April of 2014. According to TrueCar, Krafcik will remain on the board of directors for TrueCar, and will exit the company on Wednesday. TrueCar said in a regulatory filing last week that Michael Guthrie, the company's Chief Financial Officer, will become Interim COO of the company starting tomorrow. Google said Krafcik will be based in Mountain View at its headquarters. The move comes at a particularly difficult executive time for TrueCar, whose founder, Scott Painter, said he'd step down as CEO by the end of the year; it's unclear how the company plans to handle the departure of two of its top executives at the same time, although Painter said he remains on board until the company finds a new CEO.

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