Last night I read for the first time the company’s 8k announcing my resignation

I had absolutely no clue about what this was about; here's some context (Googling)

https://news.yahoo.com/tusimple-co-founder-blames-exit-03115...

More context, less favorable to the CTO (ie the company's side of the story): https://news.yahoo.com/tusimple-co-founder-resigns-internal-...

Poaching sounds like capitalism to me, that idea rich CEOs love until it doesn’t work in their favor.

I find it interesting that this LinkedIn post does not directly address or attempt to dismiss these rather strong allegations

It seems to address all the allegations in the 8k. The LinkedIn post adds more allegations.

> the company's shift in focus from Level 4 autonomy to Level 2 autonomy

I'm confused by that framing. We've had level 2 cars for a long time, and there's not much room for improving the autonomy. Are they just working on safety features now?

there's not much room for improving the autonomy.

Considering how every person I've ever asked about it despises their car's phantom braking problems, I'd say there's plenty of room for improvement.

I suppose I've never used adaptive cruise control myself to know whether phantom braking is a problem. (Since, to be 100% clear, a combination of adaptive cruise and lane following gets you to level 2.)

You've asked about that feature from people that have a variety of manufacturers' cars?

Yes. Honda, Toyota, and Ford drivers have complained to me about it.

I knew some people who worked at tusimple for 2+ years. xaiodi hou is a certifiable nutcase who tried running his own company into the ground out of a combination of spite, pride and negligence. Pushed for shortcuts that would impact public saftey (theyve had 2 crashes partially due to Xaiodi refusing to admit when the teams he favored were wrong.)

Ive seen other mentions of a majority of chinese nationals working there and i can also confirm that too is a fairly accurate statement. There was also rumors that these individuals were compensated better than their american counterparts as well as witnessed preferential treatment.

This is a bed of xaiodis making, his empire of arrogance crumbling around him and its time for him to lie down

The current AV space is comprised mostly of fraud and lies as far as im concerned.

Who is this person and why is he at the top of the HN front page?

Xiaodi Hu [1] is the former CEO of TuSimple [2], an autonomous trucking company with headquarters in San Diego, California.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he was a co-founder and CTO for 6 years and 8 months (August 2015 to March 2022), then became CEO for 8 months (from March 2022 to October 2022) and a board member for 6 months (from October 2022 to March 2023), until yesterday when he resigned due to disagreements with Cheng Lu, the current CEO [3].

If you read the LinkedIn post [4], which some people have reposted in this thread, you will learn a bit more about what type of disagreements caused his resignation; long story short: for criticizing their decision to change the direction of technology developments and for refusing to support the lucrative CEO executive compensation package while simultaneously laying off 25% of its staff, about 350 employees, among other things.

Reuters published an article on November 11, 2022 [5], that supposedly explains the reasons why Xiaodi Hu resigned (or was fired) from Cheng Lu’s perspective, if you want to read the other side of the story. Long story short: due to an internal probe that showed some employees had ties and shared information with a China-backed firm: Hydron Inc., autonomous trucking [6]

The two-sentence 8-K SEC filing [7] if anyone wants to read.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaodihou/

[2] https://www.tusimple.com/ (NASDAQ: TSP)

[3] https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheng-lu-8b134718/

[4] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/xiaodihou_last-night-i-read-f...

[5] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tusimp...

[6] https://hydron.com/

[7] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001823593/0...

What is 8k?

https://www.sec.gov/answers/form8k.htm

> TuSimple and its leadership are currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) on suspicions of illicit technology transfer.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tusimple-co-founder-ousts-board...

Good move to cut ties with then!

Although, note that only prevents you from engaging in future wrong-doing with a company; you can still get in trouble if you participated in crimes -- or were aware of them -- during your time at a company, after you leave.

I live in SD and interviewed here for an internship. Everyone that works there* is literally from China...

What are you trying to say?

The workforce is apparently not diverse?

100% chinese would be 100% diverse

sorry. i meant to respond to the comment referencing the fact that they're under investigation for ties to china.

I don't know what 8k is or who this person is.

An 8k is a particular form that listed corporations are required to file publicly when certain categories of events or decisions happen that they were required to disclose to shareholders

I imagine people in the actual real world looking at a story like this and wondering why someone's teacup soap opera in the SV tech bubble rises to worthiness to broadcast an installment of the world's most boring soap opera.

I still don't understand why this keeps being upvoted! The story must be of some wider interest to people, but as of the time of my posting this, nobody seems to have been able to explain why!

This is the HTML version of the 8-K announcement on Dr. Xiaodi Hou the company TuSimple Holdings Inc. submitted to the SEC on 2023-03-13 17:12:29 EST:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1823593/000119312523...

  On March 9, 2023, Dr. Xiaodi Hou notified TuSimple Holdings Inc. (the “Company”) that he was resigning from the Company’s board of directors, effective immediately.

  Prior to his resignation, the Company was in the process of conducting an internal investigation into claims that Dr. Hou was approaching TuSimple employees about leaving the Company and joining a new venture being planned by Dr. Hou. Dr. Hou resigned while the investigation was ongoing.

If you do not want to log in on LinkedIn to read it:

By Dr. Xiaodi Hou (AI, ML specialist)

Last night I read for the first time the company’s 8k announcing my resignation. I was not provided with a draft of this disclosure prior to its filing, so I wish to provide some further thoughts that led to my decision.

I resigned from TuSimple last week given my continuing concerns about current leadership at the company, and my fundamental disagreement with TuSimple’s new business strategy and future direction. It was time for me to step down from the board and move on with my life. And then when I learned about the Company’s investigation into my future plans and conversations with employees, I became greatly concerned about the fairness and bias of the process.

I believe that the so-called investigation was retaliation instigated by TuSimple’s Chairman and CEO in response to my disagreements over several decisions. For example, I was openly critical of their decision to change the direction of technology developments. And I refused to support the lucrative CEO executive compensation package they sought while simultaneously laying off hundreds of extremely talented employees just before Christmas.

I am regularly approached by current TuSimple employees who are disappointed with the current leadership and direction of the company. They come to me because we were a family, and we still are. Over the past few months, many employees reached out to me for my advice about their careers and the changes at the company. Many asked about my own plans. In every engagement, I stayed true to my responsibilities and duties as a director.

I understand some employees were cornered, harassed and threatened by management during the interview process. That’s appalling and hardly reflects an unbiased search for the truth.

I believe that TuSimple’s latest attack stems from a concerted effort to blame me for the low morale among talented employees and from management’s fear of what I could accomplish on my own.

There have just been too many moments of frustration, agony, and disappointment over the past year. Many TuSimple employees have lost all sense of the mission we originally had to transform the transportation industry through autonomous trucking. Without a mission and good leadership, it appears that TuSimple has now resorted to threats and intimidation.

I expect this is yet another example of founder conflict which instead of being resolved through dialogue and lots of listening to the other side, has just escalated to an outright open war in the open. It's a shame, but it happens.

What is a “company’s 8k”?

https://www.sec.gov/files/form8-k.pdf

Fun exercise;

Step One: D/load all EDGAR (US SEC) and SEDAR (Canada, TSX) and other exchange filings (each has thousands daily), and spend time learnng the various types (notifications, stock assignments, annual + quarterly reports, technical reports, board changes, etc) and patterns of key information.

Step Two: Magic AI + databases

Step Three: Profit! (or, at the very least a much deeper understanding of energy, resources, and trade flows and activities across the globe).

Bloomberg Terminal (minus the AI woo woo).

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met...

is a better example of that work from 15+ years back in just the resource sector (minus the AI woo, just with the factoid extraction and additional cross linking to global mineral lease).

It’s a regulatory filing for public companies in the States. It’s one way the officially communicate with their shareholders

Thanks, sometimes business jargon can be pretty difficult to guess!

> a filing that companies make to "announce major events that shareholders should know about."

[1] https://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/form-8-k/

Content: Xaiodi Hou cofounded cofounded autonomous trucking startup TuSimple in 2015 & resigned because of an agreement over the CEO's pay & the company's shift in focus from Level 4 autonomy to Level 2 autonomy.

More: https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/14/tusimple-co-founder-blames...

Hmm, was the feud has anything to do with whom their investors backed to be the CEO? I am not so sure because it's common to see that some VCs would prefer to have a co-founder as the CEO instead of bringing an outsider, who might not understand the business model.

What is an "8k?"

It's a regulatory filling with the security and exchange commission which is required of publicly traded companies in response to certain events (mainly those that could impact shareholders)

>They come to me because we were a family, and we still are.

They most definitely are not. They are in an employment relationship.

Even after this event they project this psychobabble. Amazing really.

Couldn’t read. LinkedIn made me log in, which I grudgingly consented to, then demanded I update the app. Fuck that noise.

I can read it fine in Firefox (even with noScript disabled!) and Epiphany. I get a cookie banner popover at the top of the screen, but that's it, and it doesn't obscure any of the article.

Reader mode mostly works too, except all the text is put in one long paragraph. That's not ideal, but it's still readable.

Linkedin is a bit weird. They'll sometimes let you in, but other times force you to login. It's not even A/B testing, they've been at it for years. It does make it way easier to just not bother using their crummy site though.

Xiaodi HouXiaodi Hou I build stuff. ``` Last night I read for the first time the company’s 8k announcing my resignation. I was not provided with a draft of this disclosure prior to its filing, so I wish to provide some further thoughts that led to my decision.

I resigned from TuSimple last week given my continuing concerns about current leadership at the company, and my fundamental disagreement with TuSimple’s new business strategy and future direction. It was time for me to step down from the board and move on with my life. And then when I learned about the Company’s investigation into my future plans and conversations with employees, I became greatly concerned about the fairness and bias of the process.

I believe that the so-called investigation was retaliation instigated by TuSimple’s Chairman and CEO in response to my disagreements over several decisions. For example, I was openly critical of their decision to change the direction of technology developments. And I refused to support the lucrative CEO executive compensation package they sought while simultaneously laying off hundreds of extremely talented employees just before Christmas.

I am regularly approached by current TuSimple employees who are disappointed with the current leadership and direction of the company. They come to me because we were a family, and we still are. Over the past few months, many employees reached out to me for my advice about their careers and the changes at the company. Many asked about my own plans. In every engagement, I stayed true to my responsibilities and duties as a director.

I understand some employees were cornered, harassed and threatened by management during the interview process. That’s appalling and hardly reflects an unbiased search for the truth.

I believe that TuSimple’s latest attack stems from a concerted effort to blame me for the low morale among talented employees and from management’s fear of what I could accomplish on my own.

There have just been too many moments of frustration, agony, and disappointment over the past year. Many TuSimple employees have lost all sense of the mission we originally had to transform the transportation industry through autonomous trucking. Without a mission and good leadership, it appears that TuSimple has now resorted to threats and intimidation.

Works with CSS/JS disabled.

Edit: I read his post too quickly... seems it wasn't really about himself, but rather in support of his former employees. Good. Thanks naet for correcting me.

He resigned and was not fired. He also says that directly after a large staff layoff, the CEO asked the board to pass a large salary increase and golden parachute for himself (which the author opposed and cited as one of his reasons for leaving the company).

I don't mean to be rude, but I think we should at least briefly check the source out before criticizing it.