The Real Reason Behind Ford's Billion-Dollar Bet On A Self-Driving Car Start-Up

Ford Motor said Friday it will invest $1 billion over the next five years in a Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company, Argo AI, to help put fully autonomous vehicles on the road by 2021 and to potentially license self-driving car technology to other companies. That in itself is pretty big news: major auto company plunks down huge money for robotics geeks to help it across the finish line on ambitious self-driving car project. But there's another very interesting aspect to the deal that shows Ford is serious about leading in the race to develop self-driving cars. With its $1 billion investment, Ford will become majority stakeholder in Argo AI, but the rest will be owned by Argo AI's cofounders, Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, and their team, including a contingent of Ford software engineers who will leave Ford and become Argo AI employees. Giving those workers a piece of the company as a sweetener is seen as critical to attracting and retaining talent in the competition between traditional automakers and Silicon Valley to develop cars of the future.