It’s no secret that Alphabet Inc (GOOG, GOOGL) and Uber are competitors. Both companies are investing heavily in self-driving cars, a technology that auto industry innovator Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) is leading the charge to develop.
But an important part of self-driving cars, and a vital part of the logistical empire Uber hopes to build, is a reliable mapping system. In the past, Uber has relied heavily on Google Maps, but recently has been trying to pivot away from that reliance as competition heats up.
And nothing quite says competition is heating up like talent-poaching, which Uber has been doing a lot of recently.
According to a LinkedIn (LNKD) post on Tuesday, Uber just nabbed the director of product for Google Maps, Manik Gupta.
GOOG stock holders have known for some time that Uber is stepping up its mapping game, and Uber even admitted in October that it was strapping cameras to cars to build its own street mapping from scratch.
Now Uber has another weapon in Gupta, who is not the first high-value poach from Google Maps.
Recruiting GOOG’s Brains
Gupta spent more than seven years at GOOG, and before that he was a project manager with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) in Singapore. A 10-year veteran of Google Maps, Brian McClendon, preceded Gupta in the transition to Uber’s team after being recruited this summer.
McClendon reportedly said earlier this year that “one out of three” people he currently works with is a former GOOG colleague.
Gupta, for his part, penned a short piece on LinkedIn expressing his gratitude for having been a part of the Google Maps team, which he noted now boasts a billion users and maps of places worldwide.
Uber’s decision to branch out on its own in the mapping world was made outwardly obvious when it bought mapping technology from Microsoft (MSFT) earlier this year. The fact that Uber recently began prominently displaying the Google logo on its in-app map could also imply that the two companies struck a deal to more fully acknowledge GOOG’s role as Uber starts to go it alone.
In any case, Mr. Gupta’s note on LinkedIn hints at Uber’s vision to become more than just a ride-hailing service. It wants to change logistics and commerce, too, bringing it into further conflict with GOOG’s Google Express, as well as similar efforts by Amazon.com (AMZN):
“The problem space around “helping move X from point A to point B” has always intrigued me. During my career I have understood this problem more deeply via founding an e-commerce startup to managing Hewlett-Packard’s online stores Asia operations and finally via building maps at Google. Uber’s version of this problem fascinates me tremendously and I look forward to learning a lot more.”
Bottom Line for GOOG Stock
At the end of the day, Google can always find more smart, willing and talented engineers to join its team and improve its product. But the tough legwork has already been done on Google Maps, and now the people who helped build it are bringing that invaluable experience over to GOOG’s largest competitor in the area.
While personally I have serious doubts about Uber’s ability to execute on its ambitious logistics dreams — and I certainly don’t feel the Uber IPO will be worth an investment when that day comes — Google needs to stop bleeding talent or risk losing ground to Uber in mapping over the years ahead.
As of this writing, John Divine was long shares of AMZN stock. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
