Andy Rubin, the founder of Android and head of the mobile operating system company prior to its acquisition by Google, has left the Mountain View-based tech titan, the Wall Street Journal reported. He’s stepping away from his duties at Google to found a new accelerator for hardware startups. Rubin said that he wanted to do something on his own for a change, rather than work at Google.
The news comes almost a year and a half after Google exec Sundar Pichai took the reins for the company’s Android group from Rubin, who then went to work on robotics projects at the company. James Kuffner, a Research Scientist at Google, will replace him as head of the robotics group.
Google is also undergoing a massive restructuring at the moment. Pichai has been put in charge of running the company’s core products, and staff have been moved around as well.