Kyle Vogt Out at Cruise

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigned late Sunday night.

The company has been in turmoil for weeks after an accident that caused California to suspend the company’s permit and eventually Cruise to decide to pull all vehicles from the road.

Cruise was the central thesis behind owning shares of General Motors, one of the first stocks I covered on Asymmetric Investing. Now, that thesis should be questioned more than ever.

I don’t have answers yet and will give time for GM and Cruise to plot a path forward, but I want to provide you with what we know now and the questions I want answers to.

Over the weekend, Vogt started to lay breadcrumbs that his days may be numbered at Cruise.

That was a precursor to his resignation on Sunday night. I’ve posted the full series of tweets below.

The tone tells me he knew this day was coming and that he still believes in what he spent a decade doing. A little different than Sam Altman’s ouster 48 hours earlier.

For whatever that’s worth.

As an investor in GM and ultimately Cruise, I have questions:

1. Was Vogt the fall guy? GM and Cruise need to get back in the good graces of regulators, so is it Vogt who is going to take the fall to make that happen? And/or was he at fault for Cruise’s botched response to regulators?

2. Is GM bringing adult supervision to a reckless startup? This would be the most bullish interpretation. Maybe there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Cruise’s technology, but it needs more supervision to make sure the balance between safety and moving fast is appropriate.

3. Did Vogt do something messed up? Vogt built Cruise, which means he’s responsible for the company’s technology and culture. Was there something fundamentally amiss that was uncovered in the last few weeks?

4. Was Vogt never the right person for the job? Vogt started Cruise, but he wasn’t CEO between 2018 and 2021 when the company scaled under former GM executive Dan Amman. But Amman was reportedly interested in going public while the market was hot, which GM rejected, and ultimately Amman was ousted. Maybe Vogt took the job reluctantly? Maybe he wasn’t prepared to put in another decade of work to get Cruise off the ground commercially. Maybe his heart wasn’t in it? There’s a concept called wartime CEOs and peacetime CEOs. It’s wartime for Cruise and Vogt might not be the person for that job.

5. Is Cruise done for? I have to ask. Right now, I don’t know.

As I finish writing this two hours before the market opens, we haven’t heard from GM and tech reporters have been awake all night covering the OpenAI drama.

Speaking of, Emmett Shear was named CEO of OpenAI about the time Vogt quit. Could Vogt be leaving Cruise to join OpenAI? It’s possible.

There’s a lot we don’t know, but the thesis for GM and Cruise needs rethinking. That will take time, especially after one of the wildest weekends in tech history.

Disclaimer: Asymmetric Investing provides analysis and research but DOES NOT provide individual financial advice. Travis Hoium may have a position in some of the stocks mentioned. All content is for informational purposes only. Asymmetric Investing is not a registered investment, legal, or tax advisor or a broker/dealer. Trading any asset involves risk and could result in significant capital losses. Please, do your own research before acquiring stocks.