Android creator Andy Rubin leaves Google, switching robotics for startups

Mobile platform talent Andy Rubin leaves to focus on helping other technology startups

Andy Rubin, who co-founded the Android mobile phone platform before its acquisition by Google, has announced he is leaving the company in order to focus on technology hardware for startups.

Rubin's decision has come out of the blue. After leaving the Android division in March 2013, Rubin became head of Google's robotics division.

Sundar Pichai, a senior vice president at Google, took over the robotics division at that point, leaving Rubin to head-up a series of robotics acquisitions by Google - including that of military robot-maker Boston Dynamics.

Pichai's star has continued to rise at Google, seeing founder and CEO Larry Page award the ten-year staffer overall responsibility for search, research, maps, commerce, advertising, infrastructure and Google+, on top of his ongoing leadership of Android.

Rubin, meanwhile, will reportedly be replaced by current robotics division member James Kuffner as robot chief.

It could be argued that Rubin will be departing Google before there is anything tangible to come out of the robotics division, with little more than prototype concepts currently being shown off, and even these being simply past work by Boston Dynamics for military purposes.

Rubin will be leaving Google to start an incubator to assist new businesses in building technology hardware. As someone who turned a startup into a mobile platform that has helped Google steal the mobile phone market away from Apple, there is perhaps nobody better qualified.

Rubin co-founded Android in 2003, straight after having sold Damger - another mobile phone startup - to Microsoft. He began his career at Carl Zeiss in 1986 as a robotics engineer.