Agreed. Mark Vinnels for one. I don't recall some of the others, but Vinnels was featured prominently in a couple of them. Oh and the CTO, Michael Bell. Looks like he took a year off, probably as part of a non-compete, and now works for Lucid as their Digital SVP. Mark Vinnels is actually still listed as the Executive Director of Engineering and Programs at Rivian but he is no longer with the company. It actually seems as though he has fallen off the face of the planet.
There was a weird wrongful termination lawsuit involving Vinnels IIRC. Some engineer thought they/Vinnels-specifically weren't being honest about the range of the trucks to The Long Way Up production team and couldn't let it go to the point of getting a little freaked out about it apparently. Given how famously LWU appears to have gotten along with Rivian it's hard to say how well he pegged that situation but definitely sounds like some counter-to-Rivian-culture stuff may have happened there.
From what I’ve read about that situation, pretty much everyone is on the same side EXCEPT that former employee. Reports were they were difficult to deal with from the get-go, and never fit in. It’s all heresay, of course... But without getting more detail, and in the absence of any other discord, I’m of the opinion that it simply wasn’t a good fit for that employee.
Definitely not a guy with the coping skills to have been sent out with the LWU crew from the sound of it. But sometimes ugly situations are avoidable from more than one direction. That said, I honestly have no idea if that was related. I think there may have been some Mclaren vs OG Rivian engineer culture clash too. Definitely saw some of that in really old Glassdoor reviews at one point.
Or promises of things no longer offered....
