Yandex fired dozens of American employees, blaming US authorities for problems

Yandex is a multi-billion dollar Russian tech company that operates a small fleet of autonomous vehicles in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In early March, she laid off more than two dozen American workers and said her vehicle licenses had been suspended by Michigan regulators. But state officials say that's not true. The publication sorted out the situation in more detail The Verge.

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Days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Yandex suspended operations in Ann Arbor and the deployment of six-wheeled delivery robots at several college campuses in Ohio and Arizona. The pause should be temporary - company representatives said they hope to resume these operations later.

They claim they were told on March 9 that his vehicle licenses had been suspended by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). The company confirmed that it fired six drivers from Ann Arbor. According to one of the former employees, about 15 people worked in Yandex in the city. In addition, the company laid off 21 workers in Arizona and Ohio who served as field support staff for delivery robots.

However, the state authorities argue that the suspension of Yandex licenses is not true. The company still has 14 valid manufacturer license plates registered in the state, according to Michigan state spokesperson Tracey Wimmer.

“We have not received requests to cancel them,” the official said.

Yandex insists that the state pressured the company to stop its operations in Michigan.

“In early March 2022, the company’s legal adviser held a discussion with MDOT, and he was asked to suspend operations,” said Yulia Shveiko, a representative of Yandex. The Michigan Department of Transportation announced on March 9 that our license to test the delivery program has been suspended. Testing without a license is not possible, so we had to lay off 6 employees in Ann Arbor.”

One employee said he was told that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had received complaints about a Russian company collecting traffic data on the streets and ordered that Yandex's licenses be suspended.

“We were stunned,” said a former employee of the company.

On the subject: How a Ukrainian student got into Facebook by abandoning Google and Yandex

Yandex has been interested in doing business in the US for more than a decade. In 2009, the company opened its representative office in Palo Alto (California), which is a 10-minute drive from the headquarters of Google. The company was looking to hire nearly two dozen engineers who could share the latest trends in Silicon Valley with Moscow.

That interest extended to autonomous vehicles after a division of Yandex acquired Uber's entire business in Russia in 2017. The two companies created a joint venture, and several Uber executives joined the board of directors of Yandex. A year later, the company launched what it called "the world's first robotic taxi" in Moscow. It demonstrated a fully self-driving car at the 2020 CES in Las Vegas, and then began self-driving car trials in Ann Arbor. Later that year, Yandex launched a delivery pilot with Grubhub, with plans to potentially expand to 250 college campuses.

These plans were disrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Uber removed its executives from Yandex's board of directors and, by initiating the sale of its stake in the company last August, has accelerated the process since the invasion. Grubhub stopped working with Yandex, as did the search engine DuckDuckGo.

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The small Yandex team in Ann Arbor was shaken by the intrusion, a former employee said. Many of the employees are immigrants from Russia and Ukraine and have friends in both countries. Despite the company's attempts to become less dependent on Moscow, the AV division remained dependent on decisions made at Yandex's headquarters.

“We were told that we have a certain amount of reserves, especially for foreign employees,” the employee explained.

Even Russia's removal from SWIFT, the international payment system used by banks to send money around the world, seemed to be taken lightly. But then on March 10, Yandex told the Ann Arbor team they were going to be fired. The test cars had their license plates removed and were told the insurance company had canceled their policy.

“If the governor hadn’t shut us down, I believe we could still work,” the employee said in an interview that took place before government agencies responded to Yandex’s claims.

When state regulators indicated that Yandex still had valid vehicle licenses, the employee recalled that some colleagues expressed doubts that Gov. Whitmer was indirectly responsible for the layoffs.

“As far as I can tell, the state has not heard anything about the governor revoking licenses,” the employee concluded.

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