Amazon Recruits Covariant Founders, Expands AI Robotics Team

Amazon has hired key employees from Covariant and will integrate its AI robotic technology. This is another example of how Amazon buys talent and technology without purchasing the whole company. Covariant will continue to run its own business.

Amazon said Friday night that it had hired Piéter Abbeel, Peter Chen, Rocky Duan, and “about a quarter” of the people who worked at Covariant as founders. It also agreed to use Covariant’s robotic foundation models, but not only those.

Chen said earlier this year that Covariant is making “a large language model but for robot language.” That is, it’s making AI models for robots, with a focus on robotic arms doing everyday tasks in warehouses, like picking up bins.

Vice President of Amazon Fulfilment Technologies & Robotics Joseph Quinlivan said in a statement, “With some of the smartest minds, we will advance fundamental research and use our deep expertise to find new ways for AI and robots to help our operations employees.”

“Adding Covariant’s AI technology to our current robot fleet will make them work better and give our customers real-world value.”

A New Way to Acquire Talent and Technology

This situation bears similarities to when Amazon hired the founders of the AI company Adept in June. Through that deal, Amazon acquired new employees and technology without having to buy the entire startup.

 The Verge called this strategy “reverse acquihire” at the time. This strategy allows tech companies under surveillance by antitrust authorities to conceal their acquisitions by hiring employees and negotiating license deals, rather than the other way around.

On the other hand, Covariant said it would keep running under the direction of Ted Stinson and Tianhao Zhang. Stinson, who had been the startup’s COO, is now its CEO.

The company also said that it was “dedicated to delivering the Covariant Brain into production environments across a broad set of global industries, including apparel, health and beauty, grocery, and pharmaceuticals.”