Uber has withdrawn a job offer to a top Amazon exec after discovering a discrepancy

Uber has rescinded a job offer it made to Amazon’s top voice-shopping VP, Assaf Ronen, to become its top product exec, after it discovered a discrepancy related to his tenure at the e-commerce giant, according to a memo from CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Sources said that Ronen had left Amazon at the very end of 2017 and was not working for the company as Uber had thought he was at the time of the hiring. It was not clear why he had left Amazon.

Apparently, Uber found this out after Recode broke the news of the hire earlier this month, which disqualified Ronen for the job.

This botched hiring is a clear setback for Khosrowshahi, who is also dealing with a tragic accident earlier this week involving one of Uber’s self-driving cars in which a pedestrian was killed in Arizona.

Ronen was also a big get for Uber, having done stints at Microsoft and Amazon. At the e-commerce giant, he was VP of voice and natural user interface shopping and was brought in to stabilize the key unit at Uber.

Product VP Manik Gupta, who came from Google and has been running large swaths of maps and marketplace, will run the product organization on an interim basis.

Former product head Daniel Graf also remains an adviser to Uber. He came to Uber in late 2015 as head of Marketplace Dynamics, managing the algorithms that matched drivers with riders and set prices; he reported to then-VP of product Ed Baker. Graf later replaced Baker when he left the company in March 2017.

Here is Khosrowshahi’s memo to staff today:

Team:

I wanted to let you know that we have had withdrawn our offer to Assaf Ronen.

Hiring is, quite literally, the heart and soul of our company and rescinding Assaf’s offer was not a decision we took lightly. I also recognize that it’s one more disruption for our stellar Product organization. But when it comes to who joins our team, we have very clear expectations, and this was the right thing for us to do.

There is one silver lining: we have a strong bench. Effective today, Manik Gupta, who was recently promoted to VP, will take over interim leadership of the overall Product organization. As I said last week, Manik has an amazing reputation in Silicon Valley and has been an incredible mentor and coach for many at Uber. I trust him completely to keep the Product team firing on all cylinders as we continue to create the best experience for riders and drivers around the world.

Onward -

Dara

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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