Shashua's departure from the CEO role: Another stage in Mobileye's maturation

Professor Amnon Shashua's announcement of his intention to step down as CEO of Mobileye does not surprise those who have followed the company in recent years. After more than a quarter of a century in which he led Mobileye from a small academic startup to one of Israel's largest technology companies, it seems that Shashua has concluded that the next stage of the company's life requires a different type of manager.

Shashua's business path began back in the 90s, when he applied his research in computer vision at the company CogniTens, which developed optical measurement systems for the automotive and aviation industries and was later sold to Hexagon. At the same time, he was involved in the founding of CogniTech, which developed image processing and video analysis technologies for investigation and forensic purposes. The experience gained in these companies led to the founding of Mobileye in 1999 together with Ziv Aviram, based on the vision that one camera and advanced computer vision algorithms could prevent traffic accidents.

Mobileye developed the EyeQ chip and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and went public in 2014 with a valuation of about $5.3 billion. It was sold to Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion — the largest high-tech deal in Israel at the time. At the end of 2022, it returned to trading on NASDAQ as an independent public company, expanding its operations from warning systems to advanced autonomous driving solutions and physical artificial intelligence.

In the conference call, Shashua explained that the management burden had become "too heavy." Managing a company that employs about 4,200 people, alongside the transition from technology development to managing global business operations that include robotaxi services, commercial collaborations, and entry into the worlds of robotics, requires skills very different from those of a scientist and entrepreneur. It is possible that this is where the main reason for the resignation lies. Shashua identified the boundary between technological leadership and operational management. The desire to return to strategy and innovation and pass the day-to-day management to "new blood" reflects an understanding that the person who founded a successful company is not necessarily the most suitable person to manage it when it becomes a global corporation.

However, the resignation also has a broader context — the ongoing pressure from the market. In recent years, investors have struggled to digest the huge research and development expenses and the long timelines on the way to full commercialization of the autonomous vehicle. At the same time, Shashua's involvement in other ventures, including AI21 Labs and One Zero bank, has often raised questions among analysts regarding the amount of attention he devotes to Mobileye — even if he himself rejected these claims. Another focus of criticism was the acquisition of Mentee Robotics. Shashua presented the move as a strategic investment that would allow Mobileye to become a leading player in the field of humanoid robotics as well, and claimed that only Mobileye and Tesla are capable of building such technological depth. The promise to introduce humanoid robots as early as 2028 was intended to present the market with a new growth engine.

However, from the investors' point of view, this is exactly where Mobileye's dilemma lies. While Wall Street is looking for business focus, stability, and clear growth from the ADAS activity, the company's management continued to invest in long-term, capital-intensive visions. The gap between the market's short-term investment horizon and Shashua's long-term technological vision has been widening, and it is likely that this also contributed to the decision to separate technological leadership from day-to-day management.

A first look at the results of the second quarter of 2026 might create the impression of a particularly successful exit point for Shashua. The company raised its adjusted operating profit (Non-GAAP) forecast by about 88% at the midpoint, but a deeper examination shows that the main improvement does not stem from abnormal business growth, but from a regulatory change. The new Israeli "R&D Law," which was implemented in the second quarter as part of the adoption of the OECD's Pillar Two rules, offset more than $90 million from Mobileye's research and development expenses in the quarter and is expected to reduce them by up to about $200 million per year. The law significantly improved profitability, but revenues themselves amounted to $508 million — almost unchanged compared to the same period last year. The average selling price per unit (ASP) also eroded slightly, partly due to an increase in sales to Chinese automakers and complex hardware systems like SuperVision, which are characterized by lower profit margins. This means that Mobileye's business core remains stable, with a revenue run rate approaching $2 billion per year, but it is not showing the growth rates expected from such a technology company.

Shashua's decision to delay his entry into the role of chairman of the company until after the appointment of a new CEO also indicates his desire to give his successor full freedom of action. Intel, which holds about 77% of Mobileye's shares, is expected to support a move that will ensure management stability and operational discipline. Shashua's departure from the CEO role does not mark the end of Mobileye, but a new stage in its development. The company is moving from a period in which it was led mainly by the technological vision of a charismatic founder, to a stage where it will be required to prove operational efficiency, generate significant cash flow, and translate years of research and development investments into business results. The challenge for the next CEO will be to maintain the company's technological advantage without losing investor confidence.

Alongside Mobileye, Shashua currently has one other major venture — AAI Technologies, founded in 2024. The company operates with a low profile, but has already raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of more than $1 billion from investors including Pitango, BRM, Dell Capital, and Lightspeed. Unlike many AI companies that focus on scaling models through more computing power and more data, AAI is trying to develop systems with deep and long-term reasoning capabilities, intended for solving complex problems in science and engineering. The company focuses on the ability of AI systems to perform thinking, trial-and-error, and optimization processes at a level that will compete with and even exceed human experts. According to the data the company has already published, a system it developed for GPU performance engineering was able to generate and optimize code for the most advanced NVIDIA architectures (such as Blackwell), achieving performance exceeding about 99% of the code written manually by expert engineers.

Working alongside Shashua is a senior team that includes Professor Shai Shalev-Shwartz, who serves as co-founder and CTO, alongside senior researchers who previously worked with Shashua at AI21 Labs and in academia, including Dr. Yoav Levine, Dr. Or Sharir, Dr. Noam Weiss, and Professor Gal Binyamini. Although Shashua emphasized that all his time is currently dedicated to Mobileye, with his resignation from the CEO role, a significant portion of his time is expected to become available. It is not impossible that he will now turn more attention to AAI — and perhaps even choose to establish another venture in the future. Throughout his career, he has proven time and again that for him, the end of one project is usually just the beginning of the next challenge.