The hard-charging startup just acquired the guy behind Google’s self-driving car program.

Action in the self-driving car industry is picking up speed. In the month since Fortune’s cover story on the industry, the following has happened:

• Chris Urmson, the head of Google’s GOOG -0.27% self-driving car program, hasleft the company;
• Ford F 0.49% and General Motors GM 0.89% confirmed their plans to launch their own self-driving taxi services;
• Yesterday, Uber announced it will begin testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh by the end of the year;
• And even more notably, Uber acquired Otto, a hot self-driving truck startup co-founded by Anthony Levandowski, the co-founder of Google’s self-driving car program, in an all-stock deal worth 1% of Uber’s latest private market valuation including earn-outs, according to Otto co-founder Lior Ron.

One percent of Uber’s valuation is about $680 million. That’s a lot of money for a company that’s not even a year old and doesn’t have a product in the market. It’s a potentially huge payday for Otto’s founders, who had self-financed their startup to date. As part of the deal, Otto’s current employees are entitled to 20% of the profits from its trucking business down the line. (Lior says future employees will have “similar compensation.”)

Why so much for such an early stage company? Make no mistake—this deal is about talent and revenge.

http://fortune.com/2016/08/19/ubers-680-million-gut-punch-to-google/