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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#11

Post by kinghajj »

dantiberian wrote: post #5
beering wrote: post #2

TL;DR: The "Bombshell" is Alphabet/Waymo's lawsuit against Lewandowski and Uber for stealing trade secrets, and an interpretation that Lewandowski formed Otto basically as a cover to get a big payday from Uber in exchange for the secrets.

The bombshell part specifically would be Levandowski arranging with Uber to steal Waymo tech, form Otto, and Uber would acquire Otto. In all of the reporting I read about this after the first filing, this was missed.

If true, would that open Uber to lawsuits from their investors for misuse of funds?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#13

Post by ivraatiems »

empath75 wrote: post #6
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

It was a stupid moonshot play. They should have just focused on being a really good taxi company.

Their "taxi" business model was completely unsustainable. A moonshot was/is the only thing that'd save them. That's why they did this (the self-driving part we know for sure, and the alleged stuff, if proven).

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#15

Post by NathanKP »

Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

I'll be really interested in seeing what happens if Uber can't recover from the burn rate and make a sustainable business without self driving.

I can see in the best possible scenario we end up with more cities like Austin, Texas that have their own nonprofit ride sharing app. I actually have huge respect for what Austin did in banning Uber and Lyft and making their own app (Ride Austin) that isn't designed to make investors and owners rich, instead just benefit drivers and riders.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#16

Post by jimmywanger »

acchow wrote: post #10

> "Uber gets dealt an injunction on their self-driving car project. They have to start again, a long way behind other companies." How is this actually implemented? How do you prevent a new project starting from scratch with the same employees from ending up with the exact same tech as before?

Pretty much the same way you could do it with any other manufacturing/industrial process.

Imagine re-creating a fairly large complex project without access to any source control, build systems, or bug reports. It'd be easier than starting from scratch, but not much - especially for hardware, all the tradeoffs and manufacturing tricks you had to investigate and implement your devices would have to be recreated.

Your end result would probably look similar, but the way you get there would be different. Just like the wings on an insect are different from the wings of a bird.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#17

Post by dookahku »

empath75 wrote: post #6
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

It was a stupid moonshot play. They should have just focused on being a really good taxi company.

They're not. Every major car company plus competitors are focusing on self-driving cars. Why pay a human what a machine can do for cheaper? Uber's future depends on being first with self driving cars.

Being a good taxi company in the 21st century will mean good at self-driving cars.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#18

Post by temp246810 »

Not related - but I do find it ironic that google is up in arms about stolen tech given Steve Jobs' vendetta against google over stolen smart phone ideas. And yes I realize that the gravity of the situation here is different but it's still an amusing thought - not sure why everyone is so offended by this comment.

Regarding the lawsuit - I've learned that we have no clue what is going on behind the scenes, so why stress over it. For all I know this is a power play by google or some evil scheme by Uber. Let's just wait and see how it plays out.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#19

Post by MikeTheGreat »

acchow wrote: post #10

> "Uber gets dealt an injunction on their self-driving car project. They have to start again, a long way behind other companies." How is this actually implemented? How do you prevent a new project starting from scratch with the same employees from ending up with the exact same tech as before?

I'm neither a lawyer nor experienced in this sort of thing (thankfully! :) ), but I would imagine that Uber would have to throw out everything they've got now, fire all the employees that are currently working on the project, and then restart something from scratch. Sometimes, if a company want to clone a competitor's product they'll use a 'clean room protocol' - I imagine that Uber could do something similar here.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#20

Post by ghaff »

tekklloneer wrote: post #9
empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a stupid moonshot play. They should have just focused on being a really good taxi company.

I disagree. They were in a prime position to be "the" self driving car company, if anyone was. Instead, hyper aggressive business tactics (which were largely unwarranted) has backfired.

The issue is that autonomous tech that's good enough to do what Uber would need it to do (reliable door to door transportation without a human available to take any degree of control in a wide range of conditions) isn't close. Even a decade or two--which IMO is optimistic--isn't really a useful timeframe for Uber.
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