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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#61

Post by thrill »

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.

Yes, I think this could be a very big deal.

As someone who several years ago "managed" to take over a publicly traded company (via a federal judge's order once certain evidence was presented) and gather and present evidence of massive fraud, etc., and working entirely as an amateur in this effort, managed to aid in recovering assets and capturing the former CEO and sending him to prison for several years, I find stories of (allegedly) fraudulent action (and solid response) like this heartwarming.

If Uber had no self-driving car program to speak of before talking with Levandowski, and discovery shows they basically started from that conversation, then that would seem to open up all of Uber to any discovery process - they can't justifiably claim "it's the self driving car division that did all this". This seems much more than a civil process from my reading of it. It could be great theater.

If I was on Uber's BOD, I'd immediately relieve the CEO simply based on the allegations here, and if I didn't have the votes to do that, I'd immediately resign my seat.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#62

Post by matt_wulfeck »

GCA10 wrote: post #58

For all the noise and excitement at the start of these clashes, don't they usually get settled with a licensing agreement that both sides can live with? Sometimes we also see a medium-sized payment (not ruinous) to address the allegedly bad conduct. That usually gets paired with some lawyer-like phrases that amount to a blend of quasi-apology and face-saving evasions. It's still an interesting suit. But after Apple/S…

I don't imagine there'll be an amicable end to both parties. What the lawsuit is describing is tantamount to blatant theft. This wasn't just reverse engineered. I imagine someone might go to prison if Alphabet wins.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#63

Post by r00fus »

bbatsell wrote: post #37
NathanKP wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Clearing up some serious misconceptions here: 1) Austin did not ban Uber or Lyft. The city council passed an ordinance that required a gradually increasing percentage of rideshare drivers pass an FBI-approved fingerprint background check. (These rules are in place in other locales in which Uber operates, such as NYC and Houston.) Uber and Lyft formed a PAC that got a proposition on the next local election ballot that…

#3 if anything should be proof to Uber's potential future investors that they need to be wary that Uber has anything but name recognition and first mover advantage.

They have no moat, no barrier to entry, and a whole lot of hubris just waiting to mature in the form of fierce competitors and negative PR.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#64

Post by ontoillogical »

thrill wrote: post #61
dantiberian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I think this could be a very big deal. As someone who several years ago "managed" to take over a publicly traded company (via a federal judge's order once certain evidence was presented) and gather and present evidence of massive fraud, etc., and working entirely as an amateur in this effort, managed to aid in recovering assets and capturing the former CEO and sending him to prison for several years, I find stor…

>As someone who several years ago "managed" to take over a publicly traded company ...

That sounds like an interesting story!

Have you told it elsewhere?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#65

Post by JamilD »

d--b wrote: post #32

It's not a bigger bombshell than what was already in the news. We know what stealing means. The guy is an engineer at Waymo and plugs a USB stick in a laptop to download 9GB of code. And he hoped to get away with this? I'm pretty sure everyone at Google knew, they were just waiting to time it right. "Hey, what about now? When Uber is taking fire from all directions?"

The bigger accusation the article makes is that Levandowski made a deal with Uber to create a startup with Waymo's stolen data, that would later be acquired by Uber.

So Otto was essentially just a vessel for that stolen data, created simply to transfer the IP to Uber. If true, that'd be much bigger and much more damaging than just stealing some files.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#66

Post by Xorlev »

patmcguire wrote: post #39

How credible are all these logs? Email records (came up in Oracle Android case) are one thing, emails are a known thing. But how trustworthy are Google Drive logs, a record that only exists within Google, when what they've recorded helps their case? I'm not casting aspersions, just curious how a new kind of evidence plays out.

Let's not pretend that you can't fabricate emails too.

I strongly suspect that the existence and timestamps of the Drive logs can be verified at multiple levels and exist in backups made around that time.

HTTP logs as well as MTA logs have been provided as evidence before, those too could be fabricated.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#67

Post by thrill »

TillE wrote: post #56
tekklloneer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What position is that? Having a popular taxi app? That really isn't much; that advantage can disappear in an instant when a cheaper/better competitor appears. Actually developing self-driving tech and then deploying it is almost entirely unrelated to the business that Uber has developed thus far. It's an enormous undertaking, and they were starting from almost zero.

Having THE popular app can be everything.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#68

Post by neonnoodle »

d--b wrote: post #32

It's not a bigger bombshell than what was already in the news. We know what stealing means. The guy is an engineer at Waymo and plugs a USB stick in a laptop to download 9GB of code. And he hoped to get away with this? I'm pretty sure everyone at Google knew, they were just waiting to time it right. "Hey, what about now? When Uber is taking fire from all directions?"

It's a much bigger deal if it can be proven that Uber essentially conspired with him to steal the IP. If Uber had prior knowledge, that's a very different thing than just some unscrupulous rogue engineer who wants to get rich.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#69

Post by forgottenpass »

[replying to a deleted post]

I also found the SVN allegation to be circumstantial at best in the coverage that didn't focus on any other points. Installing a tool and downloading gigs of design data is a nuts-and-bolts operation for many disciplines (even for those that don't normally use version control but interact with a team that does).

If Levandowski didn't typically access SVN on a frequent basis, it's still very circumstantial on it's own. Seeing this all laid out in the context of the surrounding allegations, it becomes an important and fairly damning point.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#70

Post by vkou »

Havoc wrote: post #47

>Uber passengers only pay 41% of the cost of trips, with investor capital making up the difference. Holy hell. That's not exactly a sound business model.

It's 41% of the driver's cut of the ride (So closer to 12% of the trip cost).
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