Uber followed through on their public warning. Doesn't look good I must say.
Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
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Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#12Interesting. The situation between Uber and Levendowski always reminded me of the prisoner dilemma. If one bails on the other, might the other starts talking about what really happened? I think that staying together would have been the best course of action for Uber. Very interesting to see how this will develop.
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#13Surprised that took this long. Hot potato dropped, now let's see where the damage claims will point.
I don't really understand how damages claims work. Can someone shed some light? No company has made any money off self driving cars. Google/Waymo has definitely not. How can they demonstrate damages?
(Months of how much of a headstart they had * monthly cost of licensing their tech after it is finished)
That is how I would calculate it...
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#14I was thinking simply, "too little, too late" but then realized this could be quite interesting. Uber's model in most domains is to push hard over the line in the hopes of moving that line. More charitably this could be called "ask for forgiveness rather than permission". So canning Levendowski could be seen as simply a case of this. But Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, who could now spill beans on all…
Unless they promised to give him a large sum / stocks after everything is settled if he agrees not to talk.
Would be tricky to pull off without a serious charge of "impeding justice".
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#15I was thinking simply, "too little, too late" but then realized this could be quite interesting. Uber's model in most domains is to push hard over the line in the hopes of moving that line. More charitably this could be called "ask for forgiveness rather than permission". So canning Levendowski could be seen as simply a case of this. But Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, who could now spill beans on all…
> But Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, who could now spill beans on all sorts of unsuspected malfeasance. At this point what has he got to lose?
His freedom. There's a reason he took the Fifth, and tried to force Uber not to release information to support that.
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#16Surprised that took this long. Hot potato dropped, now let's see where the damage claims will point.
I don't really understand how damages claims work. Can someone shed some light? No company has made any money off self driving cars. Google/Waymo has definitely not. How can they demonstrate damages?
It varies from claim to claim.
There are multiple types of damages for multiple claim types.
You'd have to be more specific :)
In general, "actual" damages are not the only thing in the world. If all you ever could get were "actual" damages, it would almost always be more efficient to breach contracts :)
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#17OK:
Here is some context for those who aren't current on the case.
One result of the injunction (all of the hearings up until now) was that uber needs to use all of its power to compel levandowski to testify, the extreme limit of which is firing him. Uber followed through as was legally required
This is one part of a number of things that came out of preliminary injunction hearings, other parts are (1) the breadth of the case is much smaller than as originally filed, its now about trade secrets, not about patent infringement (2) Waymo is allowed a bit more indepth "discover" to see if they can find evidence of their tech in ubers documents or in ubers hardware itself.
Legally, there is no inference that can be drawn from this to imply uber is guilty, they have willfully carried out a court order.
Uber still has a self driving car program, that is staffed by a few hundred engineers.
The case against levandowski has been referred to a federal prosecutor to review the possiblity of criminal charges against levandowski, if I was his lawyer and he was in this position, I would likely refer him to "plead the fifth" regardless of his guilt.
The case is most definitely still going to trial
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#18Interesting. Could Levandowski throw Uber under the bus without incriminating himself?
Additionally, I wonder if Uber has clawback agreements in place for their Otto acquisition.
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#19What if Uber is actually innocent? I've always just assumed they are guilty and planned this all along.
Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski
#20OK: Here is some context for those who aren't current on the case. One result of the injunction (all of the hearings up until now) was that uber needs to use all of its power to compel levandowski to testify, the extreme limit of which is firing him. Uber followed through as was legally required This is one part of a number of things that came out of preliminary injunction hearings, other parts are (1) the breadth of…
One result of the injunction (all of the hearings up until now) was that uber needs to use all of its power to compel levandowski to testify, the extreme limit of which is firing him. Uber followed through as was legally required
How does firing him equate to pressuring him to testify?