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Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#41

Post by tannhauser23 »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
Kiro wrote: post #19

What if Uber is actually innocent? I've always just assumed they are guilty and planned this all along.

> What if Uber is actually innocent? If an ex employee of a company making a competing product walked into my office with a large treasure trove of files I would not automatically assume that he had re-created those files in his spare time. Uber being 100% innocent would be highly surprising.

To be fair, Uber says that they didn't know about Levandowski (allegedly) downloading the docs from Google. We'll find out once they get through discovery.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#42

Post by JKCalhoun »

CPLX wrote: post #26
gumby wrote: post #7

I 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…

> At this point what has he got to lose? All of his money and perhaps his freedom. If he essentially sold Google property to Uber he could be on the hook to hand over all the money he made from doing it plus punitive damages, and some of the conduct that's been alleged against him could even rise to the level of criminal charges. He's taking the 5th here for a reason. He stands to lose, literally, everything.

If he has done what he has alleged to have done, he deserves to lose everything.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#43

Post by yeukhon »

I think no one will ever dare to hire Levandowski. His career is over. Maybe still too early to draw any conclusion, but I can't seem to have any counter potential excuse or reason to believe the self-driving programs weren't stolen. Why on earth would someone like him do that? Conceited arrogance?

Now I don't understand taking the Fifth. If everyone takes the Fifth, how do you convict someone? Find evidences, and have the a grand jury find the person guilty?

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#44

Post by CardenB »

DINKDINK wrote: post #31
gumby wrote: post #7

I 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…

>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? If he decides to cooperate with google things could get very interesting. Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, because Uber has the capital to go after. I Am Not An IP Lawyer, but I'd guess that if Levendowski had substantial assets, he'd be named a part…

Source? AFAIK, the suit was against Uber because Google's employment agreement means that they can target the company rather than the employee, but not the actual employee.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#45

Post by randomf1fan »

philip1209 wrote: post #32

Oh wow, I just noticed under the related stories that Travis's mother was killed and father was seriously injured in a boating accident this week: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/business/uber-chief-execu...

That's really terrible news. My condolences to the Kalanick family in this difficult time. I hope his dad recovers soon.

I'm going to call my mom today and tell her I love her.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#46

Post by xapata »

DINKDINK wrote: post #31
gumby wrote: post #7

I 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…

>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? If he decides to cooperate with google things could get very interesting. Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, because Uber has the capital to go after. I Am Not An IP Lawyer, but I'd guess that if Levendowski had substantial assets, he'd be named a part…

Google's employment contract with Levendowski specified that all disputes are resolved by arbitration rather than court.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#47

Post by tmh79 »

EnFinlay wrote: post #33
tmh79 wrote: post #17

OK: 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 thing I've been confused about: didn't this whole thing start when a vendor sent an e-mail to Google that was intended for Uber, and the contents of the design in that e-mail were sufficiently similar to Google's designs that Google started this process. Was the design not similar enough to prove Uber's use of Google's IP? Am I remembering or interpreting that story incorrectly?

From what I understand, no that isn't similar enough on its own. I do not understand this part of the law "very deeply" but basically, there are a few things that google needs to prove

[EDIT: NOTE BELOW](1) Levandowsky took information from google in some kind of physical way (files on a thumb drive, network transfer etc), it doesn't count if he just took the files by "memorizing" them in his brain

(2) The information that was stole was secret, and highly beneficial to google/waymo

(3) Levandowsky used the information that he stole to influence designs at uber, and specific uber designs can be traced back to information in those docs

Proving these 3 things in a civil case is tricky, that is why waymo is trying to get a lot of "discovery" which is basically the ability for google/waymo to gather information on ubers corporate network.

EDIT: (1) isn't true, but there are some strange edge cases around what stealing is, like, if levandowski is developing the state of the art stuff himself, and had been working on it since before waymo, what is his knowledge, and what is google/waymo's trade secrets?

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#48

Post by georgespencer »

EnFinlay wrote: post #33
tmh79 wrote: post #17

OK: 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 thing I've been confused about: didn't this whole thing start when a vendor sent an e-mail to Google that was intended for Uber, and the contents of the design in that e-mail were sufficiently similar to Google's designs that Google started this process. Was the design not similar enough to prove Uber's use of Google's IP? Am I remembering or interpreting that story incorrectly?

> didn't this whole thing start when a vendor sent an e-mail to Google that was intended for Uber, and the contents of the design in that e-mail were sufficiently similar to Google's designs that Google started this process.

Yes.

> Was the design not similar enough to prove Uber's use of Google's IP?

It may well be, at trial, in court.

> Am I remembering or interpreting the story incorrectly?

No - but it still has to be demonstrated to be true to the extent required for a civil case.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#49

Post by xapata »

yeukhon wrote: post #43

I think no one will ever dare to hire Levandowski. His career is over. Maybe still too early to draw any conclusion, but I can't seem to have any counter potential excuse or reason to believe the self-driving programs weren't stolen. Why on earth would someone like him do that? Conceited arrogance? Now I don't understand taking the Fifth. If everyone takes the Fifth, how do you convict someone? Find evidences, and ha…

If your own testimony is the only available evidence against you, that'd be a weak case.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#50

Post by sillysaurus3 »

csours wrote: post #40
TallGuyShort wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although for the sake of this discussion I agree with you, I could have a lot of fun making a list entitled, "things companies have done to people that are worse than firing them."

And most of those things would also go on a list called "illegal things companies have done". Probably not a good idea to do something illegal in the middle of a lawsuit.

There are many ways to make an employee's life worse without doing anything illegal. You tend to see them in dysfunctional companies.
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