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Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#171

Post by oh_sigh »

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…

Do you need to be hired by somebody when you have $150M+ in personal assets? You could start your own company entirely self seeded with 100+ employees with that amount of money, and still have a lot left over as a safety net.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#172

Post by [deleted] »

openmosix wrote: post #113
untog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you talk about what happened it doesn't magically mean all the punishment falls on the other side. If Levendowski admits to breaking the law he'll be punished, no matter if he is or isn't friends with Uber at the time.

Depends. If the story is how Waymo pictured it (the entire acquisition was an orchestrated plan with Uber to take IPs out of Google), if I were Levandowski I'd be reaching out to Waymo and propose a deal. I'll give you information to crucify Uber but you let me go. I guess Waymo is after Uber more than a single engineer.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#173

Post by dragonwriter »

gnicholas wrote: post #119
ooqr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spite of what you see on TV, it's not up to a victim to decide whether or not to press criminal charges in the end. That's up to the attorney general usually.

Victims can choose not to cooperate with an investigation, which makes it much harder (and in some cases impossible) for a prosecution to proceed.

If all the relevant material is "spilled" in a civil trial that the victim is pursuing against someone else, the victim's cooperation in the criminal case is less likely to be needed.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#174

Post by 7ero »

At this point, I think this is a move to slow Uber's entry into the market, there is probably irrevocable damage because I would imagine it's hard to prevent their IP from being used.

I wonder how things would have played out if Otto was never acquired.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#175

Post by JCharante »

ooqr wrote: post #105
lurker456 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't google offer him immunity of sorts in return for spilling the beans on Uber ? They dont need to claw back the money, it is pocket change to them. Restricting Uber from entering that market (on potentially near equal footing) is far more valuable.

In spite of what you see on TV, it's not up to a victim to decide whether or not to press criminal charges in the end. That's up to the attorney general usually.

Correct. See: Aaron Swartz (rest in peace)

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#176

Post by jacquesm »

hluska wrote: post #164
mikekij wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. How is this not the main crux of the argument for Uber's being complicit in the IP theft?

I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if Uber could argue: 1.) At the time of acquisition, Levandowski was one of the world's leading experts on self driving technology. 2.) As one of the world's leading experts, Levandowski was able to recruit an incredible team. 3.) Self driving technology could be worth trillions and, in Uber's particular case, it would remove one of their biggest cost centres, thus making their busines…

Talk is cheap. Now show me the changelog starting at day #1 of the company. And there had better not be a multi-megabyte super productive day on day #1.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#177

Post by sharkweek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #168
aetherson wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber isn't trying to pin thinks on Levandowski. They've actually been very courteous of him. The deal is: Levandowski pled the 5th and refused to produce a lot of documents that he was ordered to by the court. Uber can't plead the 5th as it's not a natural person and it isn't be criminally prosecuted (EDIT: dragonwriter points out that non-natural persons can plead the 5th. For various reasons, Uber isn't asserting 5…

> Uber can't plead the 5th as it's not a natural person and it isn't be criminally prosecuted. Uber can plead the fifth [EDIT: no, it can't, see note at end] (it applies not just to natural persons, and corporations are subject to criminal process as well), but a party to a civil suit pleading the fifth can have that held against them, and if you take the fifth you can't do it selectively, any issue you take the fift…

Funny anecdote - my friend is a county prosecutor, and occasionally gets "pro se" defendants, trying to do it themselves.

He had one such gentleman on trial, representing himself. He was called to testify, and decided he was going to plead the fifth on specific questions he didn't want to answer while on the stand, which isn't how it works.

The judge had to explain to him that he had already waived his right to plead the fifth, and was going to have to answer honestly under oath, not a good look in front of a jury.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#178

Post by eitally »

tuna-piano wrote: post #89
CPLX wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't know much - but perhaps Google could make a deal with Levandowski that if he spills the beans on what Uber did, then Google won't go after him? Google obviously has much more to gain by suing Uber than suing a dude. If Google needs information, and Levandowski has that information, it would seem to be a good deal. But if there's also possible criminal proceedings, Levandowski would need to make a similar deal…

Google currently is in arbitration with Levandowski, so the odds are relatively good they'll get both (positive outcomes from both suing Uber and pursuing AL).

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#179

Post by chc »

joering2 wrote: post #140

... comes as a result of his involvement in a legal battle between Uber and Waymo, the self-driving technology unit spun out of Google last year. Honest question - can they do that to him, or anyone else, before guilt is actually proven? What if the result is that nothing is found?? Can he counter-sue for wrongful termination?? Next time if you are company X and are angry your employee Y left for company Z, just sue…

They're firing him because they ordered him to cooperate with the investigation and he refused to do so, not for being guilty of a crime.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#180

Post by ecnahc515 »

kbenson wrote: post #130
jmccaf wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://lostinjapan.groth.hm/archives/2010/04/sitting-at-the-... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-il... Legend has it that Japanese companies, rather than terminate under-performing employees, will seat them "at the window" and not assign them any tasks at all ... This is not terribly compelling short-term, but is horribly boring .

Played well, that sounds like a good way to get your side project off the ground. Then again, I imagine the cross section of under-performing employees that get this treatment and those that are ambitious enough to follow through on an idea for a side project/business is probably quite small. Also, you probably would have to hide all the work, since depending on your contract your employer would probably have some cl…

In these Japanese companies they'll be sorta monitoring you and fire you if you're caught not doing the mundane tasks they've assigned you. So they basically force you to quite or get fired.
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