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Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#271

Post by jacquesm »

dllthomas wrote: post #200
jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Have we established that Uber knew about the files?

If you invest in / buy a company for its IP then you normally - especially when the field is 'hot' and the IP is voluminous and created in record time - do some research to verify the origin of the IP is in fact what the company says it is. If you forgo such a check then you open yourself up to two potential problems:

- if the IP ends up being stolen then you may not have recourse against the person that sold it to you

- if the IP ends up being stolen you might end up being liable yourself because you did not do the minimum verification required to ascertain that the seller indeed had the rights to sell

That changes the game from 'we've been had' to 'we were willing participants' and that's a very dumb position to be in.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#272

Post by aurelianito »

GCA10 wrote: post #150
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're a smaller fish than Google or Uber you probably have less IP for him to steal anyway. Plus you have the benefit of hindsight to watch him more closely and keep evidence of any wrongdoing he might try.

There's a Dennis Rodman in every line of work. Just because his NBA career came to a complete end in 2000 didn't stop him from finding one more chance playing basketball in Mexico . . . or the Philippines, etc. Not to mention lingerie football.

Are you talking about the Dennis Rodman that worked for the Detroit Pistons and then got a second chance with the Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls?

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#273

Post by CPLX »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #240
stouset wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should want to, perhaps, but being innocent does not inherently make saying anything a good legal idea given a potential future criminal case.

Sure, people get railroaded by the justice system all to often. But more often than not those are usually unfortunate souls with little ability to defend themselves accused of crimes far more heinous than stealing trade secrets. For what Levandowski is accused of and how he is accused of doing it, there should be plenty of either incriminating or exculpatory evidence, if the parties involved want to divulge it. Googl…

There's nothing shameful about making inferences from his behavior in this case. It's reasonable and proper to assume someone taking the 5th in a civil case has something to hide.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#275

Post by CydeWeys »

wutbrodo wrote: post #224
ecnahc515 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If firing is an option, why wouldn't they do so in the first place?

Presumably it's the difference between firing with cause and firing without cause. There are many positions where performance is measured pretty ambiguously, so if you want to get rid of someone you couldn't demonstrate strong cause for doing so. Make them do pointless simple make-work, though, and you can easily find cause for firing if they don't do it.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#276

Post by CydeWeys »

btown wrote: post #241
kbenson wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, when it's summarized like that, it sounds bad, and it maybe bad. But compare that to this slightly expanded timeline summary from reading the actual filing[1]: The laptop in question connected to Google only 3 times between March 2, 2015 and November 25, 2015, despite being configured to connect every 15 minutes. ~ 2 hours on Oct 22, ~2 hours on Nov 20, and "briefly" on Nov 25. (My interpretation? It was almost…

Thanks for writing this up. The court of public opinion IMO should adhere to "innocent until proven guilty," and summaries like yours are the only things that make that possible.

This is a civil suit, not a criminal one, so the standard of judgment at play is "preponderance of evidence", not "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

The summary does seem to make it pretty clear which way the preponderance of evidence goes. That'd be an awful lot of coincidences to have all that stuff lining up in one particular way -- it just seems unlikely.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#277

Post by [deleted] »

wutbrodo wrote: post #224
ecnahc515 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If firing is an option, why wouldn't they do so in the first place?

[deleted]

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#278

Post by TallGuyShort »

wutbrodo wrote: post #224
ecnahc515 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If firing is an option, why wouldn't they do so in the first place?

Not sure if it's typically the case in Japanese custom, but there are a number of scenarios where a person forfeits certain compensation by quitting that they would otherwise be entitled to if they're fired. So if the company can get rid of them by making them think it was their idea, the company saves on severance / recoups equity, etc.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#280

Post by GCA10 »

aurelianito wrote: post #272
GCA10 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a Dennis Rodman in every line of work. Just because his NBA career came to a complete end in 2000 didn't stop him from finding one more chance playing basketball in Mexico . . . or the Philippines, etc. Not to mention lingerie football.

Are you talking about the Dennis Rodman that worked for the Detroit Pistons and then got a second chance with the Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls?

Yes indeed.
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