Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#61

Post by ajross » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #42

throwaway5752 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email l…

It is definitely poor judgement by Zoox. And if Tesla had its act together, Zoox would be totally f'd (assuming the unlikely scenario that China would actually enforce a court judgement against a Chinese company). The issue though is that Tesla has to show that Zoox is actually using that information in its products or processes. It's possible--even likely--that they'll be able to do so with respect to the Autopilot…

That seems, again, extraordinarily glib and unserious. You're asserting without evidence that Tesla had nothing of value in the documents stolen, but all they have to do to prevail is show that any of the trade secrets provided a competetive advantage.

So sure, their logistics are a mess in general, but if they had a great idea for, I dunno, shipping-based rolling warehouse allocation or something, and Zoox got caught doing the same thing, it's game over.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#62

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

zeroxfe wrote: post #22

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

> Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain, especially during the period the employees were at Tesla. What do you mean by this? They seem to be hitting their delivery targets despite incredibly (and unpredictably) high demand.

They seem to be hitting their delivery targets despite incredibly (and unpredictably) high demand.

I think we have different ideas of "hitting their delivery targets" since Tesla has missed nearly every delivery target they've ever set for themselves...not just for the Model 3 but for the S and X as well. For the Model 3, theses misses are despite having a known number of customers years in advance of actually manufacturing the car.

Tesla has also had repeated issues delivering their cars to customers. And getting exported cars out of port (one of the most straightforward logistics functions a manufacturing company can manage). They still can't get replacement parts to many of their existing customers. These are all basic logistics failures that almost every other manufacturing company (carmakers and otherwise) has no problem handling.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#63

Post by Klathmon » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #58

dontbenebby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But given the shitshow that is Tesla's logistics , that's extremely unlikely, as Tesla's logistics processes simply aren't valuable IP. Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain, especially during the period the employees were at Tesla. Hypothetically, what if their supply chain issues are caused by dogmatically following a flawed and proprietary supply chain algorithm? If their rival…

If their rival stole and use their logistics algo, that would probably be "use" of the trade secrets. It doesn't matter if the IP is good or bad, just that it was inappropriately acquired and then used by the defendant. My point about the value of Tesla's logistics IP is that it doesn't make sense for anyone to use it because it's not valuable: Tesla has messed up on the basic logistics enough times that its clear th…

>Tesla has messed up on the basic logistics enough times that its clear they're not very good at logistics.

All the mistakes in the world don't matter if the final outcome is a good one. Elon Musk has already been pretty public about some of the mistakes they made and what they learned from them, is it really inconceivable that they learned from those mistakes and are on their way toward a well working logistics system?

Clearly they aren't the best in the world with this stuff, but to say that they have nothing of value at all seems over the top.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#64

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #24

duxup wrote: post #15

It's hard to know what to think of these things with the past strange comments about "saboteurs" and Elon's own strange legal choices related to the SEC. Is this real or more of a sort of blame game strange conspiracy theory thing?

Strange legal choices wrt to the SEC? Just wait for the judge decision: the SEC is in a clear overreach here, as all the tweets they cited in their filing are non material. They even misquoted the tweet to say "500K" instead of " about 500K" and anyone can add up the previsouly published numbers to conclude the company should reach a runrate of 500K at the end of the year (Musk tweeted nothing new, it was already dis…

The judge will definitely not rule that the SEC is in "clear overreach" since the 500k tweet is only one of the many tweets they cite in their filing as evidence that Elon has violated his settlement agreement. The 500k tweet was just the final straw.

Also, with respect to the "previously published numbers," Tesla provided a range of 360k to 500k. A large range, indicating significant uncertainty. Musk's tweet narrowed that range quite drastically to the upper-high end (i.e., "about 500k"), indicating substantially less uncertainty about Tesla's capacity. That is materially new information. Moreover, Musk's comment was that Tesla would make 500k cars in 2019, not make cars at an annualized rate of 500k/year at the end of the year. He had to correct that tweet with a followup, but the followup tweet also contained material information: he narrowed the 2019 delivery estimate of 400k.

Musk is going to face some penalty for violating the settlement agreement. No one is sure what that will be. He'll probably still be CEO afterward, but he'll definitely be a few million poorer...and it's likely that Tesla will also pay another monetary penalty for its failure to uphold its part of the settlement agreement.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#65

Post by icelancer » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

> But given the shitshow that is Tesla's logistics , that's extremely unlikely, as Tesla's logistics processes simply aren't valuable IP.

The "shitshow" standard is not the standard a court uses regarding IP theft/misappropriation. I'm in enough IP legal battles to know that dumber stuff has been valid in courts.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#66

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #56

Rebelgecko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's potentially a very large difference between the number of cars made in 2019, and the extrapolated production rate at the end of 2019 (e.g. number of cars made in the last week of December * 52). I could be wrong but I don't think that before the tweet there were any previous filings or announcements saying that Tesla would build 500,000 cars this year.

>I could be wrong but I don't think that before the tweet there were any previous filings or announcements saying that Tesla would build 500,000 cars this year. I'm fairly certain that during the Q4 2018 earnings call they talked about expecting to deliver between 350,000 and 500,000 cars in 2019. I'm not a lawyer, I don't know much about public companies or regulations, so I don't know if that counts or not (or if s…

The problem isn't that the 500k was never said before. The problem was that the original use of the 500k was part of a ranged estimate with a great deal of uncertainty (approximately 30-45%), but Musk's original problematic tweet eliminated all of that uncertainty. The elimination of uncertainty is material information to investors.

And the original tweet was also simply wrong. Musk had to correct in a followup tweet about the 500k being an annualized rate.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#67

Post by shoo » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

i think back to https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon... (previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19378658 )

> Later that day, Tripp heard from the sheriff’s department in Storey County, Nev. Tesla’s security department had passed a tip to police. An anonymous caller had contacted the company to say Tripp was planning a mass shooting at the Gigafactory.

it sounds like there's a reasonably high probability that some one high up at Telsa arranged for some bullshit report to be made to police claiming an ex-employee whistleblower was going to go on a shooting spree at the factory. I'd like to see this bullshit report investigated and prosecuted as attempted-murder-(by-cop), this behaviour by any employer to any former employee, let alone a whistleblower, is completely unacceptable. It makes it a bit hard to take other claims made by the same company about other former employees seriously given that in some cases the company is observably acting in a very toxic and fraudulent manner.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#68

Post by Nelson69 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #58

dontbenebby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But given the shitshow that is Tesla's logistics , that's extremely unlikely, as Tesla's logistics processes simply aren't valuable IP. Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain, especially during the period the employees were at Tesla. Hypothetically, what if their supply chain issues are caused by dogmatically following a flawed and proprietary supply chain algorithm? If their rival…

If their rival stole and use their logistics algo, that would probably be "use" of the trade secrets. It doesn't matter if the IP is good or bad, just that it was inappropriately acquired and then used by the defendant. My point about the value of Tesla's logistics IP is that it doesn't make sense for anyone to use it because it's not valuable: Tesla has messed up on the basic logistics enough times that its clear th…

Tesla thinks the logistics IP is valuable, does anyone else' opinion matter? Didn't Sergey Aleynikov get nailed to the cross for "stealing" something that didn't matter?

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#69

Post by vabmit » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

This tactic has been used against companies friends of mine have started. I've only seen it used by large 20+ year old 1970s/1980s publicly traded companies, never someone like Tesla. The way it works is basically that you track where your ex-employees go after they leave. If they go to a competitor/disruptor start-up with out deep pockets, sue that competitor over trade secrets. It's nearly impossible to disprove in court. The competitor start-up exhausts its VC/Angel money on legal fees and goes bankrupt. Potential new customers are wary of using their tech because of the lawsuit. It's a lethal combination that ensures that you don't have to out innovate them. Stealing source code is one thing. I certainly understand suing over that. But, suing over stealing ideas about warehousing from a car company? Really? I don't see any justification for that other than a lack of faith in the ability of your own company to compete and innovate.

Full disclosure: I am shorting TSLA stock. I have worked on autonomous vehicles and do not believe Tesla's claims about their technology. I expect Tesla to go bankrupt sometime in the next few years. I'm even more convinced of this now that I see them using company-killer lawsuits against other competing start-ups.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#70

Post by 2cukng498 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

shoo wrote: post #67

i think back to https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon... (previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19378658 ) > Later that day, Tripp heard from the sheriff’s department in Storey County, Nev. Tesla’s security department had passed a tip to police. An anonymous caller had contacted the company to say Tripp was planning a mass shooting at the Gigafactory. it sounds like there…

> prosecuted as attempted-murder-(by-cop), this behaviour by any employer to any former employee, let alone a whistleblower, is completely unacceptable.

So the only evidence that we have as to whether this anonymous call did or did not occur is the statements by Tesla alleging that it did, and you choose to believe that it didn't. Why? I can understand holding Telsa to a higher burden of proof, - concluding that we don't have enough evidence - but why jump to claiming it was all made up? Without some evidence indicating it was fabricated, that sounds like a rather slanderous accusation to make.