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Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

nytimes.com

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#11

Post by michaelt »

dekhn wrote: post #6
jerf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"According to the complaint, Mr. Levandowski, who worked on self-driving cars at Google, downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information about Google’s autonomous-vehicle research before leaving the company in 2016. He then made an unauthorized transfer of the files to his personal laptop, the complaint said." If the allegations are true (always important to bear in mind from a one-sided view of the…

levandowski never liked when rules got in the way of progress. his attitude was "whatever it takes to birth self-driving cars".

Or he never liked when rules got in the way of him selling his startup to Uber for $680 million.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#12

Post by [deleted] »

dekhn wrote: post #6
jerf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"According to the complaint, Mr. Levandowski, who worked on self-driving cars at Google, downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information about Google’s autonomous-vehicle research before leaving the company in 2016. He then made an unauthorized transfer of the files to his personal laptop, the complaint said." If the allegations are true (always important to bear in mind from a one-sided view of the…

levandowski never liked when rules got in the way of progress. his attitude was "whatever it takes to birth self-driving cars".

[deleted]

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#13

Post by ummonk »

It doesn't change the criminality of his actions, but something I haven't ever seen any info about: were the designs he downloaded and took with him for LIDAR systems that he had played the primary role in developing while at Google or were the designs largely the work of other Googke employees?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#14

Post by uuilly »

I used to work for Anthony at 510 systems. He tried to hire me for Otto as well. Watching this whole thing unfold from, obscure story in 2011 to the Waymo Vs. Uber trial to federal charges and national news is rather surreal. Anthony is one of the most creative, energetic thinkers I've ever encountered. If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#15

Post by AndrewBissell »

dmix wrote: post #9
minimaxir wrote: post #4

Official filing: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-self-drivin... PDF: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-release/file/1197991...

> The prosecution is being handled by the Office of the U.S. Attorney, Northern District of California’s new Corporate Fraud Strike Force I'm curious if this explains the delayed timing... New agency team gets started and looks around for the biggest fish to fry. Everyone already dislikes Uber and AI is big right now so it's win-win. Smart move by the prosecutors if so. (Or it could just be a long process due to the…

It's pretty common for the DOJ to take a very long time to get all its ducks in a row before bringing charges against very well-heeled defendants. Because there are so many avenues for the extremely wealthy & connected to escape legal accountability, the case needs to be as airtight as possible before filing charges. If anything this is actually pretty quick action relative to when news of the offense was made public.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#16

Post by groundlogic »

dekhn wrote: post #10
groundlogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Source?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal... The company was less than a decade old, but it had almost seventeen thousand employees, including a thick layer of middle managers. Levandowski recently told me, “One of the reasons they wanted us was because Larry Page knew we were scrappy—we would cut through red tape.” Page, Google’s co-founder and chief executive, often complained that the company ha…

Hacking around internal bureaucracy in a smart way is one thing, stealing IP for your next gig is something else.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#17

Post by AndrewBissell »

uuilly wrote: post #14

I used to work for Anthony at 510 systems. He tried to hire me for Otto as well. Watching this whole thing unfold from, obscure story in 2011 to the Waymo Vs. Uber trial to federal charges and national news is rather surreal. Anthony is one of the most creative, energetic thinkers I've ever encountered. If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.

Musk will be the next Levandowski.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#19

Post by bksenior »

uuilly wrote: post #14

I used to work for Anthony at 510 systems. He tried to hire me for Otto as well. Watching this whole thing unfold from, obscure story in 2011 to the Waymo Vs. Uber trial to federal charges and national news is rather surreal. Anthony is one of the most creative, energetic thinkers I've ever encountered. If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.

Hah!

Jobs and Musk are walking shortcuts. Anthony's biggest mistake is that he got caught by a corporation motivated to pursue.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#20

Post by moftz »

ummonk wrote: post #13

It doesn't change the criminality of his actions, but something I haven't ever seen any info about: were the designs he downloaded and took with him for LIDAR systems that he had played the primary role in developing while at Google or were the designs largely the work of other Googke employees?

He stole schematics, does a senior executive draw schematics? Likely no. He probably considered it all his own and didn't think about how many people played a role in building this tech.
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