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Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

nytimes.com

151–160 of 372 posts

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#151
post #2

FTA, the significant aspect of this new twist in Levandowski's ongoing legal saga: > It is not uncommon for tech companies, which fiercely guard their intellectual property, to sue former employees or the firms they join after they leave. But criminal charges of a senior executive for theft is unusual.

Well, figuratively, anyways.

> What Serge did not yet know was that Goldman had discovered his downloads just a few days earlier, months after he’d made the first of them. They’d called the F.B.I. in haste, just two days before, and then put their agent through what amounted to a crash course on high-frequency trading and computer programming. McSwain later conceded that he didn’t seek out independent expert advice to study the code Serge Aleynikov had taken. (“I relied on statements from Goldman employees.”) He himself had no idea of the value of the stolen code (“Representatives of Goldman told me it was worth a lot of money”) or if any of it was actually all that special (he based his belief that the code contained trade secrets on “representations made by members of Goldman Sachs”).

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#152
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk will be the next Levandowski.

People have such an impetus for Musk's downfall but a few off colour or poorly thought out tweets is nothing compared to something as criminal as downloading everything from your company before starting a competitor. Or worse while you work on the competitor on the side even before leaving the company. Anthony should have known that files are easily tracked in a place like Google and that he'd put a giant spotlight o…

From what I can see, Musk took tremendous risks with his wealth and time and is reaping rewards from it. It is one thing to be rewarded for your risks (good) — it is another thing to be rewards for other people’s risks and work.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm no one answers why they are down voting something on topic here. Those who downvote this are doing so because You don't believe Google does exactly what Anthony did? That Google is a company who does no evil? What I'm saying is relevant and truthful and as noted clearly well documented!

Don't know why your original comment was down voted, but I'll tell you why I down voted this comment: the site rules say not to complain about downvotes. This isn't reddit, these types of comments only clutter the conversation. Plus, your original comment is only 9 minutes old, perhaps wait a bit longer before complaining about downvotes ;)

You have a lot of balls to break the site rules while saying that.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#154

Why did reporters keep calling Levandowski an engineer? He's really not, at least not for quite a number of years. Anyway, Levandowski was a lousy leader, and was really detrimental to Uber's ATG. He bloated ATG from fewer than 100 people to more than 2000 within less than a year, without paying the slightest attention to culture. As a result, the number of people grossly exceeded the quantity of work. Political infi…

It sounds like a weird case of the Peter principle - Levandowski might have been a good engineer, so good that he couldn't stay an engineer and had to try to climb up until he was directing the self-driving program. It sounds like he was worth a lot as an engineer, and worth negative dollars as an engineering director.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#155

I use to feel bad for Google and wanted this thief to face justice. But umm he's just doing what he witnessed and was taught(told) to do while working for the big G. Google blatantly steals IP from the biggest fish to the little dreamers they inspire and such is well documented. See this popular HN thread... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929

Why is this point being downvoted? It is not relevant to this discussion or it's something else??? Again It's well documented the big G steals IP!!

Because you're letting your emotions get the best of you.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#156
post #53

The level of greed, hubris and stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. Levandowski was paid a bonus of $120 million while at Google, which is more money than any reasonable person will need for several lifetimes. This was actually a running joke at Google (while I was still there) to describe $120M as "1 Levadownski". Like Sundar one year was described as earning "only 1.7 Levadownskis" (he got paid $200M…

How does anyone get such a huge bonus?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#157
post #44

"Theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built. Fairchild was "theft of trade secrets" from Shockley; Intel was "theft of trade secrets" from Fairchild. When Camenzind left Signetics and designed the 555 (under contract to Signetics), he was "using trade secrets" of Signetics; in today's legal environment, they could have just ordered him to stick around as an employee and work on a less risky project. MOST…

>"Theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built.

And reverse engineering, for example

- IBM PC compatible via Corona Data Systems, Eagle Computer and Handwell Corporation

- VTech clones of the Apple II ROMs for the Laser 128

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#158
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maximum penalty is 250k per count or twice the gross gain/loss, whichever is greater. So the financial penalty could be quite significant.

Wouldn't a conviction open him up to a more costly civil suit? Harder to defend a civil suit if you're guilty in a related criminal charge.

Maybe so. At the time, everyone wondered why Google did not sue him, just Uber. Now I wonder if Google's legal team wasn't already in touch with the FBI/US attorney's office. It might be that the reason why they didn't pursue him in civil court was to leave the way open for the criminal procedure to blaze the trail. That would be sick, if so.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#159

Why did reporters keep calling Levandowski an engineer? He's really not, at least not for quite a number of years. Anyway, Levandowski was a lousy leader, and was really detrimental to Uber's ATG. He bloated ATG from fewer than 100 people to more than 2000 within less than a year, without paying the slightest attention to culture. As a result, the number of people grossly exceeded the quantity of work. Political infi…

It sounds like a weird case of the Peter principle - Levandowski might have been a good engineer, so good that he couldn't stay an engineer and had to try to climb up until he was directing the self-driving program. It sounds like he was worth a lot as an engineer, and worth negative dollars as an engineering director.

To his fairness, Levandowski knows how to move things forward in PoC stage. He made huge contribution in the early days of Google's self-driving car initiative, and Sebastian Thrun liked him so much that he negotiated an amazing bonus for Levandowski.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#160
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The max fine of $8m is tiny compared to what he made.

They are likely to claw back all of that money, if it's determined to be illegitimate as part of this case.

His bonus at Google predates any of this.
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