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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

#241

Post by AdamN »

kragen wrote: 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…

This California effect of lax regulation is also credited with the move of motion picture production from NYC to Hollywood in the early 20th century.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#242

Post by Animats »

This is Google harassing him.

They can't sue him in a civil suit, because, as a Google employee, Google made him sign an arbitration agreement. There's already been an arbitration between him and Google, there was some settlement, and Google is now barred from suing him.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#243

Post by on_and_off »

dilyevsky wrote: post #79
cletus wrote: 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…

Check out other reports - he clearly was enabled by lary for a long time by letting him get away with anything (self-dealing, employee abuse, borderline illegal stuff, etc). Not surprising he felt invincible after this. Just like with social clusterfuck Lary bears at least part of the blame here.

Between this, andy rubin, and all the nest stories, the "leadership" at google has demonstrated a willingness to enable tons of borderline behaviors.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#244

Post by mcny »

magduf wrote: post #188
methehack wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's tragic and awful. I think calling this a "shortcut" though is misleading, at least from what the times is reporting here. It's one thing to own your own brain, it's another take 14K files, including circuit board designs and lidar designs. It's yet another to start using them at new-co that is a direct competitor to old-co. I'm by no means an IP fanatic, but that really does cross over to theft in my mind. But…

Taking PCB design files and using them at a competing company absolutely is IP theft. I'm honestly surprised anyone would think they could even get away with this; the old company just has to get their hands on one of the competitor's units and open it up and look at it.

> Taking PCB design files and using them at a competing company absolutely is IP theft. I'm honestly surprised anyone would think they could even get away with this; the old company just has to get their hands on one of the competitor's units and open it up and look at it.

I am not a Google employee but my understanding is that the biggest fear is not that Anthony Levandowski stole all the stuff but that Uber or another unscrupulous company would race ahead with inadequate self-driving causing a backlash that would bring down a legislative ban hammer on everyone, including Waymo. I think that is the real danger here.

Personally, I don't want Anthony Levandowski in prison. I just want him or people like him to not be able to work on self-driving cars.

I want self-driving cars to arrive and will gladly campaign to ban humans from being able to drive on public road when that day arrives.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#245

Post by pmart123 »

kragen wrote: post #70
cortesoft wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. He took actual code written by other people.

> If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. Kai-Fu Lee wasn't. Evan Brown wasn't (edited to clarify: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/12/alcatel_owns_us_emp... ). Don't be so quick to fall prey to the Just World Fallacy, assuming that bad precedents will never be applied against good people. Remember, too, that the founders of Fairchild and of Intel had lots of kno…

That’s still a huge difference. Someone having printed flow control diagrams, knowledge of what did and didn’t work, and the list of packages and tools used in a spreadsheet is very different ripping the entire source code.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#246

Post by mieseratte »

brown9-2 wrote: post #223
meowface wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's baffling to me how everyone seems to hate the guy and say he was a terrible leader, employee, and person, and yet companies seemed to have been valuing him like a diamond. How did that work? Is he just good at duping and persuading and sweet-talking people? Does he have some past accomplishments that were respectable? Does he have some insight into autonomous driving no one else has? Why would Google and Uber be…

The decision makers who hire people like this and decide their compensation aren’t dealing with the environment day-to-day.

Never underestimate the damage an absentee boss with no skin in the game can cause to the boots on the ground. Out of sight, out of mind is all too real.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#247

Post by rodgerd »

meowface wrote: post #221
hintymad wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

P.S., Levandowski caused similar drama when he was in Google's self-driving car division too, per the book Autonomy by Lawrence D Burns.

It's baffling to me how everyone seems to hate the guy and say he was a terrible leader, employee, and person, and yet companies seemed to have been valuing him like a diamond. How did that work? Is he just good at duping and persuading and sweet-talking people? Does he have some past accomplishments that were respectable? Does he have some insight into autonomous driving no one else has? Why would Google and Uber be…

Because the world is only a meritocracy in the sense that the inventor of the term was trying to mock.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#248

Post by jpm_sd »

meowface wrote: post #221
hintymad wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

P.S., Levandowski caused similar drama when he was in Google's self-driving car division too, per the book Autonomy by Lawrence D Burns.

It's baffling to me how everyone seems to hate the guy and say he was a terrible leader, employee, and person, and yet companies seemed to have been valuing him like a diamond. How did that work? Is he just good at duping and persuading and sweet-talking people? Does he have some past accomplishments that were respectable? Does he have some insight into autonomous driving no one else has? Why would Google and Uber be…

He was incredibly skilled at "managing up" - which in this case meant telling Larry and Travis what they wanted to hear.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#249

Post by nostrademons »

vl wrote: post #166
alphagrep12345 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does anyone get such a huge bonus?

Google has special compensation structure for some startup-like projects designed to keep talent in the company instead of leaving and building their own company. After they hit (or were thought to hit) all milestones, self-driving unit was valued at 8B by independent assessment. As one of the leaders, Lewandowki’s share was 120M.

Also, they bought his startup (510 Systems) to bootstrap the self-driving car unit. It's possible at least some of that $120M was an earn-out from the acquisition.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#250

Post by DeonPenny »

kragen wrote: 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…

I don't think those guys stole trade secret as much as they were the trade secret. They were just experts in the area and could recreate it. Thats different than outright stealing documents.
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