261–270 of 372 posts
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.
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There's an element of truth in what you are saying. But in this case Lewendowski didn't build the stolen technology. He misappropriated the work of other engineers at Google. It would be one thing if he just left with his own work. That would be more understandable.
I agree that Levandowski didn't invent everything he "stole", but this is not significant from the point of view of legal precedent — whether you write code at work or your coworker writes the code, the law considers it to belong to your employer — and some of the cases I mentioned above also included the departure of executives, not just engineers. (Edited to clarify and correct spelling.)
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> It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers It's a favorable outcome for people who want stability. There is huge value in knowing that you're not going to get fired unless you do something actively malicious. Some people aren't interested in climbing, have poor interviewing skills, and don't want to deal with the cognitive overhead of learning a different company's tech stack every two years. Plus, most compan…
You are saying it like having just 4 weeks of paid holidays is a great achievement. I don’t want to disillude you, but when I was very, very junior in EU 5-6 weeks were taken for granted from the first day of work, and in one case I had 7 weeks. Now I an not a permanent anymore, I don’t have any paid holidays whatsoever and I’m much, much happier.
I am envious of Anthony Levandowski
Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-million bonuses.
I'm well-paid in silicon valley but my stock grants have been flat for years. I haven't been able to grow a large team (let alone 2000 people like Levandowski at Uber apparently). If I'm caught in an elevator with our Senior VP, I don't really know what to say (and I'm certainly not invited up to the executive floor to continue the conversation afterwards).
And yet here we have a guy who did all this by orders of magnitude and at multiple companies. I don't want to be a dirtbag like him, but I will admit I am envious.
I am going to admit out loud something that I suspect many people here also feel: I am envious of Anthony Levandowski Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-m…
I am going to admit out loud something that I suspect many people here also feel: I am envious of Anthony Levandowski Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-m…
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I don’t know details about his work at Google but it isn’t uncommon for people who have gotten caught criminally to have done plenty to push the envelope over the years, with actions going from ok, to aggressive, to sleazy, to unethical (but still legal), to unethical (possibly civil offenses), and eventually to criminal. It isn’t usually that someone turns overnight. Again, I don’t know details here but if you see p…
> it isn’t uncommon for people who have gotten caught criminally to have done plenty to push the envelope over the years That's actually part of espionage 101- pressuring a person through each little step on the ladder so that they can get all the way up to straight-up criminal behavior without ever doing anything that much worse than they did the week before. I'm not saying this is an incident of espionage, just tha…
I am going to admit out loud something that I suspect many people here also feel: I am envious of Anthony Levandowski Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-m…
Not me, totally fine if I never have 2000 people working for me.
Unfortunately, time and again I've seen that the person who grows that big team, etc, is an unqualified idiot asshole. Good guys don't frequently win.
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I have no idea about this guy, but in my experience, people like this always seem to be pleasant, creative types on the outside. Every now and then in conversation they hold weird viewpoints you just can't reconcile with their projected image, and wonder if you've misjudged them. They usually turn out to have an underlying wonky or absent moral compass, and abusive personality traits. The outward image is a confidenc…
Lewandowski evidently was very creative. I don't think that's in any doubt. His Google Maps work is genius.
"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…