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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

#281

Post by prirun »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #214
kragen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think MOStek would have been able to survive in today's legal environment? I don't think so, and that's what worries me. The SCO-Linux litigation wasn't complicated. It was just fraud on SCO's part, under copyright law that was well-established at the time. With the Google/Oracle precedent in place, SCO would probably win. I agree that Levandowski, like weev, is profoundly unsympathetic, but we can't let that…

The Google-Oracle precedent is not actually relevant to SCO v IBM, because IBM didn't re-implement an interface copyrighted by SCO.

There are cases saying you can't copyright an interface:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_In....

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#282

Post by qtplatypus »

tempsy wrote: post #85
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…

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

He is also being sued. So at the end it’s going to be more then the $8m fine. This charge resulted from the judge at the civil action saying “If what is being said here is true then it would also be illegal so I’ll refer that aspect to the prosicutirs “

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#283

Post by monktastic1 »

pslam wrote: post #58
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.

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…

Former coworker of his here. As anyone who knew him well will attest, his favorite quote (from his favorite character) was "I drink your milkshake."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5d9BrLN5K4

There's more to say, but I'm not sure it's worth sharing on HN.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#284

Post by rayiner »

kragen wrote: post #124
pcwalton wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So this movement toward resolving such conflicts in the courts, instead of by companies competing to out-innovate one another, is very troubling. A lot of the things you cite were actually fought out in the courts. Motorola sued MOS Technology [1]. AMD and Intel have been in constant legal battles since their inception. The complicated question of Unix ownership started the famous SCO-Linux litigation. This isn't a…

Do you think MOStek would have been able to survive in today's legal environment? I don't think so, and that's what worries me. The SCO-Linux litigation wasn't complicated. It was just fraud on SCO's part, under copyright law that was well-established at the time. With the Google/Oracle precedent in place, SCO would probably win. I agree that Levandowski, like weev, is profoundly unsympathetic, but we can't let that…

> Do you think MOStek would have been able to survive in today's legal environment? I don't think so, and that's what worries me.

What’s different about “today’s environment?” If anything patent rights are weaker today—back in 1976, there were no ex parte or inter partes reexams to challenge patents in the PTO. You had to challenge patent validity in district court, where the patent was accorded a presumption of validity and a high “clear and convincing” standard was necessary to overcome that presumption.

Looking briefly at the case history, it seems like the litigation with Motorola would have played out the same way today. Motorola had patents in the 6800 chip bus. As a result of the litigation, MOStek had to drop the 6501, which was socket compatible with the 6800. But the 6502 was a substantially different architecture internally, and was not socket compatible. (Moreover, that lawsuit settled when Motorola got the upper hand when it discovered that one of the MOStek’s engineers had taken confidential documents with him from Motorola. Taking confidential documents with you, which is what happened here, wasn’t okay back then either.)

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#285

Post by m-ee »

DeonPenny wrote: post #252
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…

They gave him 120 million and he still left and stole. Smh thats just. Wow. What more did he want?

I never read up much on his payouts until now, but it's extra baffling to me since I interviewed with the self driving car team back in 2015 and was told all the engineers had to start as contractors hired through an outside firm until they got budget approval to bring them on full time. It already seemed bizarre to me for such a high profile project at rich company, but seems especially indefensible now.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#286

Post by ehsankia »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #257
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…

He was on the Berkeley team for the original DARPA Grand Challenge. Their team was notable for being a motorcycle while everyone else used a car, the complexity of using a motorcycle earned them big points with the higher-ups even though the bike didn't do very well on the course. So if you were a CEO looking to hire a senior guy for autonomous vehicles, he was one of the most senior in years of experience, pretty mu…

Sure, but once it becomes clear that he doesn't fit in the culture and causes more issues than he solves, why does he keep getting promoted and his pay increased?

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#287

Post by cookie_monsta »

simplify wrote: post #82
inlined wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to go back to my university and speak at the ethics class in my recruiting trips. I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer.

As a side note, ethics and legality are not the same thing. Something could be legal and still be ethically questionable.

Not to mention the many things that can be ethical but legally questionable.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#288

Post by driven20 »

methehack wrote: post #50
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.

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…

Serious question open to anyone.

What is the line between "short cut" and "working smarter"?

It's not related to this post. Stealing is wrong. It just seems to me the line between being efficient and taking short cuts is really murky.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#289

Post by esoterica »

jonathankoren wrote: post #227
kragen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments do not prioritize the freedom of their subjects; it's contrary to the incentives of everyone in the government. People win freedom by limiting the powers governments have over them.

This is just an absurd statement. Do you really think that somone is sitting in some cubical thinking, “Geez, how can I regulate purchase of ballpoint pens?” or anything else? That’s not how laws and regulations come about. I really wish someone would point to an example where any “freedom stealing” law in a democracy was the came from a bureaucrat rather than outside lobbyists. Because the way this common claptrap i…

[flagged]

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#290

Post by johnsimer »

rrss wrote: post #206

Is levandowski actually exceptionally talented, such that one of him is worth 120-600 other employees? What has he actually accomplished? All I've read is that he built a self-driving motorcycle for the Grand Challenge, but IIRC his motorcycle made it about 25 feet before falling over.

talent != value created != compensation earned
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