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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

#321

Post by ryacko »

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…

Have you read FDA regulations on food labels? Flavor has to be at least printed in a twelve point font.

It may be started by lobbyists, but bureaucrats while drafting something will come up with some good ideas of their own.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#322

Post by kragen »

dllthomas wrote: post #303
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…

As someone who grew up in Santa Cruz with parents and friends working in tech, I feel the need to point out that the "SCO" involved in the lawsuit wasn't the same people as the "SCO" that developed the tech - the rights to the name and the software were purchased by Caldera after (it seems, although I'm less confident about this part) all that was left was at Caldera were the lawyers and MBAs.

Yeah, I have several friends who were at the real SCO. They had nothing to do with this.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#323

Post by Razengan »

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…

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

However something was "built" doesn't mean that those practices are ethical or should be continued, or be imitated by others trying to catch up to that thing.

For (an extreme) example, many countries were built on the massacre of indigenous peoples. Most of them have stopped doing that now.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#324

Post by ryacko »

Razengan wrote: post #323
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…

> "Theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built. However something was "built" doesn't mean that those practices are ethical or should be continued, or be imitated by others trying to catch up to that thing. For (an extreme) example, many countries were built on the massacre of indigenous peoples. Most of them have stopped doing that now.

I think it could be argued that they ran out of indigenous peoples or those people have formed their own country.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#325

Post by kragen »

pgeorgi wrote: post #313
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…

> "Theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built. And blatant copyright violation is a common tool for up-and-coming countries (e.g. the US in the past) to jumpstart their creative sector. But at some point, they all begin to protect their own work (nowadays the US is among the fiercest proponents of a strong copyright). I suspect shanzhai will end, too.

You have the “protecting their work” part backwards. You and I agree that copyright stops people from working. So clearly the way to protect your work is to not be at risk of someone using copyright to stop your work; for example, you can protect your work by not having a copyright law. Lots of people in China have work because copyright is not strongly enforced, and their work is in danger if copyright starts being enforced more strongly.

You say “jumpstart their creative sector”, but protection from copyright is just as important to allow an existing “creative sector” to survive.

Shanzhai in China will probably end, just like democracy in America. But we can hope that the flowers of human creativity and liberty will not die forever; somewhere else soon, they will sprout anew.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#326

Post by bakuninsbart »

tejuis wrote: post #309
DeonPenny wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a engineer who moved to the "other side" I used to think that now I understand how easy engineers have it.

Welcome back...

Thanks for offering him some punctuation, he could probably also use some ,,,

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#327

Post by kragen »

dang wrote: post #319
esoterica wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Would you please not post name-calling comments or personal attacks (like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20809349 and, worse, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20709280 ) to HN? We ban accounts that break the site guidelines like that. If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post only in the intended spirit or not at all, we'd be grateful.

While obviously I don't agree with the comment you're responding to (cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20813149), I wanted to ask you if there's a way I could have phrased the comment it was responding to to be less inflammatory. I didn't anticipate that it would provoke such responses, and I wonder if there's a way to avoid it other than just silence.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#328

Post by kragen »

ineedasername wrote: post #259
kragen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the truth is more nuanced: production is a collective endeavor that requires knowledge, energy, raw materials, labor, and capital equipment. Here in Argentina, the government is still in the hands of landowners, who control the raw materials, just like in the medieval feudal system. The US, on the other hand, is largely run by investors, whose access to capital to invest in capital equipment was the crucial limi…

I've been fortunate to know good lawyers that have made my life easier, reduced the stress of dealing with hard situations. I've seen investors take chances on long shots that succeed, and wouldn't have had any hope without that investor help. I've had excellent managers (and some not so good) that championed my professional development and growth and took care of details that made it easier for me to focus on my cor…

You don't seem to have a very good understanding of the comment you're responding to. Your summary of it is incorrect.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#329

Post by kragen »

herdrick wrote: post #315
lordlaser9 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers and investors provide pathways to the market that allow engineers to build things that have actual value. The idea that engineers like you and I hold all of the tools and training to "create wealth" is too dismissive of those professions.

You don't need a market to build things of value. The wealth creation happens with or without navigating laws. That's not true of capturing some of that wealth.

It sure helps, though.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets

#330

Post by perlgeek »

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'll have to pay for damages in addition to the fine...
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