Does he still owe any of the $179M to Google or does that go away? Is he still in bankrupcy?
Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
11–20 of 89 posts
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#12great example of how white collar crime does not get punished. “no more than 30 months” for a theft implicated at multi-billion dollar values. that’s even less with good behavior credit
The lesson if anyone is paying attention that if you’re going to steal $1, better make it a million.... but slow down before you hit Madoff levels. There is a sweet spot north of a million; less than a few billion.
Is there sufficient public data to plot and find the true sweet spot?
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#13great example of how white collar crime does not get punished. “no more than 30 months” for a theft implicated at multi-billion dollar values. that’s even less with good behavior credit
30 months is a major punishment for downloading a doc that tracks technical goals and doing nothing with it.
It was much more than just a calendar.
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#14After admitting his guilt and serving his time, would you refuse to work with him again? It seems like he was a brilliant guy who made a bad mistake. I don’t think he’s unemployable. Isn’t prison punishment enough? Time is the only irreplaceable resource we have.
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#15Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#16Does he still owe any of the $179M to Google or does that go away? Is he still in bankrupcy?
I'm wondering this as well!
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#17great example of how white collar crime does not get punished. “no more than 30 months” for a theft implicated at multi-billion dollar values. that’s even less with good behavior credit
Two and half years is a hell of a lot of jail time. I seriously wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
My worst enemy could use a decade.
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#18Does he still owe any of the $179M to Google or does that go away? Is he still in bankrupcy?
I believe that any gains that result from a crime have to be given back to the relevant parties. If you trade on insider information you forfeit your profits for example. Maybe since this is a settlement he was able to keep it. Idk. Perhaps a lawyer could chime in.
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#19Does he still owe any of the $179M to Google or does that go away? Is he still in bankrupcy?
What do you have to do to get a job where you could be liable for $179M for "violating employment contracts"? The mind boggles. I hope they had free soda at least.
Re: Levandowski agrees to plea deal over Google secrets
#20great example of how white collar crime does not get punished. “no more than 30 months” for a theft implicated at multi-billion dollar values. that’s even less with good behavior credit
The question in criminal cases should be: how many people's lives were hurt by the crime, and how severely?
In this case, no one's life was the slightest bit injured. Uber is most likely too incompetent to be a real threat. Waymo has undoubtedly advanced far from the versions of everything that he copied illegally. It won't damage them at all. If anything, the lawsuit and criminal case were probably more damaging to their progress due to the distraction.
This is pretty similar to copying software or movies illegally. In almost all cases, there is no injured party. It's simply illegal by virtue of the powerful corporations demanding laws that they can use as a bludgeon.
Startups and other small companies don't get any of this "protection", but when someone copies code illegally from Google or Goldman Sachs, the FBI gets involved and makes them pay dearly. Prosecutors use the cases to make their bones.
I'm not suggesting that what this guy did was ethically or legally correct, just that it didn't actually harm any human life. It should probably be illegal but the punishment/fines should be capped at a very low level. The laws should primarily be designed to stop someone from continuing to use illegally copied data.