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Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

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Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#171

Post by codezero »

justinclift wrote: post #78
codezero wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree with you, if I hadn't worked adjacent to the financial industry for a bit. There are a lot of companies with liberty in the name (not even just US based), and I've mixed some up, even on technical issues. Obviously the "name" isn't the issue, or maybe it is, it's possible they worked with this person in the past, and it never occurred to them to check the current employer, because it usually doesn't change…

"Never attribute to Clover's razor that which can adequately be explained by Hanlon's razor."? :)

Maybe that’d be called a Hanlon’s Clover?

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#172

Post by [deleted] »

ponker wrote: post #161
bduerst wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's survivor bias though, isn't it? Hard to see the world's best self-driving engineers when they're not getting caught stealing trade secrets and forced to reveal compensation.

Not really, I can say that for example Karpathy is at the same general level as Levandowski and he hasn't been caught stealing trade secrets.

[deleted]

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#173

Post by monadic2 »

ponker wrote: post #153
teej wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the Google version of winning the lottery. Right place, right skills, right time.

No, you cannot compare becoming the world's best self-driving engineer to winning the lottery. This is like becoming Lebron James, it's tremendous talent combined with tremendous commitment.

Well, it's a lot more like tripping and falling on your face than being Lebron James in this case.

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#175

Post by paulie_a »

devonkim wrote: post #157
illustriousbear wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the security industry have told me that this sort of thing often comes down to ego and self-importance. In Intelligence, people have been caught selling state secrets for 10-20k a pop. The kind of secrets that can land you decades in jail. It makes no sense from a monetary standpoint.

Intelligence screening essentially tries to select for more financially conservative people and in the cases so far people only go that far due to extenuating situations like divorce, addictions, etc. rather than standard American Greed motive. Until relatively recently people didn’t make $500k+ / year as individual contractors or founding random boutique firms. As such, one of the oddities of the US IC demographics…

The Mormon thing was started in the FBI and goes back to Hoover

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#177

Post by hannasanarion »

dragonwriter wrote: post #138
mayneack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should he go to jail? Idk. But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. Bringing his knowledge to uber doesn't mean google can't use it. The same is true for digital piracy. Maybe it should be illegal, but it's not exactly the same as stealing an object.

> But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. IP violations are usually more like trespass than theft, but trespass is a crime you can go to jail for, too.

Not for any other IP violation. I could steal a Marvel movie and make millions of dollars illegally showing it in theaters, and I would only get fined. I could copy the formula of a patented drug and produce it illicitly, undercutting the patent owner, and I would only get fined. I could start a fast food business called "McDonalds" in blatant violation of a trademark, and I would only get fined. Trade secrets are the only intellectual property you can be thrown in prison for violating (and they are the only type of intellectual property that lets you keep an legally untouchable monopoly for all eternity).

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#178

Post by bduerst »

jonas21 wrote: post #166
bduerst wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely Levandowski has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), as is evident by his founding The Way of The Future , which is his own church to worship artificial intelligence.

More like The Way of Shielding Assets From Creditors

Maybe. I took the liberty to look up their 990 form [1] and it looks like it's an empty non-profit (no assets or activity).

Interestingly enough, Lior Ron (Otto co-founder) was appointed CEO of the church.

1 - https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/814/8147...

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#179

Post by johncolanduoni »

hannasanarion wrote: post #170
rockinghigh wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft of trade secrets became illegal with the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 18 U.S. Code § 1832. Theft of trade secrets https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832

Yes, I'm saying that government protection of trade secrets is fucked up. It renders patents completely obsolete: all you have to do is slap a label of "secret" on anything you invent and now the government will protect your monopoly on it until the end of time.

Or until a competitor takes it apart and copies it, or figures out how you did it themselves. Not much of a monopoly.

Re: Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed

#180

Post by hannasanarion »

vlovich123 wrote: post #61
xxpor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, patents cover someone even independently coming up with the same idea and making a copy. Trade secrets don't have that protection. You can still steal trade secrets. If you couldn't, you're basically arguing IP isn't property (which is a perfectly valid philosophical position, and one I'm sympathetic to)

The problem is that it would break all employment as we know it. Now all I have to do is get hired on AdWords, steal the algorithm, & start a startup to undercut Google. I can price at a loss because I'm a small fish. Google can't because they've got monopoly concerns. Even outside of that extreme example, this would come up regularly for any pure technology startup looking to exit with an acquisition. That's not to…

That's what NDAs are for. Coke was able to protect their secret formula with NDAs and access restriction for over 100 years without any legal protection whatsoever.

That's the gamble of trade secrets: no legal protection, but you can keep your monopoly as long as you can keep the secret. If you want the government to defend your monopoly, you have to file a public patent as a price of entry.

The Industrial Espionage Act of 1996 upended that balance by legally protecting trade secrets. Now you can have a government-protected monopoly for all eternity, all you have to do is stick a "secret" label on your invention. Patents are entirely redundant in this new world of trade secret protection.

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