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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

#231

Post by lostcolony »

bonoboTP wrote: post #140

An honest and naive question from someone outside industry: where is the line between stealing trade secrets and taking your experience and expertise developed at another company to a new company. Where does a lesson learned during project X become taking the know-how of the company which it developed during project X? Because obviously the next company pays you so much because they see in your CV that you gained exp…

Taking best practices is not the same as taking trade secrets. It's ambiguous and murky, yes, but realistically, if it is ambiguous and murky, the case is likely to fall apart. It's when it's clear that you took some secret sauce with you, and replicated it wholesale, that a case is likely to be brought, and likely to be won.

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

#232

Post by lostcolony »

MrSandman wrote: post #49
s17n wrote: post #45

I realize that he's an asshole and his behavior was pretty egregious but as engineers we should not be happy about the precedent that this sets.

Agreed. Reuters is already writing about how engineers need to be vigilant and the steps you should take to protect yourself: https://www.reuters.com/article/autonomous-uber-levandowski-...

Yeah, but that explicitly mentions physical files, not knowledge you've acquired.

Don't take physical files guys. Don't take digital files either. It's pretty simple.

If it's in your head, you're almost assuredly safe. Every prosecution I can find for the Economic Espionage Act has to do with physical files. For you to be the first charged for knowledge in your head (and not running afoul of an NDA, a patent, a non-compete, etc), you'd have to be even more egregious than this guy, and just as valuable. Good luck hitting that bar.

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

#233

Post by sn41 »

illustriousbear wrote: post #64
w0mbat wrote: post #50

This guy had such a sweet deal at Google originally, it staggers me that he'd go to these lengths to steal even more. He was getting a massive salarY, bonuses in the millions, and he had persuaded Google to pay him even more money through a side-hustle company of his while remaining an employee. Then he quits and steals their stuff.

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.

This phenomenon has been known from ancient times. A slighted ego is a powerful incentive to turn to the other side. For example, in the ancient Indian work on statecraft, the Arthashastra, Chanakya lists the kind of personalities who can become spies: See Chapter XIV of the Arthashastra:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arthashastra/Book_I

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

#234

Post by HighlandSpring »

w0mbat wrote: post #50

This guy had such a sweet deal at Google originally, it staggers me that he'd go to these lengths to steal even more. He was getting a massive salarY, bonuses in the millions, and he had persuaded Google to pay him even more money through a side-hustle company of his while remaining an employee. Then he quits and steals their stuff.

A sort of white-collar kleptomania? A thief with a stronger sense of risk management would've quit a long time ago. He felt compelled to keep going perhaps.

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

#235

Post by nathanvanfleet »

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.

I think they gave the credit to him about having the skills. But it's the truth that luck is a huge factor. The same goes for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They had enormous skill and talent but if they so much as had slightly different childhoods or friends or geographic locations it would have been someone else.

1. Bill Gates had computer access 2. Steve Jobs met Woz

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

#236

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

bduerst wrote: post #129
w0mbat wrote: post #50

This guy had such a sweet deal at Google originally, it staggers me that he'd go to these lengths to steal even more. He was getting a massive salarY, bonuses in the millions, and he had persuaded Google to pay him even more money through a side-hustle company of his while remaining an employee. Then he quits and steals their stuff.

>bonuses in the millions Hundreds of millions. As part of breaching his employment agreement by stealing trade secrets, Levandowski had to pay back one of his bonuses, which was $120 million . I mean, part of paying this type of comp is to retain talent. How much more should Google have paid to retain him? Or was this even preventable?

Except that in his case the bonus was paid based on Project Chauffeur hitting certain milestones. They retained him until the project hit the milestones, and then he left. Which is fair and square. And by the way, Chris Urmson and Sebastian Thrun did the same.

It's just that Google did not understand the Goodhart law of self driving, which states that you can hit arbitrarily hard milestones and yet get nowhere near real self driving.

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

#237

Post by ehsankia »

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.

No one is saying that talent and commitment weren't involved, but anyone who thinks there's not also a lot of luck involved is kidding themselves. Any number of fantastic and hard working engineers, not being at the right place at the right time could end up nowhere.

Of course, commitment can increase your odds grealy, but it doesn't magically make them 100%.

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

#238

Post by kbenson »

codezero wrote: post #22
sushid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "confused." I think the supplier knew exactly what was happening and decided to let the cat out of the bag.

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 stupidity that which is adequately explained by confusion.

That's a new favorite of mine. I think I'll need to append it to Hanlon's razor any time I use it:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, and never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by confusion."

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

#239

Post by dragonwriter »

hannasanarion wrote: post #177
dragonwriter wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> . Trade secrets are the only intellectual property you can be thrown in prison for violating

Wrong.

Both copyright and trademark infringement can result in prison.

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