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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

#251

Post by AstralStorm »

adatavizguy wrote: post #91
CarelessExpert wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to extend your monopoly by giving up government protection. You're definitely mistaken on that point. Trade secrets enjoy protection in the law, both in the US and worldwide: https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy > If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jai…

It is interesting that recipes are not art but rather fact. The same with fashion. I think that SpaceX has trade secrets rather than patents because there is nothing stopping China using the information in a patent whereas a trade secret is obfuscated.

If you have read any sufficiently advanced patent, you'll easily see they're very hard to replicate without insider knowledge, bastardizing the principle behind protection due to publication.

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

#252

Post by moksly »

ridaj wrote: post #246
cgb223 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God what kind of knowledge / training do I need to get that level of bonus?

There's a profile of the dude in Wired that goes over what made him so valuable in Larry Page's eyes. https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando... Basically, he was one of the key founders of the project that made Google Maps what it is today (a crown jewel of Google with one of the best cartography datasets), vs what it was originally (better UI to third-party, licensed cartography data). I rememb…

Our GIS department had airphoto and street view on web based arcgis when google rolled out maps. So did our neighbouring cities, with a central site trying to link it all together.

They also had, maybe, 10 users outside of our own network a year. Everyone else we’re using the traditional pre-google-maps map websites, in my country krak.dk.

I think what google did better was marketing. Then they mapped every WiFi network on the planet to make real life location tracking faster than using GPS.

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

#253

Post by AstralStorm »

lostcolony wrote: post #228
hannasanarion wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works fine for physical machines, but if you're talking about software, then copyright protections, DMCA, and CFAA apply too, which makes reverse engineering also illegal.

But independently coming up with something similar (or even identical) is perfectly legal with trade secrets. Not with patents.

And you cannot make a trade secret or a trademark something that's visible and nonspecific, like say UI design or look of hardware, placement of buttons etc. But you can make a design patent.

Patents make trade secrets stronger, especially if the patent is just part of the story.

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

#254

Post by breck »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #205
breck wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so are any property rights. The term "Intellectual Property" is a red herring. You cannot have property rights and IP rights. Logically it doesn't work (if you say my computer is my property, but that I can't arrange the bits how I want, then it is not my property). This case is well made in many places so I won't regurgitate much further. But it's important to clarify that the term is a euphemism and is in direct…

> Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks. > However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs, I'm not overly concerned with what is natural. Many good things are not natural. Why not let the market figure it out? Because the market is known to be inefficient for…

> I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks.

A very pragmatic position.

> I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented...

I think inventions matter. But I think our contributions are always marginal compared to what we build upon. If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits stop creating, there will be more than enough people who continue to create that the world won't notice. In fact, it may even improve things. We'd have less intellectual garbage because novelty would stop being rewarded as much as utility.

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

#255

Post by noobermin »

ridaj wrote: post #246
cgb223 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God what kind of knowledge / training do I need to get that level of bonus?

There's a profile of the dude in Wired that goes over what made him so valuable in Larry Page's eyes. https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando... Basically, he was one of the key founders of the project that made Google Maps what it is today (a crown jewel of Google with one of the best cartography datasets), vs what it was originally (better UI to third-party, licensed cartography data). I rememb…

I don't doubt he did a lot but you're overselling his or anyone's foresight.

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

#256

Post by watwut »

teej wrote: post #149
cgb223 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God what kind of knowledge / training do I need to get that level of bonus?

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

Beyond that, the exact moment when this guy stop those trade secrets was unlikely to be the first time he did something unethical. He was likely manipulative, lying, either to harm competition etc etc etc long before which made him good at climbing corporate ladder and negotiating.

He just got too brazen with those trade secrets. Which is exactly how people get high rewards, until it breaks.

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

#257

Post by kanobo »

bosswipe wrote: post #248
kanobo wrote: post #8

He was so brazen in using identical schematic and suppliers. It amazing to think all this is a result of the supplier getting confused from having two clients with identical schematics and accidently cc'ing the wrong engineers.

Never seen that story and can't find any details after a quick Google search. I wonder how much of the anti-Levandowski news is Google or Uber PR propaganda.

It's in the official waymo statement and was pretty easy to find: https://blog.waymo.com/2019/08/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against...

"Recently, we received an unexpected email. One of our suppliers specializing in LiDAR components sent us an attachment (apparently inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s LiDAR circuit board — except its design bore a striking resemblance to Waymo’s unique LiDAR design."

It was also in many articles. The story is that they were reluctant to pursue it until that email, you can find a ton of sources in the wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski

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

#258

Post by ridaj »

noobermin wrote: post #255
ridaj wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a profile of the dude in Wired that goes over what made him so valuable in Larry Page's eyes. https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando... Basically, he was one of the key founders of the project that made Google Maps what it is today (a crown jewel of Google with one of the best cartography datasets), vs what it was originally (better UI to third-party, licensed cartography data). I rememb…

I don't doubt he did a lot but you're overselling his or anyone's foresight.

Let me clarify then that I'm not making a case that this kind of reward is justified. Likely a lot of it is luck, and the dude might have been a crook from the start for all I know. Just saying this is the kind of circumstance and outcome that leads to that kind of reward (rather than a particular set of skills).

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

#259

Post by ponker »

alexbanks wrote: post #243
ponker wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lebron James was the exact definition of right place, right skills, right time. Lots of players have "tremendous talent" and "tremendous commitment." Lebron wouldn't be what he is today without a tremendous amount of luck. Would his career have worked out if Carmelo was drafted to Cleveland and Lebron went to the Nuggets? What about if Lebron needed to do a year in college now? How would that have impacted his trajec…

Sure, but there is an ocean between the fraction of Lebron James' success that is luck (which is substantial, as you point out, call it 25%) and that of a lottery winner (which is effectively 100%)

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

#260

Post by nl »

noobermin wrote: post #255
ridaj wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a profile of the dude in Wired that goes over what made him so valuable in Larry Page's eyes. https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando... Basically, he was one of the key founders of the project that made Google Maps what it is today (a crown jewel of Google with one of the best cartography datasets), vs what it was originally (better UI to third-party, licensed cartography data). I rememb…

I don't doubt he did a lot but you're overselling his or anyone's foresight.

The comment author is explaining the thinking behind the bonus, not saying if it justified.
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