Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by throwaway_4179 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

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…

There were several others on that team with similar (or greater) degrees of insight and execution, none of whom got paid anywhere near that kind of bonus.

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

#372

Post by throwaway_4179 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #256

teej wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Having known him personally, he does not have the same kinds of qualms as most of us here.

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

#373

Post by ridaj » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

throwaway_4179 wrote: post #371

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…

There were several others on that team with similar (or greater) degrees of insight and execution, none of whom got paid anywhere near that kind of bonus.

Very likely! Compensation at that level, in a company with this much power concentration, is not driven by much else than the owner's perception of what is beneficial to the business, however skewed it might be from the recognition of actual contribution.

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

#374

Post by arethuza » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #354

arethuza wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we could generalise your law for all of AI work: you can solve arbitrarily hard tasks and yet be nowhere near real general intelligence.

A half-joking prediction: at some point we'll solve all arbitrarily hard milestones for AIs and yet find ourselves 'nowhere near having real general intelligence'. At that point we might start questioning our assumptions about intelligence.

Well, if those hard milestones include "building an AI system to solve a given problem" then I'd agree with you.

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

#375

Post by moron4hire » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #352

moron4hire wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the ol' adage, "You don't get to be a billionaire without cheating someone."

That’s a pretty broad brush you’re slapping about there. If you listen to Marxists, employing people to do anything you yourself benefit from is inherently abusive. Property is theft! Or you could ask my father in law what he thinks about that, having grown up under Mao.

A company making N billion in revenue is a lot different than its profit, and LOT different than an individual making even one billion of personal wealth. There's a reason the adage is not about millionaires. 1 million, 10 million, even 100 million isn't really "world-changing" amount of money. But 1 billion is, and there are currently just over 2500 people in the world that have at least 1 billion in personal wealth. People don't really understand just how much a billion dollars actually is. It's an obscenely dangerous amount of money for a single individual to command.

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

#376

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #165

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…

Trade Secrets were not protected under US law until 1996. All of the upsides of trade secrets you list are benefits that they have, despite a complete lack of government enforcement, as it should be. Coke protected its formula for over a century with NDAs and effective security measures. They went through enormous effort and expense to protect the secret, because the law until 1996 said that they were responsible for…

> If the government will now give you a monopoly for the rest of eternity on any invention that you label "secret"...

You're misunderstanding it. If you steal a secret's blueprints, the government will come after you. If you reinvent the secret's methods yourself, you're free to do whatever you want.

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

#377

Post by pythonaut_16 » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #289

dkarl wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was the best self-driving engineer at a time when that was worth $120 million to Google. Is the world's best hydrogen fuel cell engineer getting $120 million bonuses? How about the world's best metallurgist? Historical linguist? You have to be the world's best in a field that could unlock dominance in an enormous potential market that is being actively contested and that one of the world's richest corporations thi…

A valid point. Especially as self driving is nowhere close to bringing in revenue for any of the companies involved. Other than engineers working with batteries or metals which lead to actual billion dollar revenues.

You might say what's unusual with Levandowski is that he made so much money while working for someone else; and while not actually achieving any additional revenue.

If a battery or metals (or self-driving) engineer comes up with a material break through and starts a company they could easily eclipse Levandowski's earnings.

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

#378

Post by dencodev » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #334

chongli wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why socialism appeals to people when they see so much suffering and inequality in the world. What I do not understand is why any scholars would cling to the labour theory of value in light of such things as multi-billionaire startup founders. It should be pretty clear to anyone at this point that all you need is a laptop, programming skills, a good idea, and a lot of luck to become a billionaire. You don…

> You don’t need thousands, let alone millions, of employees labouring for you. Name a company with a billion dollars in revenue that is, or could be, operated solely by someone with a laptop and programming skills.

There are a lot of trusts out there that operate with no full time employees and make billions in revenue. Maybe getting returns on investments isn't really a company, but it's also hard to say something like a hedge fund isn't a company.

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

#379

Post by dexen » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #374

dexen wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A half-joking prediction: at some point we'll solve all arbitrarily hard milestones for AIs and yet find ourselves 'nowhere near having real general intelligence'. At that point we might start questioning our assumptions about intelligence.

Well, if those hard milestones include "building an AI system to solve a given problem" then I'd agree with you.

With intelligence, the territory is not the map :-)

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

#380

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 05, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #331

Anthony-G wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why this post is being down-voted as it clearly states one of the foundations of socialism. A quick (and very) simplified summary of the traditional socialist perspective is that in capitalism, the vast majority of the population must work as wage-earners (proletariat) to provide the means to sustain their life. A much smaller group of people (capitalists or bourgeoisie) own the means of production…

I understand why socialism appeals to people when they see so much suffering and inequality in the world. What I do not understand is why any scholars would cling to the labour theory of value in light of such things as multi-billionaire startup founders. It should be pretty clear to anyone at this point that all you need is a laptop, programming skills, a good idea, and a lot of luck to become a billionaire. You don…

> As well as these two primary classes, there are other (smaller) classes in capitalist society,

While central to Marx’s writing, the LTV isn't particularly essential to socialism (that labor is essential to the production of value is, the LTV itself is not).

> It should be pretty clear to anyone at this point that all you need is a laptop, programming skills, a good idea, and a lot of luck to become a billionaire.

Or ownership of sufficient quantity of the means of production and a lot less luck. But, though there are reasons to question the LTV, I'm not sure how the high value of of some particular labor that requires only minor capital to realize in any way figures I to such criticism.