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Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

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Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#21

Post by joering2 »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects??

Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#22

Post by tensorto »

tinbad wrote: post #13
arkitaip wrote: post #10

Levandowski has absolutely tarnished his own reputation. Sooner or later he will be abandoned by Uber - how could they possibly trust him if his thieving goes back a decade? - and finding employment or trust in the industry is going to be extremely difficult.

If he really made $120m from Google alone, he probably thought he was safe by that point, I mean, he must have thought through this and bought himself a private island somewhere to go to when the shit was going to hit the fan..?

Or maybe he'll take his talents to China?

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#23

Post by tdb7893 »

joering2 wrote: post #21
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects?? Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

I don't think that your outside of work project is supposed to take proprietary knowledge to create a competitor, that seems like a pretty reasonable limit.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#24

Post by nostrademons »

joering2 wrote: post #21
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects?? Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

They promote the use of 20% time to do projects that will be owned by Google. It's essentially giving you freedom to work on what you want, with the understanding that Google will reap the economic rewards (if any) from what you do.

Google's not very tolerant of moonlighting. If you want to work on stuff and own it, quit.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#25

Post by jacquesm »

tinbad wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would renaming a company hide your involvement? Involvement is dealt with in the shareholder registry, not in the company name. Neither 'Odin Wave' nor 'Tyto' have any direct visual resemblance to "Levandowski', the fact that 'Odin Wave' is a partial anagram of "Levandowski" isn't reason enough to suspect involvement by any other person. (Such as Dwain Evo...). If I were looking at this sort of thing I'd start wi…

"I'd start with the cap table and look for direct or indirect participation" I can imagine it's hard to get this kind of info, it's not that cap tables are public and sometimes they don't even exist at all, especially if there's no investors involved. Another data point would be the registered officer(s)/manager(s) with the secretary of state, but removing himself from it would achieve the same without having to chan…

A judge will have to sign off on it but then you'd be able to compel the other party to provide such details. That's not an outrageous request, especially not when 'who benefits' is an important question to answer in cases like these.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#26

Post by knorker »

joering2 wrote: post #21
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects?? Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

Put down your pitchfork, buddy.

of course 20% time is owned by Google. Otherwise it would simply be a 32h work week.

Gmail isn't owned by the people who made it in their 20% time. Obviously.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#27

Post by CydeWeys »

joering2 wrote: post #21
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects?? Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

20% time is to work on side projects at Google. You aren't allowed to found other companies.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#28

Post by jacquesm »

nostrademons wrote: post #24
joering2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait - aren't they supposedly promoting the idea of 20% of work time to be spent of your outside of work projects?? Or that's just bullshit PR propaganda, like "don't be evil" slogan, meanwhile taking money and being basically setup up by CIA's In-Q-Tel?

They promote the use of 20% time to do projects that will be owned by Google . It's essentially giving you freedom to work on what you want, with the understanding that Google will reap the economic rewards (if any) from what you do. Google's not very tolerant of moonlighting. If you want to work on stuff and own it , quit.

> Google's not very tolerant of moonlighting. If you want to work on stuff and own it, quit.

That goes for quite a few employers, especially if what you are doing is (1) competing with their products and (2) potentially successful or (3) both.

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#29

Post by tzs »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #18

I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google. How could the Google not have been aware of it, and how could it let it continue for so long? If I were more conspiracy-minded, I'd think they let Otto happen in order to feed a poison pill to Uber... In reality, I think they were just complacent, but still :\

> I'm kind of stunned at the amount of side-hustling that Levandowski seems to have been doing while at Google.

Well, Uber is running TV ads urging people to "get your side hustle on" [1], so at least he ended up at the right place.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKqnkoCfQGU

Re: Things learned from Anthony Levandowski's deposition in Waymo vs. Uber

#30

Post by djsumdog »

Animats wrote: post #7
empath75 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did he have time to do his day job with all this scamming on the side?

I met him when he was doing a DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle in 2004. He was an undergrad at UC Berkeley then, was doing the self-driving motorcycle, and had a successful startup selling a large folding tablet computer for viewing engineering drawings at construction sites. He does seem to get a lot done.

Some people are just driven that way. They don't watch much TV or play video games. They just eat, sleep and breath their designs.
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