
Uber to engineer: Return stolen docs, or swear you didn't steal them - golfer
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Uber-to-engineer-Return-stolen-docs-or-swear-11158980.php
======
mabbo
And now we see the scapegoat being thrown under the bus.

Google claims Uber execs were meeting with Levandowski long before he left
Google, that his entire leaving Google to form Otto (which would be soon
bought by Uber) was planned alongside Uber.

Now Uber is saying "Hey, we didn't know anything about that, but I think you
guys _really_ should go after this guy here". Somehow, given Uber's reputation
as a moral and ethical company, I am not shocked by this development.

Edit: And another thought- why wouldn't Levandowski now walk into the justice
department and say "Give me immunity, and I'll give you all the evidence that
Uber was in on this plan from the start". If Uber are going to screw him over,
why wouldn't he return the favour?

~~~
desdiv
>"Give me immunity, and I'll give you all the evidence that Uber was in on
this plan from the start"

I get that Uber is a toxic company, but I'm not sure if immunity is a good
idea.

"If you steal on behalf of Big Corp and gets caught, you can just rat out Big
Corp and get off scot-free."

Is that really the sort of signal that we want our court systems to send out?

~~~
ryanx435
yes. we absolutely want to encourage whistle blowers.

obviously the level of immunity will vary based on the circumstances of each
case, but again, we absolutely want to encourage this type of behavior.

~~~
ggggtez
Whistle blower tend to be lower on the totem pole. If it really is conspiracy
your not likely going to see anyone in the court offer immunities for
something he benefited hundreds of millions of dollars for.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
That can all be worked out as part of his plea deal.

------
yalogin
The title is odd. It makes it seem like Levandowski is some random "engineer"
that is just a leaf node in this whole story. The whole suit is centered
around him and Uber spent around a billion dollars (if not more) trusting him.
Seeing him being referred to as "engineer" just seems odd.

~~~
mtrpcic
I agree. The title should be changed to "Uber to Levandowski".

------
aetherson
It seems like this is a pretty positive scenario for Uber: Levandowski will
refuse to drop his privilege, they'll fire him, and there appears to be no
sign in the rest of the discovery of Google's stolen files.

At that point, what can Google really hope to get? Alsup won't give them a
preliminary injunction without more evidence, and they'll have largely run out
of levers to pull. I'm sure they won't just give up immediately, but I think
that all they'll really do is ratchet up legal bills a bit higher.

They'll basically have to hope that losing Levandowski is a big blow for Uber.

I am not a lawyer.

~~~
mabbo
>It seems like this is a pretty positive scenario for Uber

Is it though? Google's claim is that Levandowski was meeting with Uber execs
long before he left Waymo to form Otto. Now they're throwing Levandowski under
the bus.

What happens if tomorrow, Levandowski turns around and says "Yes, I did
everything that Google claims- and Uber told me to do it". What if he provides
evidence of those meetings, all those things. This stuff has been referred to
criminal courts now, and Levandowski is at risk of possible _jail time_.

He's no fool, and now he knows he has no one protecting him. Why _not_ screw
over Uber if they're willing to do the same to him?

~~~
aetherson
Well, the "why not" of that scenario is that Levandowski would have to abandon
his 5th Amendment protection in order to do so, and almost guarantee criminal
prosecution.

I don't really agree with the characterization of Uber throwing Levandowski
under the bus: they've been very scrupulous with him, and basically they're
only threatening firing because Alsup twisted their arm. But let's say that
Levandowski feels betrayed.

First: Note that Levandowski is super rich (Google paid him north of $100M).
It's not like losing his job is going to prevent him from living a life of
luxury forever.

Second: If he maintains his 5th Amendment protections, even if he does get
prosecuted, what's going to happen? It seems like there's pretty good evidence
that he stole the files, but without something more, how much in the way of
damages will the prosecution be able to prove? Is this something that the US
Attorney even wants to bother with?

~~~
mabbo
So he strikes a deal with the Justice Department. Minimal sentence (or maybe
immunity?) and he hands them the execs of a company that has continually
pissed off governments world-wide by skirting around laws.

~~~
revelation
There are no federal or criminal charges at all. This is all civil.

~~~
emn13
Yet. But I agree that this talk of a deal sounds rather baseless. Sounds more
like hollywood than real life.

------
bdrool
Here's the official letter:

[https://www.scribd.com/document/348851011/Uber-2017-05-15-Lt...](https://www.scribd.com/document/348851011/Uber-2017-05-15-Ltr-
to-a-Levandowski-Signed)

It's weird in the digital age to say information needs to be "returned"
(although they did also say "and all copies"). Still, I'm reminded of the old
"getting my song back fucker" quote:

[http://www.bash.org/?104052](http://www.bash.org/?104052)

------
linkregister
Anyone who has read the injunction document from Judge Alsop already knows
this was going to happen. Judge Alsop practically held Uber's hand through how
it would go. He stated that Uber must use its full authority to compel him to
turn over the files, to include threat of termination.

------
whyenot
Levandowski is extremely talented. See this video of the autonomous motorcycle
he and his team built for the DARPA grand challenge:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOgkNh_IPjU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOgkNh_IPjU)

I can see why Uber would want to protect him and hang on to him. Still if he
did what Waymo alleges he did, he should still have to answer for that, likely
in criminal court.

~~~
RodericDay
People on HN routinely debunk the myth that that autonomous motorcycle was
some unmatched achievement.

~~~
whyenot
I've been on HN for years and have never seen "people" make such a debunking.
But of course, in the abstract, "people" say lots of things...

~~~
edmccard
Here's one from 'kchoudhu late last month[1].

 _Alas, no._

 _The 2005 Grand Challenge was divided into two parts: the national
qualification event, where you went around an obstacle course on a closed
raceway in an effort to qualify for a limited number of race slots, and the
real race, which was a brutal 150 mile course through some pretty gnarly
desert terrain._

 _Blue Team never made it past the NQE, which is why everyone 's obsession
with the motorbike makes no sense to those of us who actually made it to the
real deal._

 _The Smithsonian 's decision to memorialize Levandowski's engineering
mediocrity is, to say the least, puzzling._

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14216609](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14216609)

~~~
r00fus
Levandowski is surely a smart guy, but the fact that smarts alone in this day
and age rarely get you to where his is now.

Who is he connected to?

------
bitmapbrother
I'm wondering if Levandowski and Kalanick are meeting clandestinely at night
for long walks and discussing how they're going to orchestrate this.

Kalanick "Hey Anthony, here's how it's going to go down. We're going to ask
you to return the documents. But, don't do that. Continue with our strategy of
taking the 5th for everything. We'll then fire you.

Levandowski "You're going to fire me after all I've done for you?"

Kalanick "Yeah, don't worry, though. When all of this dies down we'll hire you
back on as a consultant and double your salary to show our appreciation for
not ratting on us."

Levandowski "Sounds good, boss. Same time tomorrow?"

Kalanick "Naw, let's ice these walks for a while to throw those dogs off of
our scent"

------
khazhou
Seeing a total scumbag get compensated over a hundred million from Google, and
then hundreds more from Uber, is very demoralizing to me as a guy in Silicon
Valley trying to contribute to technology and be paid enough just to live
here. Sure, Lewandowski got caught stealing secrets, but that's post-facto. It
couldn't be any clearer that comp and the economy in SV is a sucker's game for
us peasants.

------
JKCalhoun
Anthony Levandowski seems to have become the poster-child of the greedy,
anything-goes, bro-developer in this age of the Millennial (stop me if I've
gone too far).

Let him also be its poster-child as he is crucified/thrown-under-the-bus.

~~~
Bartweiss
...are you sure you haven't confused him with Kalanick?

Levandowski isn't a poster child of greedy, anything-goes, etc. He's not a
poster child of _anything_ , full stop. 99% of the country doesn't recognize
his name or the only company he ever founded. Most Silicon Valley engineers
couldn't pick him out of a lineup. He's not even the most famous alleged code
thief of the last few years, because that's Sergey Aleynikov.

~~~
Fricken
I've been following Levandowski since 2004, he was the crazy college kid with
the autonomous motorcycle. For the past 13 years he's been at beating the
heart of the development of the most disruptive new technology since, I don't
know, the internet maybe? I wouldn't consider him a poster child, that would
imply he's representative of some broader group of people, he's a little too
much of an anomaly for that, there's no one quite like Anthony Levandowski.
'Millenial tech bro' doesn't quite summarize him, he's a force of nature, for
better or for worse.

~~~
RodericDay
A while back you posted

\---

Fricken 26 days ago [-]

Kalanick is a Napoleonesque figure, a great conqueror who doesn't know when to
pull back on the reigns, because he knows nothing else. Our memories are
short, we're skewering him for being exactly the kind of animal that not to
long ago most everyone was rooting for.

\---

I just want to drop by to make it absolutely clear that there's many, many,
many of us who've always hated Uber/Kalanick and seen right through the
facade. You shouldn't assume "most everyone" holds the same opinions as you.

~~~
Fricken
I was never rooting for Uber, I never said I was. I'm fascinated by Uber, I
try to remain objective in my analysis, I don't think they're good guys. When
they rolled into my city, I was the lone contrarian in my local subreddit
saying 'Hey man, watch out, they play dirty', and getting downvoted into
oblivion. I've never actually taken a ride in an Uber. For normal people
outside the insular realm of tech news, I don't know anyone who's even paying
attention to their borderline shenanigans.

------
woodandsteel
See

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/uber-
threatens-t...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/uber-threatens-to-
fire-levandowski-if-he-doesnt-comply-with-court-order/)

especially the comments. Some of the commenters are lawyers, or at least
people who understand the law and how it relates to this particular case very
well.

------
philip1209
Does this allow Uber to dismiss Anthony "for cause" in order to get out of
double-trigger acceleration?

~~~
aetherson
The letter from Uber threatens dismissal for cause.

