
Anthony Levandowski Faces New Claims of Stealing - smullaney
https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-faces-new-claims-of-stealing-trade-secrets/
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cantrip
"Wong also claims knowledge of a large swath of Levandowski’s personal and
business dealings. She does so in great detail, including dozens of overheard
names, the license-plate numbers of cars she observed at a Levandowski
property, and an extensive list of the BDSM gear she claims he kept in his
bedroom."

This sounds a lot like she was spying on him for trade secrets. Also, the BDSM
gear is completely irrelevant to anything.

~~~
Waterluvian
The only reason to ever publicise stuff like that is to smear someone. Its low
and it undermines any legitimate claim. I'm sure a defense would point out the
vexacious nature of those publications.

~~~
crag
It will never reach a courtroom. He will settle long before that.

He has too much at stake for her to take the stand and be questioned.

~~~
samfisher83
It might be too late for it at this point. Some of that information is pretty
much saying he did some illegal things. A prosecutor could just subpoena her
and she has to tell the truth or risk going to jail.

~~~
gamblor956
At this point, either all of the allegations she made about him are true or he
has a very good defamation lawsuit against her. Whether or not the BDSM claim
is true, he has an invasion of privacy claim he can pursue.

Time will tell. Most likely, they'll settle for much less than $6 million.

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throwaway_4179
Throwaway and being intentionally vague for obvious reasons.

I knew Anthony some years ago. It was clear to me from day one that not all
was right with his way of interacting with the world.

I suppose his nanny apparently had enough emotional intelligence to pick up on
this and enough situational awareness to take notes.

I wish there were a safe way to share this, especially if it turned out to be
useful in any way beyond schadenfreude.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Sorry but I have a hard time considering your comment a meaningful
contribution to the thread, since it is extremely common for people to #metoo
with 20-20 hindsight about other people. The more lurid the details the
stronger their conviction.

This Uber-Waymo affair has devolved into absolute tabloid-level nonsense and
we should all collectively be ashamed of it.

~~~
throwaway_4179
Fair comment.

Levandowski made it clear on more than one occasion of his admiration of some
explicitly sociopathic tendencies. More than a few people noticed and talked
about it. I'm not sure anyone did anything -- except, perhaps, his nanny
apparently.

There's a bigger conversation in there I'd like to have, but I haven't sorted
it out in my own mind, and I'm sweating even writing this much.

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crag
What happens when you ignore the hired "help". I'm willing to bet this
Levandowski fellow didn't even see her standing in the room.

Obviously, this is a tactic that Wong's lawyers (and her) are using to get
Levandowski to settle quickly. If he settles I'd bet there will be a gag
clause attached.

There's a lesson here: if you involved in shading dealings, be discreet.

~~~
s73ver_
Shouldn't the lesson be, "Don't be involved in shady dealings"?

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Isamu
There are so many allegations of wrongdoing that have nothing to do with her
main complaint (unpaid wages and mistreatment) that I wonder if this is a
tactic to get him to settle quickly, in order to get her to shut up.

~~~
giarc
I think an issue is that she obviously was listening very closely for a very
long time. There are a lot of very detailed conversations with names and
specifics that go back awhile. A regular nanny probably wouldn't be listening
to phone conversations and committing to memory the names and things said by
your employer.

~~~
Audible_logic
If she was aware of his legal situation and he was the terrible employer she
claims, it seems feasible to me.

~~~
giarc
I'd say it's quite unethical to remain an employee simply to gain leverage for
a lawsuit down the road.

~~~
chickenfries
What would the ethical thing to do be? Most people, especially housekeepers,
can't just quit a well paying job without first making preparation for their
next steps. If your employer is committing crimes and possibly implicating you
in them, you might want to stick around to make sure that you have enough
evidence to take them to court. Especially if they're a lot richer than you
and have much better lawyers.

~~~
giarc
You are describing blackmail.

Wong - My employee isn't paying me correctly. I better start collecting
private information about him and his colleagues, without his knowledge, to
use in a future lawsuit.

Also keep in mind the data she is collecting has nothing to do with her
complaints about wage etc.

~~~
scarmig
So your claim is that if one person is employed by another, they're obligated
to always act with their best interests at heart, even if the employer doesn't
do the same for the employee?

Levandowski didn't purchase her ears, memory, and voice. Just her labor for
some relatively low wage however many hours per week.

I'm sure in the end he'll purchase them, but at a much steeper cost than if he
had just paid for them up front.

~~~
giarc
I think you are obligated to stop a crime that is being committed.

Imagine this is a typical company/employee relationship. Your boss isn't
paying you correctly, instead of bringing it up with him (or HR, or state
labor group) and resolving it you begin to collect information that is
unrelated to your issue at hand (pay). You notice that your boss is selling
trade secrets and paying off competitors. Instead of telling someone (at
Waymo, Uber, Telsa, the police etc), you continue to collect information about
your boss, including his sex toys in his closet and use that information
against him to resolve your unrelated HR complaint. This would not go over
well in a traditional employee relationship, let alone a nanny type situation.

Maybe nothing is illegal there, but it's definitely unethical. I could be
swayed on her tactics if the info she collected was things like "he also
doesn't pay his gardener and housekeeper" but the fact that she hung around so
that she could get the license plates of people showing up to his door is
incredible unethical. It doesn't make what he did right, but she acted in a
totally inappropriate manner.

~~~
chickenfries
The only information we both have on this is a TechCrunch article. So they've
obviously just glanced the most salacious details and published a quick story.
It's impossible, without reading the complaint, for us to know what is
relevant.

I'll give you that, from the article, his sex toys seem irrelevant. However,
if they're mentioned in the complaint, I suspect it might have something to do
with a hostile work environment or sexual harassment. But that's just me
speculating.

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KKKKkkkk1
_Wong’s complaint says that on April 27 she overheard Levandowski and his
brother Mike talking about how Levandowski might drive up to Alberta, Canada,
to avoid prison._

Given this new information, how much more likely does this make that he will
be arrested to prevent him fleeing?

~~~
oh_sigh
Wouldn't the US just have Canada just extradite him?

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not_that_noob
IANAL and all that - but a key issue here is that she was in the room when he
was talking to his lawyer. If so, it might be harder for Levandowski to assert
that the conversation was protected under attorney-client privilege. This
could open the door to a much bigger can of worms. I’d expect Levandowski has
every incentive to settle with her to keep her quiet. Smart nanny.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I’d expect Levandowski has every incentive to settle with her to keep her
> quiet.

It's a little late to do that, keep the info she has already revealed secret,
and prevent her from being subpoenaed in the other cases to which it might be
relevant.

~~~
not_that_noob
Not at all. In fact, it's already happened in this same lawsuit -
[https://www.recode.net/2017/12/15/16782534/alphabet-waymo-
ub...](https://www.recode.net/2017/12/15/16782534/alphabet-waymo-uber-self-
driving-lawsuit-jacobs-letter-surveillance)

Uber employee writes a letter making all sorts of damaging claims. He then
settles for $4.5M. When made to testify, he "walked back some of the
allegations in the letter".

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chickenfries
> On March 11, a day after Waymo filed a motion for an injunction against
> Uber, Wong describes Levandowski texting her to say he was bringing his boss
> home with him. Half an hour later, she says, Kalanick and Levandowski
> arrived, bringing with them a white bucket containing circuit boards and
> lenses, as well as legal documents for Levandowski to sign. She writes that
> Kalanick spent about five hours at Levandowski’s home.

Amazing. C'mon, she's heard you screaming on the phone to your lawyer. They
know your last name. They can google you.

If I was working for this guy, and I observed the stuff that was going on, I
would start talking to a lawyer too.

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dawhizkid
I guess she didn't sign an NDA.

Also this guy sounds like the American Psycho guy of Tech.

~~~
samfisher83
Supposed she did sign a NDA. How is it going to help him. He can sue, but she
isn't rich. Plus if stuff he is doing is illegal I am guessing that trumps a
NDA.

~~~
dzhiurgis
> Plus if stuff he is doing is illegal I am guessing that trumps a NDA.

But the nanny probably wouldn’t know it / wouldn’t have the guts / wouldn’t
have the money to find out.

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jacksmith21006
Something is off here. Why is all of this "dirt" coming out in a nanny
employment situation? Plus how in the world did she even know what all these
conversations meant and why even remember them all?

I do think Lewandowski is guilty but this seems weird.

~~~
gamblor956
Ford has already pointed out that some of her claims are verifiably false,
specifically the allegation about Argo.AI, which she claims she overhead, but
which didn't have that name at the time of the conversation.

While I don't doubt that Levandowski is capable of some of the things he is
alleged to have done, and may have done some of the things alleged, the
complaint bears strongly similarities to shakedown lawsuits, especially the
statement about the BDSM gear. If she truly had factual support for the
allegations she made in the lawsuit (i.e., selling chips overseas, fleeing to
Canada to escape charges, etc.), she wouldn't need to include embarrassing
details like the BDSM stuff. That's the kind of detail you only include to try
to force a settlement before discovery/trial.

Given that it's a she said/he said over the phone, it's a trivial matter to
match up phone records to prove whether these alleged calls took place. The
third parties named in the lawsuit can be subpoenaed (but as non-parties can
likely charge the plaintiff and/or defendants for their costs incurred in
responding).

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slantedview
Is this the first time the names of engineers working at other companies and
presumably being paid by Anthony to leak information have been disclosed? This
seems pretty heavy.

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bruceb
So she thinks she deserves around 1 million a month for him being not a good
guy. Good gig if you can get it.

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nathanaldensr
If even half of what this complaint claims is true, Levandowski is going to
prison for a long time--or should, if our justice system is worth anything.

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woodandsteel
I wonder if Waymo will find any of this of use in their lawsuit against Uber.
Ditto the government prosecutor who is already investigating Levandowski over
the charge that he stole information from Waymo.

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parrellel
So, don't screw over the help.

Somehow that Levandowski would doesn't surprise me very much.

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jimrandomh
Complaint at
[https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/23428507/Wong_v_Lev...](https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/23428507/Wong_v_Levandowski)
but it's paywalled. Anyone have a non-paywalled link?

~~~
isalmon
Iframe at the bottom of the page: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/16/the-
nanny-of-former-uber-e...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/16/the-nanny-of-
former-uber-engineer-anthony-levandowski-has-filed-an-excruciatingly-detailed-
lawsuit/)

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balls187
The plantiff comes across as a major scumbag.

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dumbfounder
Would probably have worked much better if she had just blackmailed him... or
maybe she tried.

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intrasight
Lesson learned: better vetting of nanny

~~~
s73ver_
NO!

Lesson learned: Don't be a shady asshole.

~~~
samfisher83
Or just pay your employees. Probably way cheaper than having her pissed off.

She is probably a very valuable witness. If some of the stuff she is saying is
true. He is going to jail. Probably going to be broke too.

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megadethz
Blackmail as a lawsuit. Have to be careful who you trust these days.

~~~
dragonwriter
In blackmail, you keep the damaging information secret while you try to get
the target to pay. Publicizing it doesn't work, because the whole point is for
the target to pay to keep it secret.

So, unless there is something _worse_ that Levandowski would know she knows
that would come out if the allegations in the lawsuit were litigated, this is
not likely to be “blackmail as lawsuit”.

~~~
jacksmith21006
Best post here and clears it up for me. I just could not figure this out as
made no sense. Once out there there is no black mail possible. But if you put
some out there to show you are serious it is very effective.

What is unbelievable is how bad this is suggests the rest is off the charts.
Well I view this off the charts so the rest thermonuclear.

~~~
londons_explore
Or the real blackmail is "pay up or i'll say this under oath in court, which
means it can be used against you in other court cases"

