
Google accuses Uber of creating a fake company in order to steal its tech - golfer
http://www.businessinsider.com/waymo-versus-uber-court-hearing-2017-5
======
golfer
Some quality journalists are live tweeting the proceedings from inside the
courtroom. Getting some great updates in real time:

[https://twitter.com/CSaid](https://twitter.com/CSaid)

[https://twitter.com/Priyasideas](https://twitter.com/Priyasideas)

[https://twitter.com/inafried](https://twitter.com/inafried)

[https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac)

~~~
korzun
Thank you for this.

~~~
golfer
Court has moved to a private session now -- attorneys only, no public allowed.
So live tweets are over for the day.

But there's a lot of detailed back & forth between the attorneys and judge in
those links.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This made me wonder what HN thought of the acquisition at the time.

Well:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205)

Top comment noted how the company looked like a “quick flip”.

~~~
bonzini
And then it diverted to a discussion about a bbq that was held in 2002:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20150709120858/http://ot.to/](https://web.archive.org/web/20150709120858/http://ot.to/)

I think this is the place:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3678268,-73.7132536,3a,75y,1...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3678268,-73.7132536,3a,75y,115.45h,82.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9yOLxD7rg4Xx8fdc4bmQ1A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

:)

------
crench
_" Here's the thing," [Judge William Alsup] said. "You didn't sue him. You
sued Uber. So what if it turns out that Uber is totally innocent?"_

This is going to be a very interesting case.

~~~
awalton
> So what if it turns out that Uber is totally innocent?

I honestly can't see this as an outcome; either Uber's wrong in they
completely and miserably failed due dilligence, or they're wrong in that they
actively coerced [him] to create a shell company with Google assets so it
could "launder" them into Uber.

We can't say for certain which it is at this point. All we know is that Uber's
trying their level best _not_ to say which by refusing discovery and worming
around the issue. That alone signals to me that the preponderance of evidence
bar is going to be a fairly easy one for Google to clear here. There's just
too many dots that even when left unconnected draw a pretty clear picture of
what happened.

~~~
lj3
> Uber's wrong in they completely and miserably failed due dilligence

Being stupid and/or incompetent isn't illegal. Yet.

~~~
dragandj
It is if you happen to buy stolen property. You might not be held responsible
for stealing, but you'll have to return the property and say good buy to the
money, I think.

~~~
balls187
If the thieves are caught, they owe you the purchase price as restitution.

This is only if you unknowingly purchased stolen goods.

~~~
dragandj
IANAL, but... They owe you and it is a question if they can get it back to
you, but the rightful owner has precedence in many (most?) cases. That's the
setup for many kinds of scam. The scammed party buys something, but the
transaction of the property is in some way faulty, while the money quickly
disappears.

------
anigbrowl
What does it take to get a business license revoked these days? If an
individual carried on the way Uber does s/he's be looking at a long stretch in
prison. While I championed Uber's disruption of the taxi monopoly when it got
started, and did a lot of free advocacy here on HN against taxi industry
shills, the firm has turned out to be as corrupt or worse than the market it
set out to disrupt.

Should the various allegations made against the firm prove true, and and it
seems like there's a good chance of that, a good number of people need to face
criminal charges, the company needs to be shut down and its assets auctioned
off, and the investors need to end up with nothing because they abrogated
their corporate governance responsibilities.

~~~
throwaway2048
There's an important personal lesson here, don't mindlessly support stuff that
is hyped up.

~~~
valuearb
A better lesson is to learn to think critically.

Do taxi companies leverage cozy relationships with taxi regulators to restrict
competition so they can overcharges customers and increase their profits? The
answer to that is almost certainly yes, and provably yes in certain markets.

Does that mean every business that is trying to break the taxi monopoly is
automatically one of the good guys, and run ethically? The answer to that is
almost certainly no.

------
askvictor
Uber seems to be the logical extreme of 'easier to beg forgiveness' mentality;
there are no rules (explicit or implicit) or ethical boundaries that are not
subject to be broken in pursuit of their goals.

~~~
Consultant32452
I dunno man, I think Uber is just in the HN wheelhouse and has been stealing
our focus lately. Wells Fargo illegally signed people up for countless credit
lines they didn't ask for. HSBC got a slap on the wrist for laundering
billions in drug money. People in power routinely break the rules and there's
basically no penalty.

~~~
NovaX
Google actively assisted in selling illegal pharmaceuticals due to the
lucrative ad revenue. It was coordinated and driven by the chief executives.

~~~
muro
I haven't followed it, but weren't they the _same_ pharmaceuticals (aka not
fake, same manufacturer, just cheaper), from across the border?

~~~
55555
The media wrote good aricles about the conman who informed on Google, who
claimed to be selling vials of nothing but water and labeling them "HGH" etc.

However, frankly, there are still scams being advertised on Adwords and I
would argue that we should separate the scam category from the illegal pharma
category.

The truth is that the vast majority of the half billion dollars they were
penalized for earning was payments from companies who were advertising and
fulfilling generic drugs from cheaper countries such as India (or even New
Zealand!). The people running these companies may be 'criminals' \-- you could
make that case -- but I have an easier time making the case that they are
running an ethical business that helps lower and middle class americans get
the medicine they need at a fraction of the cost (and sometimes simply without
explaining to a third-party that their dick doesn't work).

------
marcell
Based on this live tweets
([https://twitter.com/CSaid](https://twitter.com/CSaid)) it doesn't sound like
Waymo/Google is making much headway. They want to pin this on Uber, but
haven't presented evidence of wrongdoing by Uber:

    
    
        Judge to Waymo: U have no proof that shows a chain 
        of Levandowski saying to anybody here’s the
        trade secrets.
    

Unless Waymo presents something like this, I don't see how this trial benefits
them. Sure they can make a big fuss an get Levandowski kicked off self driving
cars / Lidars, but that won't stop Uber from moving forward with their
program.

~~~
Terribledactyl
A couple of benefits in no particular order:

It casts doubt/worry/issues on the legal legitimacy of Uber's tech.
Employees/Researchers won't want to become embroiled in this, if they ever
want to license the tech I'm sure "what about google?" will come up and need
to be mitigated.

It gets Alphabet and the newly founded Waymo a lot of "free" publicity,
helping to form their public image as a car company. (Wronged by the evil
uber)

Maybe a little vindictive, but I'm sure their lawyers would rather his
compensation burn than be used against them.

~~~
linkregister
_> It casts doubt/worry/issues on the legal legitimacy of Uber's tech.
Employees/Researchers won't want to become embroiled in this, if they ever
want to license the tech I'm sure "what about google?" will come up and need
to be mitigated._

Why would an employee ever fear another entity personally suing them? Was
there a mass exodus from Google or Samsung after Apple's successful
infringement suit in 2012?

Why would an employee performing genuinely novel work worry about her work
being discredited?

I would expect a culpable employee to divest before his organization got
caught. Some members of the Enron C-suite sold their stock before the debt
hiding scandal broke. Maybe this is happening in Uber's Otto division; has
anyone seen anything like this?

~~~
ajdlinux
You wouldn't want to be the employee or manager who made an IP decision that
landed your company on the wrong end of an Alphabet lawsuit.

------
Animats
Levandowski is probably going to come out of this really well. Uber, not so
much. Google's LIDAR technology is obsolete spinning-scanner gear, mostly from
Velodyne. It's something you'd use on an experimental vehicle, not a
production one. The production LIDAR systems are coming, they're all solid
state, and they come from big auto parts makers like Delphi and Continental.
So by the time the Uber case gets to trial, it will be moot.

Levandowski already got his money. Waymo could sue him, but what are the
damages? Google isn't selling anything, so they can't show impact on their
sales volume. (Neither is Uber. Uber's venture into self-driving is probably
more to pump up the valuation than to provide a real service, anyway.)

I'm beginning to think that self-driving will be a feature that comes from
auto parts companies. You need sensors and actuators, which come from auto
parts companies. You need dashboard units, which come from auto parts
companies. You need a compute unit, which is just a ruggedized computer
packaged for automotive conditions, something that comes from auto parts
companies. You need software, which may come from a number of sources. This
may not be all that disruptive a technology.

~~~
kcorbitt
> Google's LIDAR technology is obsolete spinning-scanner gear, mostly from
> Velodyne. It's something you'd use on an experimental vehicle, not a
> production one.

Given that (1) Google is spending a whole lot of money to protect their LIDAR
technology in court, (2) Uber spent nearly half a billion dollars apparently
to copy it and (3) Google (with their proprietary LIDAR) is the only company
-- publicity and press releases aside -- that seems to be actively operating
an autonomous fleet in the wild with reasonably few overrides, disengagements
or accidents, I'm willing to bet that good LIDAR is actually more important
than you're giving it credit for here.

~~~
valuearb
So a good LIDAR steers a car all by itself?

I'm willing to bet that there is a ton more of technology involved in self
driving vehicles than you are giving it credit for here.

Not sure why the down votes. There is a lot more technology here than one type
of sensor, there ia a huge software stack. Uber clearly paid $500M because
they wanted to get access to someone who had been doing it for a decade and
had built that stack more than once. Whether Uber thought they were getting
Google technology in the deal is the big question of the lawsuit, but it's
very possible they just wanted to jumpstart their own effort by buying a team
that was already up to speed.

~~~
angry-hacker
And the other question is why would auto makers want to sell or sacrifice
their production capacity so they Google can kill them?

Also, there are soy many regulations and safety rules in the industry, if they
can't abolish them (with perfect tech/lobbying) old automakers will win.

~~~
mastax
> And the other question is why would auto makers want to sell or sacrifice
> their production capacity so they Google can kill them?

Good point, but I think there are many ways to make this work. Two ideas:

1\. Contract with a small/failing auto manufacturer who has little to lose
(e.g. Mitsubishi).

2\. Work with a manufacturer to build vehicles and also license them tech
(Chrysler and Honda are interested [0]).

[0]:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/01/10/alphabet...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/01/10/alphabets-
waymo-envisions-production-alliance-to-cut-automated-car-tech-
cost/#799c00fc455b)

------
dmitrygr
Judge Alsup, to Waymo Lawyer: "You have one of the strongest records I've seen
of somebody doing something bad. Good for you!"

~~~
Apocryphon
What's the context, what'd the Waymo lawyer do?

~~~
bpicolo
I assume they mean details of actions the employee took on their computer
(putting in flash drive, copying data off, etc)

------
kristianc
Original HN discussion from the time - several on here, including myself
thought acquisition looked like quick flip from the outset:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12315205)

------
Namrog84
If this turns out to be true, this does not bold well for a bright UBer
future. I feel like I only hear bad things about them lately.

Anyone have any speculation as to what might happen to Uber if this turns out
to be true?

~~~
charred_toast
If it turns out to be a huge case ($$$$$) then I can forsee Google owning part
of Uber if not outright.

~~~
hiddencost
Nobody cares about damages; the real meat is whether or not there will be an
injunction. Damages could foreseeably go into the $1 billion range; an
injunction would cost uber at least an order of magnitude more than that.

~~~
valuearb
An injunction against what? Designing and building autonomous cars? An
injunction like that might save Uber billions of dollars. I've never bought
the idea they needed their own autonomous cars. Someday someone (very likely
multiple someones unless our crazy patent system interferes) will build viable
autonomous cars and Uber can just buy from them.

Their ultimate success will always be based on their brand and how well they
provide their service. Until the last 6 months they did an amazing job at
both, they had their apps on many times more phones than any competitor, and
their app works amazingly well. Now they've tarnished their brand and might be
losing market share, well before the market is completely built out. that's
what they should be focusing on.

~~~
netsharc
Some commenter on Reddit/here said that Uber doesn't have a way to
profitability, self-driving is just to keep the investor money flowing in.

But the future of cars is really like servers, not ownership, but as a
service, you'll just use an app to hail a self-driving car to take you
anywhere. Whoever can sell their self-driving tech to car manufacturers will
win, Uber probably wants to be the infrastructure that the car companies use
to manage their CaaS, and if they win the self-driving first-to-market race,
they can bundle their existing fleet management service as a bundle with the
tech.

But if someone else wins the self-driving tech, a car manufacturer can buy
that, and either self-develop their own fleet management or buy from someone
else (it's a lot simpler than self-driving tech, obviously).

~~~
valuearb
I struggle to understand how a service that costs pennies to deliver that
earns Uber dollars from each fare can't find a path to profitability. I think
people are too hung up on the awful financials they have now, and ignore the
massive buildout they are doing.

And Boeing could easily compete with United and American right now, the extra
costs of hiring pilots and crews are minute for them. But it doesn't make
sense on many levels. I'm pretty sure car makers will focus on making the self
driving tech, and sell it to customers like Uber. Uber will have to win like
car rental companies do today, brand and location. If it is installed on the
most phones that will winin the near term, at least until how we use our
devices entirely changes.

------
wand3r
This is Ubers fault for leaving themselves open, but this will play out like a
hostile takeover w/ Google upping their 6percent stake to controlling or
wholly owning Uber

~~~
joe_the_user
I assume the biggest motivation for Google is not hurting or controlling Uber
but preventing this kind of thing from happening again.

I assume there are a lot of people working for Google who are experts in the
tech they helped create but no longer owners of that tech. By that token,
Google would really try hard to keep this sort of person from leaving with
their tech.

~~~
wand3r
There are a lot of people at Uber who are experts in Google tech. Why retrain
engineers when another company already did it for you-- on a highly complex
niche platform

------
Touche
The entire point of Uber is to evade laws on technicalities, so the fact that
they are doing this here should be a surprise to no one.

That is their core competency, in fact.

~~~
valuearb
A technicality is they are "regulations" not laws. And probably
unconstitutional.

~~~
matt4077
Regulations are to laws as sort algorithms are to source code, and you should
take their constitutionality up the the courts.

(The regulations', not the search algorithms'. We all know insertion sort
violates the 4th amendment)

------
aaron695
"Google just accused Uber of creating a fake, shell company with its former
engineer to steal its tech"

They don't seem to be backing that clickbait title do they?

I think the backdated form makes sense, more sense they doing something
obvious like creating a fake company the 'day' after someone leaves Google.

------
fujipadam
Considering Uber's past unethical behavior, I am sure they stole tech. The
problem is that it is very difficult to prove it.

If it is proved, there should be actual consequence to the executives,
including jail

------
PascLeRasc
Is this Otto the same as www.ottomotors.com? That site seems slightly fake,
like the kind of site Hooli in Silicon Valley would have.

~~~
mcpherrinm
No, ottomotors.com is a real division of Clearpath:
[https://www.clearpathrobotics.com/](https://www.clearpathrobotics.com/)

I'm assured by somebody who works in assembly line / factory stuff that
ottomotors.com has real and good products. Definitely not fake or Hooli.

------
huangc10
If this is true, it's kind of a brilliant scheme, you know, in an evil "I'm
going to take over the world" sorta way.

~~~
mewwts
Hah, yeah, although they're in court so it's not _that_ brilliant

------
tim333
So if Uber stole Google's designs but are not using them in their present self
driving stuff can Google do much?

------
asafira
Since parts of this are public information, when is the next bit of
information expected to come out?

------
bunderbunder
This page loads a 2400x1800 *.jpg into a (on my screen) 372x279 image element.

I believe no further comment is necessary.

