
Uber’s Anthony Levandowski out as Advanced Technologies lead amid legal fight - petergatsby
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/ubers-anthony-levandowki-out-as-advanced-technologies-lead-amid-legal-fight/
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encoderer
Worth remembering that Google paid this guy over $120 Million in compensation.
He is a tech "1%"er, which really is saying a lot. That is hedge fund money.

I'm not certain, but I think the average engineer would feel more loyalty to a
company that has given them multi-generational wealth.

I'm all for engineers getting paid, but in this case the guy didn't even have
to do what most wealthy engineers do: deliver an actual successful product to
market.

~~~
artursapek
I really don't understand how people get greedy after earning that much money.
Is it just the high/excitement the comes from it? Seems like money would no
longer be motivating.

~~~
dsacco
Many people around the world would say the same thing about the lifestyle
enjoyed by the average commenter on this forum, but most of us don't think of
our incomes that way. The average American does not need to live in the home
size that has become desirable; they do it because they can.

You can't set an arbitrary limit on when money ceases to be motivating. At
$100M in net worth, you no longer need to compromise on a lot of things that
people with a $1M net worth have to. But at a $1M net worth, you also do not
have to compromise on a lot of things that people with a $100k net worth have
to, and so on and so forth.

If I had a net worth of over $100M, I'd probably still do things that increase
it. That doesn't seem any more inherently greedy than my seeking to increase
my net worth now, when it's orders of magnitude lower. I'd do it because it's
what I know to do, and because more resources is rationally better than fewer
resources.

~~~
tps5
Here's Keynes with another perspective:

> When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance,
> there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid
> ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us
> for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful
> of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be
> able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The
> love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a
> means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what
> it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-
> pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the
> specialists in mental disease.

~~~
dsacco
I like that quote, but I disagree with it. I don't think "love of money as a
possession" is a good thing, but I think it's pretty rare compared to the
"love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life."

One of the most life-changing experiences I've ever had was swimming in a
bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico. I've never seen so many stars overhead in
contrast to absolute darkness (you have to be in remote darkness to enjoy the
bioluminescence). The sky was absolutely clear and every sensory detail felt
enhanced and euphoric.

That vacation was a relatively expensive week for me. It didn't _have_ to be
as expensive as it was, but it couldn't have been _significantly_ cheaper
either. With $100M, I could fly down to Puerto Rico and do that every weekend,
weather permitting.

But here's the thing - I'm sure that experience can be had (in principle, not
exact detail) in every country in the world. With $20,000, you can carefully
plan a backpacking trip through Europe. With $100M, you can have virtually any
experience in Europe with instant gratification. Have you ever looked at
Myspace Tom's Instagram? All the man does is travel around the world to
interesting places taking photos. He doesn't necessarily do things people
can't do with significantly less wealth, but he 1) doesn't have to choose
_which_ things to do and 2) does them casually, because he is virtually immune
to financial catastrophe.

Money is freedom, because you can (in limited effect) trade it for time. I
think most people love money because they love the time it can buy them, not
because it is an end in of itself.

~~~
chx
But the discussion is about why do you need more than $100M. All you are
describing is well within the realm of $100m. Even low ten millions is plenty
-- let's say you arrive to 20M when you are 30 years old and expect to live
another 60 years. This means that if you set aside 5M for safety etc you still
can have a $20k "salary" every month if the money is invested in a way that it
keeps up with inflation. That's a $5k plane ticket, 200 USD/night hotel room
and 300 USD/day on food and such. Forever. And that's just 20M.

~~~
snitko
One simple reason why I think it may make sense to want more money is to do
interesting important things. If you earn more money, the market obviously
thinks you're good at producing things that sell. It's not perfect as
sometimes the market (e.g. the people) prefers something rather stupid.
However, in general, I think entrepreneurs are the ultimate redistributors of
money in the society. I don't believe government is effecient at doing the
same job: it doesn't care whether it wastes it, it always knows it will get
its share (taxation is not voluntary) and it's filled with people who have no
idea how to actually make a useful product. An entrepreneur earned his money
by people voluntarily giving it to him for something they want. He knows what
a failure is.

So yeah, I think wanting to earn a lot of money is great and no one should
feel ashamed of wanting that.

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jacquesm
That's just Uber trying avoid having their self-driving car department shut-
down. But it could definitely still happen. Maybe Uber should apply to
Google's 'PatentShield' program ;)

~~~
arkitaip
Maybe Uber has realized that this guy is toxic and can't be trusted handling
"their" tech? If he spent a decade stealing Google's tech, are they willing to
risk him treating Uber the same way? Especially since Uber's epic level of
sliminess would make it even easier for Levandowski to rationalize theft.

~~~
sriram_sun
Some sleazebag at Uber hired him exactly for that reason. Levandowski got
caught. The question is how deep does this trail go?

~~~
revelation
That sleazebag would be Kalanick then, given the evidence of their romantic
after dinner walks.

 _' Kalanick began courting Levandowski this spring, broaching the possibility
of an acquisition during a series of 10-mile night walks from the Soma
neighborhood where Uber is also headquartered to the Golden Gate Bridge. The
two men would leave their offices separately—to avoid being seen by employees,
the press, or competitors. They’d grab takeout food, then rendezvous near the
city’s Ferry Building. Levandowski says he saw a union as a way to bring the
company’s trucks to market faster.'_

How are those trucks coming along, haha.

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glangdale
Can this conceivably make a difference at this late stage? Genuinely curious.
Surely if a judge accepts the theory that Levandowski helped Uber's program
along with stolen IP, having him 'no longer working on the program' at this
stage would have to look like window dressing. Doesn't it just make them look
worse, like they are admitting that there's a problem?

~~~
jacquesm
It just might tip the balance to not having the program shut down, which is
what the injunction is asking for. So by not waiting until a verdict but to
pre-emptively remove him they hope that enough of this sticks to Levandowski
that does not directly stick to Uber that they will be allowed to continue the
program. It's a hail Mary pass at best.

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kaladaraos
Is there any reason not to be suspicious that Levandowski will just work on
them unofficially?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Presumption of innocence. You have to assume that the people are innocent
until they are proven guilty. If you fired Levandowski and win the case, then
he sues. If you leave him in place and you're found guilty, there are extra
damages because you were "notified" and you still didn't stop his work. So you
move him off to the side, wait for the trial to resolve. And then figure out
what to do with him, which will be either fire him or move him back on to the
project.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You have to assume that the people are innocent until they are proven
> guilty.

You only have to do that when you are the trier of fact (jury in a jury trial,
judge in a bench trial) in a criminal prosecution.

Outside of that, the rules are different.

> If you fired Levandowski and win the case, then he sues.

And loses, because at-will employment, and being suspected, even wrongly, of
civil wrongdoing creating liability for your employer is not a protected
class.

~~~
cortesoft
Yeah, I am always confused by people who seem to think you need a good reason
to fire someone. In almost every state, this isn't the case; as long as you
don't fire someone for one of the defined illegal reasons, you are fine. You
can fire someone because you flipped a coin, or because you just felt like
firing someone.

~~~
sverige
That depends on the jury (and therefore the jurisdiction) actually. There have
been several times when I made this argument in favor of removing some
employee who was actively working to destroy a team and was made to jump
through lots of hoops by corporate lawyers fearful of lawsuits.

~~~
cortesoft
Well, they would have to convince a jury that they were actually fired for one
of the protected reasons. Often times lawyers will want you to document the
reasons you are firing someone so that you can use them as a defense against a
lawsuit claiming you fired them for a protected reason.

~~~
sverige
Right, but that process gives the lie to "at will" employment.

------
kainolophobia
A lot of people are blaming Levandwoski for deceiving Google as though he were
some sort of evil mastermind. Given the lack of care he's taken to hide from
these inevitable accusations, one must question the intelligence of his
actions. Instead, I think there might be a more simple explanation.

Levandowski is clearly a brilliant character. Is it possible that he's not
trying to maximize monetary gain but is instead optimizing for power over the
technology? I sense that he's good with technical implementation but possibly
terrible at technical leadership/the politics necessary for seeing one's
vision through in a larger organization.

If viewed in this light, it seems that Levandowski has constantly been
frustrated by the direction (or lack thereof) within the organizations he's
been a part of. Rather than starting side companies and jumping ship for
profit, he's really just trying to maintain control over whatever vision he
has for lidar-enabled self-driving technology.

Now this strategy for power breaks down a bit, because he keeps selecting the
local maxima in terms of opportunity. When Google comes calling, he accepts.
When Uber comes calling, he accepts. Constantly convinced that the next place
will give him the power/respect he thinks he deserves.

In the end, rather than building up IP from scratch and making a good name for
himself, he's stolen a bunch of work from other engineers while potentially
building a patent-infringing product. (thoughts x-posted from the other
thread)

~~~
kainolophobia
Edit: Just to clarify, I don't agree with anything Levandwoski has done and
both he and Uber should face repercussions for their actions. With that said,
there's a lot of "conspiracy"-esque hype around this guy that I think may be
undeserved. Everyone here seems to be focused on his monetary motivations for
acting as he did; I'm simply trying to offer an alternative viewpoint that
could explain the situation outside of pure financial gain.

------
DrNuke
Genuinely curious about the malicious behaviour at the root of this legal
battle: if the case, was it worth it from the beginning? I mean, is there a
lesson for the millions outsiders out of the SV microsystem reading this? In
many different environments, you lose your job, credit and reputation for much
less than this and for a fraction of the potential money involved.

~~~
sverige
The rules are different for the handful of people operating at this level,
same as high level politicians who get away with things that would put you or
me in federal prison for decades.

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dkarapetyan
So all this drama is kinda pointless. I mentioned in another thread that SV
culture actively encourages this kind of behavior and ultimately I think folks
buy into the system because everyone deep down thinks they're gonna become a
millionaire this way.

I'm only watching because of morbid curiosity and really I have no stake in
the outcome whatever it may be. Both companies are equally bad in my opinion
and they are making things more and more unsustainable. The modern technology
ecosystem feels very unhealthy in general.

~~~
macspoofing
>I mentioned in another thread that SV culture actively encourages

That's not true at all. I know the "Pirate" idea is mythologized and tied to
the development of the Mac, but even then, Apple actually had a deal with
Xerox.

>Both companies are equally bad in my opinion and they are making things more
and more unsustainable.

I wouldn't say that. I would say it's a typical dispute. We have courts to
settle these kinds of disputes.

>The modern technology ecosystem feels very unhealthy in general.

I wouldn't go that far. Given the pace of change, it's actually pretty solid.

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sanguy
Anthony is overrated and a complete psychopath. He doesn't understand it's
basic right from wrong. In his mind IP is boundless and his, not Googles. This
comes from 5 years of working in fairly close contact. Zero morals. He is
what's wrong with Silicon Valley - on equal grounds to Travis from Uber. I can
completely see this all being planned for years just like circumventing the
iPhone App Store rules. As a Google shareholder I demand they litigate until
Uber and Anthony are where they deserve to be; jail.

~~~
dmerfield
Do you really think he should be in prison for _intellectual property
infringement_?

~~~
waqf
For nine-figure fraud? What would you propose instead?

(It's fraud when you take advantage by ignoring the established legal rules
that everyone else is playing by, however suboptimal those rules are.)

~~~
hyperbovine
Exactly. People routinely get jail time for three orders of magnitude less
fraud.

~~~
ryandrake
Someone went to prison for stealing $31 in candy bars [1]. At least he only
got 2 years: he faced life in prison.

1:
[http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/07/candy_thief_an...](http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2016/07/candy_thief_and_habitual_offen.html)

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throwaway90125
There is also a supposed conversation between him and Larry Page before he
left. From what I've read, Larry supposedly knew a lot about the circumstances
of his leaving, and what transpired in that meeting supposedly will undermine
Waymo's position. He's being deposed, but apparently Uber is only allowed to
ask him one question, which is odd.

Edit: downvoted as expected. I bet that 9 out of 10 people upvoting these
stories and downvoting every comment that is in the least supportive of Uber
or critical of Google are bitter Google employees.

~~~
sgift
I must be number 10 then. No connection to Google, just don't think hearsay is
helpful/interesting.

~~~
throwaway90125
Uber has requested that Larry Page be deposed and they have questions they
want to ask him under oath. That's fact, not hearsay. They clearly have
questions the truth of which will weaken Waymo's position. Lawyers don't ask
questions they don't already know the answer to. The only unknown is if Larry
will lie under oath or be able to skillfully answer in a way that doesn't hurt
Waymo's position.

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zachruss92
Another day, another scandal.

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Zilroy
Funny how actvities creating most unemployment attract most money.

~~~
jxi
Isn't that completely logical. If you build something that makes it so that
you don't need 20 people making 50k/yr doing it anymore, you're saving 1m/yr
which is very lucrative for anyone.

