
Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed - Scaevolus
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/04/anthony-levandowski-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison-as-new-4b-lawsuit-against-uber-is-filed
======
w0mbat
This guy had such a sweet deal at Google originally, it staggers me that he'd
go to these lengths to steal even more.

He was getting a massive salarY, bonuses in the millions, and he had persuaded
Google to pay him even more money through a side-hustle company of his while
remaining an employee. Then he quits and steals their stuff.

~~~
bduerst
>bonuses in the millions

 _Hundreds_ of millions. As part of breaching his employment agreement by
stealing trade secrets, Levandowski had to pay back one of his bonuses, which
was _$120 million_.

I mean, part of paying this type of comp is to retain talent. How much _more_
should Google have paid to retain him? Or was this even preventable?

~~~
cgb223
God what kind of knowledge / training do I need to get that level of bonus?

~~~
ridaj
There's a profile of the dude in Wired that goes over what made him so
valuable in Larry Page's eyes. [https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-
anthony-levando...](https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-
levandowski-is-his-messenger/)

Basically, he was one of the key founders of the project that made Google Maps
what it is today (a crown jewel of Google with one of the best cartography
datasets), vs what it was originally (better UI to third-party, licensed
cartography data).

I remember about 12 years ago somebody from the GIS industry, scoffing at the
notion that Google might even try to go do some mapping of their own. For him,
maps was something Navteq and TeleAtlas knew how to do, and a search engine
was deeply misguided if it thought it could venture into that space. That was
honestly the prevailing wisdom at the time — it was going to be hard for web-
based Google to even deal with the ugly real-world-ness of mapping.

Fast forward to today. Google Maps basically showed the GIS crowd how their
work oughta have been done all this time. They invented street cars, street
view, and actually made it work; and they used the data to produce accurate
maps of the world.

So to your question, what led this guy to an astounding level of monetary
reward was that he was part of a team that made a big, calculated bet with
Maps __and executed very, very well on it __. That gave Page ample reason to
compensate them well, and it gave him trust that they could handle more
projects where they would show up incumbents (such as the traditional car
manufacturers, whose inroads into self-driving tech had been very timid for
_decades_ ).

And it's not clear that they are close to self driving cars, but they
certainly contributed to upping the game of that whole industry.

So there's your recipe :) I'd bet that folks who came up with the key tech
behind the iPhone are in similar positions at Apple, given how they turned the
whole mobile phone business on its head (remember Nokia?).

EDIT: I don't mean the above to indicate that the reward was deserved in any
way. Likely, a lot of what happened here is luck plus outstanding team work
rather than individual lead performance. But to the question being asked, this
is the kind of circumstance and outcome that seems to have supported, in one
man's view at least (Page), that level of compensation. If you look at folks
at Google who made/make big $, the story is often similar - they led products
that were fledgling challengers into industry leaders within a few years
(Chrome, Android...).

~~~
moksly
Our GIS department had airphoto and street view on web based arcgis when
google rolled out maps. So did our neighbouring cities, with a central site
trying to link it all together.

They also had, maybe, 10 users outside of our own network a year. Everyone
else we’re using the traditional pre-google-maps map websites, in my country
krak.dk.

I think what google did better was marketing. Then they mapped every WiFi
network on the planet to make real life location tracking faster than using
GPS.

~~~
rapsey
> I think what google did better was marketing.

What google did was make it into a mass product and they had the resources to
apply it to a planet level. That is more than marketing. There are a whole lot
of steps between tech demo/proof of concept to product. The most important of
which is to actually have the foresight of what the product can be and a plan
to get there.

------
kanobo
He was so brazen in using identical schematic and suppliers. It amazing to
think all this is a result of the supplier getting confused from having two
clients with identical schematics and accidently cc'ing the wrong engineers.

~~~
sushid
You mean "confused." I think the supplier knew exactly what was happening and
decided to let the cat out of the bag.

~~~
codezero
I'd agree with you, if I hadn't worked adjacent to the financial industry for
a bit. There are a lot of companies with liberty in the name (not even just US
based), and I've mixed some up, even on technical issues.

Obviously the "name" isn't the issue, or maybe it is, it's possible they
worked with this person in the past, and it never occurred to them to check
the current employer, because it usually doesn't change that much, but once
you end up working with customers in an emergent industry (separate experience
in analytics, yes the past two decades is emergent), you'll find you have a
customer who after a few quarters is on to a new job, but still your customer!

There are so many ways for these wires to get crossed, I'll stick to Hanlon's
razor, but modify it to not be about malice, but to be about confusion:

Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by confusion.

And if there's any chance I get something named after me, since this pattern
is cute, let's call Clover's razor, any aphorism that takes on the form "Never
attribute to X that which can adequately be explained by Y."

:)

~~~
dantiberian
I could imagine that after Levandowski left Waymo that his email was forwarded
to a manager or peer. You could see how a supplier could accidentally pick
corey@waymo.com instead of corey@uber.com when they type “Corey” into the
email client.

~~~
codezero
Yep, especially since Gmail also truncates signatures aggressively. They
almost make it difficult to know if a person is representing an org, and
instead just show what ever name they've decided is most appropriate :)

------
jimnotgym
Why is white collar crime punished with such light sentences? I could have got
that sentence for house breaking, or shoplifting to the value of $5k. I could
get a lot more for dealing drugs to a few friends. Steal $100m and get 18
months, starting when the world is a nicer place. The world really is set up
for rich people.

~~~
timavr
For any non-violent crimes we should not send people to prison. I don't even
know why it became a criminal matter. Civil courts can do that job really
well.

If we prosecute everyone who took information from the previous job, then
there will no sales people left. I don't know any SaaS sales person who
doesn't take their sales funnel with them.

~~~
wasmitnetzen
That would mean that rich people could just do non-violent crime without any
real consequences. The risk to be caught is way too small to outweigh the
rewards of those crimes. It would still be a benefit for them in the long
term.

~~~
CarbyAu
The rich _already_ can do a lot without any real consequences. Fines are for
poor people.

Fines for minor matters should be % based somehow. (I don't know how!)

My $150 parking ticket should be their $15,000 parking ticket.

~~~
mitchdoogle
Some fines in a few countries are based on income, most notably Finland, which
has issued fines in the tens of thousands for minor infractions like speeding.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-
fine)

------
williamstein
Much more interesting to me is that the article says "he will not need to
report until threat of COVID-19 pandemic has passed." and "With no end to the
COVID-19 pandemic in sight, it is possible that Levandowski’s latest lawsuit
will be resolved before he even reports to jail."

~~~
gilrain
A courtesy not afforded to the largely not-rich, not-white general prison
population. I don't think Levandowski should be treated worse, just noting it
would be nice if less privileged prisoners were treated as humanely.

~~~
cwhiz
It’s a courtesy that is absolutely being afforded to people in California,
where this is taking place.

Some people just want to see racism everywhere they look.

------
hannasanarion
Why is the government throwing people in jail for leaking trade secrets?

Trade secrets aren't supposed to have government protection, that's the entire
point: they're risky. If you want a monopoly on your technology, you're
supposed to file a patent. Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to
extend your monopoly by giving up government protection.

If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as
patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jail
time), companies have zero motivation to publish.

~~~
CarelessExpert
> Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to extend your monopoly by
> giving up government protection.

You're definitely mistaken on that point. Trade secrets enjoy protection in
the law, both in the US and worldwide:

[https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-
policy](https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy)

> If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as
> patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jail
> time), companies have zero motivation to publish.

Despite both forms of IP enjoying legal protections, there are many reasons to
prefer trade secrets over patents or vice versa.

It's much _much_ easier to accidentally lose trade secret protection by
inadvertantly divulging those secrets, so in that sense patents are more
"durable".

You also can't use trade secret protections to prevent reverse engineering, so
any invention that's easily observable and reversible is not suitable for
trade secret protection.

Trade secrets also can't be used to protect from independent invention, so if
someone else discovers your trick, you have no recourse.

Conversely, trade secrets apply to things that cannot traditionally be
patented. The classic example is, of course, the recipe for coke, as recipes
in general are not patentable subject matter

Trade secrets also have no expiration date, hence again, Coke.

Obviously this is a deep well and I've only just barely scratched the surface.

~~~
hannasanarion
Trade Secrets were not protected under US law until 1996. All of the upsides
of trade secrets you list are benefits that they have, _despite_ a complete
lack of government enforcement, as it should be.

Coke protected its formula for over a century with NDAs and effective security
measures. They went through enormous effort and expense to protect the secret,
because the law until 1996 said that they were responsible for their own
secrets.

Some of Google's algorithms get leaked and they go whining to the government
demanding that people be thrown in prison for espionage. It's a bastardization
of the purpose of intellectual property.

There is nothing wrong with trade secrets. There is something very wrong with
government underwriting the risk involved in building a business reliant on
trade secrets. Patents exist as an incentive to publish: you show us your
work, we let you have a total monopoly on it for 20 years.

Trade secret protections break that deal. If the government will now give you
a monopoly _for the rest of eternity_ on any invention that you label
"secret", then there is no reason to publish anything ever, the state of the
art stagnates, and the technology industry becomes dominated by uncontestable
monopolies with the power to throw you in prison if you look over their
shoulders.

~~~
CarelessExpert
Well, lucky for you I'm not arguing on the merits of the law, only that it
exists (and has since at least 1979 when the first federal law in this area
was passed, though state protections pre-date that), and that the original
commenter was mistaken in thinking it didn't.

As for the rest, eh, I genuinely don't care enough to argue. My original
purpose was to correct a misunderstanding and provide some hopefully helpful
additional context, not to argue for or against the ethical righteousness of
various IP protection regimes.

------
pauljurczak
It just proves that if you want to do a crime, do the white collar crime.
White gloves treatment will ensue, if you get caught.

~~~
6nf
Don't steal $5,000 from the liqor store, that will get you arrested at
gunpoint and you'll spend many years in prison. Instead steal $50,000,000 and
you'll probably still be rich once you pay the fines and complete the
community service or home arrest.

~~~
ineedasername
Depending on the circumstances and state, unarmed robbery could earn you less
jail time than Levandowski.

Armed robber on the other hand may carry a minimum 5 year sentence.

This seems just fine to me. The amount of money between the $5k liquor store
and Levandowski's theft is almost irrelevant: the armed robbery comes with
significant risk of violent loss of life, which rightfully weighs much heavier
in the criminal justice system than some other crimes.

Now if you want to talk about ridiculous sentencing minimums for non-violent
crimes like possession of small amounts of illegal drugs, I'm all ears.

~~~
thewhitetulip
But that's the case with all white collar crime right? they all get very less
sentences.

from the outside, it looks like the system is rigged to favour the rich white
collar folks or maybe your point is also valid, as in, there is no threat to
life and that's their criteria of measurement.

But it is a fact that rich people get treated better in the Prison system

------
m3kw9
He was recommending himself 12 month of home confinement. We’ve basically been
in home confinement for 5 months now. Basically in Covid era, he’d be Scott
free

------
strogonoff
Wait. The guy essentially says “I committed a crime, will pay US$XXX million,
but we had it in our contract that the guys who hired me would take the blame,
so make _them_ pay _me_ US$X _billion_.” Am I reading that correctly?

Can that contract even remain legally recognized?

Sorting out quarrels between entities who were found cooperating in a crime,
evaluating whether one should compensate the other for failing to uphold its
part of the deal, certainly looks like the best use of a country’s justice
system.

~~~
bagacrap
No, it's a bit more complicated as Lev alleges he was unfairly screwed out of
ownership of Otto (Uber Freight).

~~~
strogonoff
From the filing:

> As part of the transaction for the acquisition of Otto, Uber agreed to
> indemnify Mr. Levandowski for claims Google might raise against him. These
> claims included claims Google might assert for breach of fiduciary duty,
> breach of the duty of loyalty, breaches of various restrictive covenants,
> and trade secret misappropriation.

> Uber was aware of Mr. Levandowski’s conduct through the extensive
> investigation it conducted prior to and after entering into the indemnity
> agreement with him, and long before it purported to rescind. To the extent
> Uber claims it was unaware of certain facts, those facts were not material
> and were fully available to Uber had they cared to look more carefully at
> the materials it was provided by Mr. Levandowski. In fact, Mr. Levandowski
> repeatedly told Uber to search those devices for the most accurate
> information.

> Mr. Levandowski therefore commences the Adversary Proceeding to obtain
> declaratory relief as to the impact of Uber’s purported rescission on the
> parties’ respective rights and obligations, to enforce Uber’s obligations
> arising from the Otto transaction, and to disallow the Proof of Claim.

If I’m reading it correctly, Levandowski says Uber was in on the whole thing
as early as Otto’s acquisition (if not earlier), and Uber did not deliver on
what was promised per their arrangement.

That makes whatever was promised for Otto essentially reward for a crime,
which incredibly Levandowski expects to rectify in a court of law.

------
foolfoolz
here is how white collar crime is punished:

756k in restitution. 95k in fines. “theft” of 800k+. gets him a 1.5 year
sentence

75% of robberies are for less than 10k. 3% over 250k. yet average sentence is
~10 years.

[https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-
pu...](https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-
publications/quick-facts/Robbery_FY15.pdf)

~~~
lmm
Murder might be for 0 money, but the sentences for that are even higher.

The harm of robbery greatly exceeds the monetary cost. It's right and proper
that violent crime should carry much higher sentences than nonviolent crime
(and that's before we get into how much less clear-cut these white-collar
cases usually are).

------
jarym
How many other criminals can avoid jail time right now due to the Covid
threat?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Quite a few. Levandowski is in California, where they're making a pretty big
effort to get nonviolent criminals out of the prison system.

~~~
bsimpson
It blows my mind that there are protestors at San Quentin agitating for
prisoners to be released into the public when the prison is one of the biggest
cohorts of COVID in the entire region.

They literally let people walk out of prison and get on a public bus, after
spendings months in close quarters amidst the worst outbreak in the Bay Area.

~~~
gilrain
They should be denied justice because that very lack of justice made them
vulnerable to infection? What a dystopic catch-22.

~~~
pedalpete
I think your comment would be much stronger if you just stated it directly -
"They should not be denied justice because the lack of justice made them
vulnerable to infection". - paraphrasing gilrain

------
Waterluvian
When I have an upcoming dentist appointment looming over my head, My entire
week can be ruined by anxiety. I have no idea how people can be sentenced to
serious time in prison that will happen... sometime in the future...

~~~
BiosElement
For what it's worth, Befriend your dentist and the staff there and take
headphones to listen to a long podcaste, video or music. It's not perfect of
course, but it does wonders and letting them know also helps so they can help
get you through it. Finding another dentist or looking into sedation is also
an option if it's too bad. As someone with crap tons of dental work and awful
teeth, I assure you you're not alone there. :)

~~~
johnpowell
Ditto. I have had tons of dental work. Fire up the iPod, and yes I still use a
old iPod Nano for walks and dental work so I can be distraction-free. Toss in
some nitrous and it is almost a pleasurable experience. I certainly don't
dread going to the dentist.

Good music and pretty colors.

------
bonoboTP
An honest and naive question from someone outside industry: where is the line
between stealing trade secrets and taking your experience and expertise
developed at another company to a new company. Where does a lesson learned
during project X become taking the know-how of the company which it developed
during project X?

Because obviously the next company pays you so much because they see in your
CV that you gained experience at the other company. This also works outside
tech and I'm genuinely confused how this works for people bouncing across
FAANG, say. How do they not take best practices across companies? What is your
personal expertise and what is company IP? Does it depend on the wording of
the contract? Is it ambiguous and murky and up to the court and everyone just
hopes they won't get in trouble?

~~~
xoxoy
it wasn’t ambiguous at all. he downloaded related files directly to a personal
hard drive when he left.

~~~
bonoboTP
I'm asking in general, beyond this case.

~~~
xoxoy
if you haven’t stolen actual files or documents with you, then it’d be a very
tough case

~~~
bonoboTP
What if you just remember it and write similar procedure checklists that you
remember from the old place.

------
reactchain
Isn't this type of thing usually a civil case - how is it that he can get jail
time? Also what ever happened to Kalanick in all of this?

~~~
somethingwitty1
Theft and attempted theft are criminal acts, which is what he was sentenced
for. He was also subject to civil litigation.

~~~
biot
I guess that answers the question: he _would_ download a car.

------
Tepix
Looks like his "Way of the Future" church website is also no longer his:
[https://www.wayofthefuture.church/](https://www.wayofthefuture.church/) The
last time it was online with the original content was in March 2020.

------
yalogin
I didn’t realize jail time was on the cards. Somehow thought the court was
involved only to determine the compensation.

------
sschueller
18 months for this but the kid that hacked twitter and stole ~100k is facing
life in prison. This seems insane.

~~~
dragonwriter
That's because one is talking about an actual sentence and one is talking
about a theoretical maximum based on filed charges; the theoretical maximum
for the laundry list of charges filed against Levandowski before he pled to
one of the minor elements was pretty frigging enormous (and much more than he
would have actually been likely to get even if he was convicted of the whole
laundry list.)

------
tibbydudeza
His professional reputation is in tatters ... probably best he goes to China
after his release as they will probably be the only ones that would not care
and have the cash that would hire him.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Maybe he has some hidden, but then we'd be talking about bank and bankruptcy
fraud and people are probably keeping an eye on him. Any new job after all is
settled and done, will be without much responsibility or upshots

------
an_opabinia
If Uber shows he knew he gave them stolen trade secrets, doesn't it also
follow he would have only agreed to sell Otto to them if the agreement showed
he was indemnified against specifically that?

~~~
shadowgovt
"I am indemnified against violating trade secret law" isn't generally the kind
of thing that finds its way into a contract.

------
dzonga
not otto related. why is techcrunch so slow on chromium browsers. to read the
article, had to open it in firefox reader mode, private. thousands of requests
to just read a wall of text.

~~~
m88m
i just blocked everything that is not site content related.

------
google234123
He should go for far more. Someone stealing a car worth far less would go to
prison for far longer!

------
breck
Why do we have laws for trade secrets? Seems like that lowers wages and
decreases innovation. Really bad for majority of people. I understand they are
fantastic for minority of people who are shareholders, but are there
contrarians who think we should do away with legal protections for them?

~~~
darkwizard42
Not sure if this comment is sarcasm, but if we didn't attempt to reasonably
protect trade secrets the opposite of what you are saying would happen.

If I invest billions in a form of technology or a superior product and it can
just walk out the door to any competitor, I actually have a perverse incentive
to milk my existing products as much as possible and AVOID innovation due to
the lack of return on it and the ability for those ideas to just walk out to
another competitor

~~~
breck
> Not sure if this comment is sarcasm

No, I'm generally curious, why do we have trade secret laws? Seems anti-
capitalist, anti-freedom, anti-equality to me. There must be people who
question them and I'm curious to learn more.

> If I invest billions...

Yes, if you had billions to invest you should strongly dislike this idea. I'm
saying that perhaps trade secret laws are good for billionaires, bad for
everyone else. So removing them would be bad for billionaires, good for
everyone else.

Shareholders have the government's help in preventing their employees from
leaving to compete. Without that help, they'd have to treat their employees on
a more equal footing.

> AVOID innovation

A freer market generally leads to more innovation, not less. Sure, a small
number of billionaires may stop funding innovation, but that may be dwarfed by
the rise of a number of innovative upstart companies made up of former
employees.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> I'm saying that perhaps trade secret laws are good for billionaires, bad for
> everyone else.

Sure. In a certain, short-sighted sense, so are any property rights. Trade
secret law is important for anyone who wants to invest in the creation of high
value intellectual property that won't be protected with patents. Without such
protection, there is much less incentive for investment. Billionaires are one
group of people who conduct such investment. Startup founders and early
employees are another. Another group that may interest you is anyone who
invests through the public market in companies that derive value from trade
secret protections. And of course anyone who finds value in the purchase of
such goods, or any employee of such a company.

I know I personally would not attempt to build high value intellectual
property if there were no trade secrets. If I had an idea I thought would be
valuable but depended on the scheme, I'd leave and do the work in a country
that supported my intellectual property rights.

~~~
breck
> so are any property rights.

The term "Intellectual Property" is a red herring. You cannot have property
rights and IP rights. Logically it doesn't work (if you say my computer is my
property, but that I can't arrange the bits how I want, then it is not my
property). This case is well made in many places so I won't regurgitate much
further. But it's important to clarify that the term is a euphemism and is in
direct conflict with actual property laws. Better choice of terms include
"Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual
Slavery Laws".

> Trade secret law is important for anyone...

I am not arguing that trade secret law is unimportant for investors of
capital. I agree it is very important for investors of capital. However, it
seems to be an _unnatural_ state of affairs, to have the government involved
in enforcing secrets among its citizens. Why not let the free market figure it
out? To me it seems that would be both more equitable and much more effective
in a utilitarian sort of way. However, I don't dispute that it is in the
strong financial interests of the top 1% of the population (myself included)
to keep these laws as is. I'm just saying they are likely _unethical_ and
_counterproductive_ if one were to optimize society for innovation.

> I know I personally would not attempt to build high value intellectual
> property if there were no trade secrets.

Mathematically the world would not notice, even if your name was Edison. The
most impactful inventions in the world were all invented far before we had
copyright and patent laws. We are all putting grains of sand on mountains
built by our ancestors.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual
> Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws

I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks.

> However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs,

I'm not overly concerned with what is natural. Many good things are not
natural. Why not let the market figure it out? Because the market is known to
be inefficient for the production of non-rival, non-excludable goods.
Traditional macro econ theory suggests that without protection these goods
will be produced less than they ought. There are other solutions to the
problem besides government intervention, but the ones I'm aware of require
very high levels of consumer coordination.

> We are all putting grains of sand on mountains built by our ancestors.

Then you shouldn't be too bothered about the restriction on handling of trade
secrets by folks other than their owners. I mean if it doesn't matter what
gets invented, who cares whether someone owns it or not?

~~~
breck
> I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks.

A very pragmatic position.

> I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented...

I think inventions matter. But I think our contributions are always marginal
compared to what we build upon. If all of the people who say they won't create
without monopoly profits stop creating, there will be more than enough people
who continue to create that the world won't notice. In fact, it may even
improve things. We'd have less intellectual garbage because novelty would stop
being rewarded as much as utility.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits

Trade secrets and monopoly profits are different things. The source code for
your business' software is a trade secret, even if you don't have a monopoly.
It would be untenable to produce software for profit if any of your employees
could walk off with your source code after your investment and set up a
competing business selling the same thing at a cut rate.

From the sound of it, you might not find this prospect so sad. I can certainly
imagine a world where all software is produced by consortiums of users funding
development voluntarily. That doesn't seem to be a common general pattern,
however, with the exception of a few programs like Blender or Dwarf Fortress.
If it were more efficient for producing good software than the status quo I
would personally expect to see it happen naturally more often. There's nothing
that prevents such arrangements from being created today.

~~~
breck
> It would be untenable to produce software for profit if any of your
> employees could walk off with your source code after your investment and set
> up a competing business selling the same thing at a cut rate.

You can still _ask_ your employees to keep things secret, of course. Just
without government as your enforcer. What would generally happen is you'd have
to sweeten the terms of employment to make sure your people are happy. Profits
for existing shareholders would drop, probably significantly, but the market
would still churn out goods as before, and wages would rise.

> with the exception of a few programs

I would say at this point the majority of important software are not protected
by trade secrets (TCP/IP, Linux Kernel, XNU Kernel, Git, DNS, SQLite, MySQL to
name a few of many thousands). Tens of thousands of people are paid to work on
these open source software products, and yet generally remain with their
employers, even though they could "walk out the door" at any moment.

Secrets are fine. Government enforcement of secrets I find highly
questionable, and only in the interests of the 1%.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
All the software you cited is basically server infrastructure software. I
suppose that depending on your definition of important, you could say that
this is the majority of important software. Perhaps if important includes only
what is needed to develop web properties. But there are a lot of people who
use software besides web developers. I don't really buy that your list names
even close to the majority of important software by most folks' reckoning of
what's important.

Some important (to me and many other people) software you didn't mention:

    
    
        * Everything besides generic infrastructure that makes
          any web property work (Google, Bing, Netflix, Facebook,
          Amazon, DropBox, Personal Capital, etc.).
        * Microsoft Windows
        * Microsoft Office
        * Mac OS X
        * Nearly all games
        * Nearly everything that makes any given bank work
        * The Adobe Creative Suite
        * Any popular Android or iOS app
    

I'd guess that the number of people working on the pieces of software I
mention here exceeds those working on your list by at least one if not two or
three orders of magnitude. I doubt much of it would be economically viable
except for government protection of intellectual property.

Anyway, fortunately, the government will likely to continue to protect IP in
the foreseeable future. It's working pretty well so far.

~~~
breck
Just for reference.

XNU powers every Mac, every iPhone, every i*...it’s the most important
software on over 1B client machines.

Linux powers all Android devices. Most important software on over 3B machines.

SQLite is also on all those machines, and integrated in most software you
mention.

Almost all the software you mention uses git for VC, including windows.

Thanks for the discussion though, the parent topic is one I’m curious about so
good to hear different points of view.

------
ganfortran
So he would end up with hundreds of millions in his own pocket still?

------
quickthrower2
It's like real life monopoly. He picked up his chance card. Go to jail, do not
pass go. Roll a 6 and back in the game!

------
shoulderfake
poor guy ,from ballon dor contender to jail cell

------
gadgetsick
Nice Post

------
Ijumfs
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------
oh_sigh
Wow, I can't believe they made him pay back .4% of his compensation.

~~~
0xB31B1B
he didn't get any of the ~600m from the otto sale. It was entirely based on
earn outs from progress, and there was no progress, and none of the milestones
were hit.

~~~
oh_sigh
I was talking about his Google compensation which was reported to be
approximately 170 million

~~~
enraged_camel
If it's any consolation: the more money you have, the more painful a jail
sentence, even a short one like this, is, because the opportunity cost is
_massive_.

~~~
55555
Wow. The opportunity cost of spending part of your life in prison is not
measured in dollars. I mean, I guess Anthony might measure it in dollars, but
that's really, really far gone.

~~~
enraged_camel
The literal definition of "opportunity cost" of something is what that thing
costs you in terms of opportunity, i.e. what you could have done otherwise.

If you have millions of dollars in the bank, then you can do a LOT more stuff
than some poor schmuck. The opportunity cost of having that freedom taken
away, therefore, is a lot higher.

------
s17n
I realize that he's an asshole and his behavior was pretty egregious but as
engineers we should not be happy about the precedent that this sets.

~~~
zerocrates
What's the worrying precedent engineers should be unhappy about here?

~~~
s17n
Getting sued / prosecuted for switching jobs.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Getting sued / prosecuted for switching jobs.

No, getting sued and prosecuted for stealing trade secrets, using them as a
basis for starting one business competing with the employer from which they
were stolen, and then selling that business to another competitor of the one
from which they were stolen.

~~~
s17n
A similar case could be made against anybody who goes to work for a
competitor. He fact that you aren’t guilty might not matter so much if you’re
facing vastly asymmetric legal resources.

------
dumbneurologist
It seems inconsistent to punish technologists like Levandowski when we don't
punish bankers, CEOs, and polluters with the the same enthusiasm.

~~~
tptacek
If it makes you feel any better, we don't punish any of these people with the
enthusiasm that punish teenagers on the South Side of Chicago. At least
Levandowski gets a sympathetic cheering section.

------
Pxtl
Oh. I hadn't been following the story and had assumed somebody was facing
justice over the woman killed by Uber's unsafe self-driving car experiment.

... How silly of me.

~~~
sushshshsh
You mean the one who was jaywalking and wasn't visible until a split second
before she was tragically killed?

Do we afford the same condolences to the tens of thousands of other traffic
victims?

~~~
stingrae
This is a very unbalanced idea of what happened. The Uber released video’s
exposure was clearly adjusted to make it darker than reality. Also the sight
of the “jaywalking” was shown clearly to be a place where people regularly
crossed the road. There is a sidewalk that leads and ends right at that spot.
So it is clearly a urban planning design issue.

This is not to say that Uber is criminally liable but that it isn’t as clear
cut as you may want it to be.

------
fermienrico
More than the 18 month prison sentence, it would have been far better to
punish him with life-long red mark on his career to never be able to found, or
run a company and never be able to buy stock or any kind of a position in any
company.

Seems like 18 months will be spent plotting his next big thing and it’s rinse
and repeat.

Also put an upper limit to his wealth. Say total : $40K. And cancel his
passport.

~~~
etaioinshrdlu
I’m so glad we don’t have mob rule. Society is plenty punitive enough.

~~~
fermienrico
Putting people in an enclosed room for 18 months sounds pretty barbaric vs.
the measures I am recommending which is basically live a modest free life like
the middle class of America.

Why is that harsh?

