
Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski - coloneltcb
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/technology/uber-anthony-levandowski.html?_r=0
======
tmh79
OK:

Here is some context for those who aren't current on the case.

One result of the injunction (all of the hearings up until now) was that uber
needs to use all of its power to compel levandowski to testify, the extreme
limit of which is firing him. Uber followed through as was legally required

This is one part of a number of things that came out of preliminary injunction
hearings, other parts are (1) the breadth of the case is much smaller than as
originally filed, its now about trade secrets, not about patent infringement
(2) Waymo is allowed a bit more indepth "discover" to see if they can find
evidence of their tech in ubers documents or in ubers hardware itself.

Legally, there is no inference that can be drawn from this to imply uber is
guilty, they have willfully carried out a court order.

Uber still has a self driving car program, that is staffed by a few hundred
engineers.

The case against levandowski has been referred to a federal prosecutor to
review the possiblity of criminal charges against levandowski, if I was his
lawyer and he was in this position, I would likely refer him to "plead the
fifth" regardless of his guilt.

The case is most definitely still going to trial

~~~
EnFinlay
One thing I've been confused about: didn't this whole thing start when a
vendor sent an e-mail to Google that was intended for Uber, and the contents
of the design in that e-mail were sufficiently similar to Google's designs
that Google started this process. Was the design not similar enough to prove
Uber's use of Google's IP? Am I remembering or interpreting that story
incorrectly?

~~~
georgespencer
> didn't this whole thing start when a vendor sent an e-mail to Google that
> was intended for Uber, and the contents of the design in that e-mail were
> sufficiently similar to Google's designs that Google started this process.

Yes.

> Was the design not similar enough to prove Uber's use of Google's IP?

It may well be, at trial, in court.

> Am I remembering or interpreting the story incorrectly?

No - but it still has to be demonstrated to be true to the extent required for
a civil case.

~~~
Pyxl101
> No - but it still has to be demonstrated to be true beyond reasonable doubt.

"Beyond reasonable doubt" is the standard of evidence required in a criminal
case. The standard of evidence required in a civil case is a "preponderance of
the evidence". This standard is met if the proposition is more likely to be
true than untrue (ie >50% chance).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law)#Preponde...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_\(law\)#Preponderance_of_the_evidence)

~~~
georgespencer
Oh weird I thought this was a criminal case. Thanks!

~~~
rlanday
Levandowski may indeed be facing criminal charges (separate from the civil
case against Uber), hence his unwillingness to testify.

------
ziszis
Link to formal termination letter: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/files/2017/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/files/2017/05/termination-letter.pdf)

The termination letter indicates that the termination is for cause and may
have implications on stock awards and other compensation:

"Under the Stock Award and other agreements, you are entitled to 20 days to
cure the events that give rise to this termination for Cause. This letter
constitutes the “prior written notice” triggering the commencement of that
20­day period."

~~~
United857
IANAL but doesn't the letter's language ("that termination shall become
effective 20 days from today") imply that he has 20 days to fix things, and
that the termination is not a already done deal?

~~~
mikeryan
"Cause" has meaning here. His days working for Uber are likely done but if he
choose to rectify the issues stated in the letter then he might be able to get
the terminated for "Cause" removed in which case he likely has some parachute
clauses and payouts which can come into effect.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Assuming Uber didn't want to fire him, and he rectifies the issues, then I
don't believe there is anything preventing them from hiring him back.

Actually there's nothing preventing them from hiring him back after the court
case concludes, is there? IANAL.

~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
I don't know. If the court thinks there was a deal between Uber and
Levandowski where they "fired" him for the duration of the trial, only to hire
him back as soon as possible, that could lead to contempt of court charges, I
feel. But IANAL either.

------
stevebmark
This is incredible. It looks like Uber is trying to pin this on him. I really
hope it's true (and proven in court) that Uber encouraged him to steal secrets
and start a company with the intention of Uber buying his half-assed startup.
Because this firing totally fits the bill of Uber executives' public behavior,
trying to shift the blame and throw people under the bus.

~~~
aetherson
Uber isn't trying to pin thinks on Levandowski. They've actually been very
courteous of him.

The deal is: _Levandowski_ pled the 5th and refused to produce a lot of
documents that he was ordered to by the court. _Uber_ can't plead the 5th as
it's not a natural person and it isn't be criminally prosecuted (EDIT:
dragonwriter points out that non-natural persons can plead the 5th. For
various reasons, Uber isn't asserting 5th Amendment protections, and the
details of why it isn't aren't wildly important here. I regret the error).

Judge Alsup basically said, "You can't, like, inherit Levandowski's
protections. You have to do everything possible to you in order to produce the
documents that I've ordered you to produce. That means getting your employee
to cooperate, or firing him." Uber asked Levandowksi to cooperate, and then
when he didn't, they fired him. It was very much on Alsup's order.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Uber can't plead the 5th as it's not a natural person and it isn't be
> criminally prosecuted.

Uber can plead the fifth [EDIT: no, it can't, see note at end] (it applies not
just to natural persons, and corporations are subject to criminal process as
well), but a party to a civil suit pleading the fifth can have that held
against them, and if you take the fifth you can't do it selectively, any issue
you take the fifth on you can't offer any testimony relating to. Taking the
Fifth would be essentially waiving a defense on key points, and civil suits
have a preponderance of the evidence standard, not the criminal beyond a
reasonable doubt standard, so it would be fairly easy for Waymo to prove
points against Uber where Uber essentially surrendered the ability to defend.

EDIT: while the discussion of the effects of taking the Fifth in a civil case
of this type are something I stand behind, the basic premise (that Uber could
take the Fifth) is incorrect; the self-incrimination protection of the Fifth
is an exceptional provision of the Bill of Rights in that it has been held to
apply only to individuals, not corporations and other similar entities, under
the "collective entity rule."

~~~
dllthomas
> but a party to a civil suit pleading the fifth can have that held against
> them

Isn't that untrue in California?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Isn't that untrue in California?

IIRC, you are correct in suits under California law, but this has no effect in
suits under federal law that happen to be heard in California. How that
applies to this case may be complicated because it involves both state and
federal law claims in federal court.

~~~
dllthomas
Interesting!

------
gumby
I was thinking simply, "too little, too late" but then realized this could be
quite interesting.

Uber's model in most domains is to push hard over the line in the hopes of
moving that line. More charitably this could be called "ask for forgiveness
rather than permission". So canning Levendowski could be seen as simply a case
of this.

But Google's suit is against Uber, not Levendowski, who could now spill beans
on all sorts of unsuspected malfeasance. At this point what has he got to
lose? If he decides to cooperate with google things could get _very_
interesting.

~~~
CPLX
> At this point what has he got to lose?

All of his money and perhaps his freedom. If he essentially sold Google
property to Uber he could be on the hook to hand over all the money he made
from doing it plus punitive damages, and some of the conduct that's been
alleged against him could even rise to the level of criminal charges.

He's taking the 5th here for a reason. He stands to lose, literally,
everything.

~~~
tuna-piano
I don't know much - but perhaps Google could make a deal with Levandowski that
if he spills the beans on what Uber did, then Google won't go after him?

Google obviously has much more to gain by suing Uber than suing a dude. If
Google needs information, and Levandowski has that information, it would seem
to be a good deal.

But if there's also possible criminal proceedings, Levandowski would need to
make a similar deal with the government too?

~~~
scarmig
Eh. Waymo definitely worries about Uber as a competitor, and in general many
people have a distaste for Uber's culture and values.

But there's still a pretty stark line between being a strategic competitor and
being a scummy traitor who steals trade secrets and the labor of his
coworkers. If it came down to a choice between shutting down Uber's self-
driving car program and ruining Levandowski, I'm sure a lot of people would
want to choose the latter, even though it's "irrational." Principles are
important.

~~~
monochromatic
An individual, sure. But Google is too big to take the irrational vindictive
option. I have to think they'd let Levandowski off the hook to shut down a
competitor like this.

~~~
scarmig
I'd expect the same. But I'd bet a majority of the individual actors,
including those making the final decision, would really like to be able to
take that vindictive option.

------
philip1209
Oh wow, I just noticed under the related stories that Travis's mother was
killed and father was seriously injured in a boating accident this week:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/business/uber-chief-
execu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/business/uber-chief-executive-
mother-killed-boating-accident.html)

~~~
randomf1fan
That's really terrible news. My condolences to the Kalanick family in this
difficult time. I hope his dad recovers soon.

I'm going to call my mom today and tell her I love her.

------
dafty4
Are there truly that many Lidar-related trade "secrets" that Google knows
about that suppliers and competitors at Velodyne, SPIE, ex-military
researcers, etc. don't already?

If Levandowski is targeted by federal prosecutors, can he argue inevitable
discovery based on existing public domain principles and papers (textbooks,
etc.)?

I find it hard to believe that Google is the only innovator in Lidar thus far.
It just seems like they are because it's now cool.

~~~
asr
The Preliminary Injunction order from earlier this month basically agreed with
you and said many of Waymo's trade secret claims are probably overbroad and
won't hold up.

But, the court said, it looks very much like Levandowski did take Waymo's
files and use them at Uber, and the files "likely contain at least _some_
trade secrets." So, basically, even if these are weak trade secrets claims and
there aren't that many secrets, Uber and Levandowski have looked so bad on the
question of whether they stole them that the Court was willing to say "fire
him or else."

Here is that order if you're interested:
[https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=244394038...](https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=244394038&z=018a5648)
See pages 11-17.

------
mikekij
I would think Google's argument would only need to be "Uber spent $600M on a
9-month old company". That alone is a huge red-flag, no?

~~~
joering2
Google spent $1600M on a 18-months old company.

Youtube starts in April 2005. Is bought by Google October 2006.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_YouTube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_YouTube)

~~~
femto113
By that point "the site delivered an average of 100 million video views per
day". Otto never delivered anything.

------
7ero
At this point, I think this is a move to slow Uber's entry into the market,
there is probably irrevocable damage because I would imagine it's hard to
prevent their IP from being used.

I wonder how things would have played out if Otto was never acquired.

------
rmellow
Not mentioned in the article:

Uber is investing in a self-driving research unit in Toronto, Canada led by
Raquel Urtasun [1].

Seems like a move to dodge all this Waymo brouhaha and benefit from Toronto's
deep learning scene.

[1] [https://www.techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/uber-hires-raquel-
urta...](https://www.techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/uber-hires-raquel-urtasun-to-
lead-a-new-atg-self-driving-unit-in-toronto/amp/)

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Or they decided to hire a researcher and her small team of grad students to
feed them research before publishing.

~~~
rmellow
There are quite a few positions open in Toronto[1], which leads me to believe
that actual development of self-driving is happening in the city.

The current state of immigration in the US has been reported to drive
developments in deep learning to Canada[2].

[1] [https://careers-
uber.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCatego...](https://careers-
uber.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCategory=818705&searchLocation=12955-12964-Toronto)

[2] [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a-new-ai-hub-
in-c...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a-new-ai-hub-in-canada-is-
welcoming-the-scientists-trump-is-pushing-away)

------
ChuckMcM
Not exactly unexpected given the court order earlier, interesting bit about
how he has 20 days to decide if he wants to rectify the 'cause'. Presumably
that would mean admitting stuff that he previously felt would incriminate
himself so doing so would put him into more jeopardy on some axis.

This has got to be painful for all the parties involved, I can only hope that
people who are watching are thinking to themselves "hmm, seems like some bad
choices." And whether or not they are really bad or just being painted that
way, it gives you a sense of how everything will be used to craft a narrative
around the sequence of events that serves the purposes of the people doing the
crafting, not necessarily the participants about whom the narrative speaks.

Having experienced personally the effects of bad actors trying to create a
narrative that differed markedly from 'reality' in order to protect their own
vulnerability I know how pulling only certain "facts" out of the history can
tell a different story than the truth.

~~~
bfstein
The 20 days bit is standard in termination for cause. You need to give the
employee a chance to cure the damages before you terminate them for cause.

------
openmosix
Interesting. The situation between Uber and Levendowski always reminded me of
the prisoner dilemma. If one bails on the other, might the other starts
talking about what really happened? I think that staying together would have
been the best course of action for Uber. Very interesting to see how this will
develop.

~~~
untog
If you talk about what happened it doesn't magically mean all the punishment
falls on the other side. If Levendowski admits to breaking the law he'll be
punished, no matter if he is or isn't friends with Uber at the time.

~~~
openmosix
Depends. If the story is how Waymo pictured it (the entire acquisition was an
orchestrated plan with Uber to take IPs out of Google), if I were Levandowski
I'd be reaching out to Waymo and propose a deal. I'll give you information to
crucify Uber but you let me go. I guess Waymo is after Uber more than a single
engineer.

~~~
hluska
The only issue is Levandowski could still face criminal charges and, under the
circumstances can he trust Waymo not to take every drop of that information
and hand it over to the most proximate prosecutor?

------
Kiro
What if Uber is actually innocent? I've always just assumed they are guilty
and planned this all along.

~~~
jacquesm
> What if Uber is actually innocent?

If an ex employee of a company making a competing product walked into my
office with a large treasure trove of files I would not automatically assume
that he had re-created those files in his spare time.

Uber being 100% innocent would be highly surprising.

~~~
mst
Otto had existed for long enough at that point that you could, in theory,
believe that he'd re-created those over the lifetime of Otto.

But even then I'd agree that they're probably guilty of "intentionally not
thinking too hard about it", at the very least.

~~~
jacquesm
Frankly I don't buy it, not even a little bit. I do DD for a living with some
regularity and if someone popped up with that much IP in such a short time I
would spend a lot of time on the origin story of that IP and I really would
like to have a chat with the magical 1000x developers that they employed.

It is beyond suspicious, but then again, maybe pigs really can fly.

------
Overtonwindow
This issue brings to mind the fight over Phillip Shoemaker at Apple. Self
driving cars and the engineering behind it seems highly specialized. Will this
case with Levandowski put pressure on engineers to stay put, a stronger, tacit
non-compete and no-poaching rule?

~~~
ryandamm
The nice thing about California is employers' concerns about the market,
competition, and trade secrecy _cannot_ take priority over an individual's
right to work (with narrow exceptions for owners selling a business).

To the extent it puts pressure on the companies -- perhaps. But it shouldn't
hurt the employees themselves; on the contrary, perhaps it encourages the
companies to keep engineers around by granting enticing equity packages with
long-ish vesting schedules.

Or you're right, and they'll just collude. Guess it could go either way...!

------
ianamartin
If he stays out of jail re: the criminal prosecution, the hype will die down,
people will forget about it, the internet outrage machine will move on, and
he'll do something else and be fine.

------
tyingq
Of course, whatever salary he was making is far less interesting than the
direct benefit of the original Otto acquisition.

~~~
jbigelow76
Levandowski got $250 million in Uber stock during the Otto acquisition and per
a story on Techcrunch as of May 3rd, none of it had vested yet. Doesn't seem
likely it will either.

~~~
obstinate
If there is any justice, Google will claw back significant fractions of the
$120M it paid him through arbitration. It's unacceptable for this guy to sail
off into the sunset after doing what he has done (if indeed it is proven that
he did it).

------
jacquesm
Surprised that took this long. Hot potato dropped, now let's see where the
damage claims will point.

~~~
acchow
I don't really understand how damages claims work. Can someone shed some
light? No company has made any money off self driving cars. Google/Waymo has
definitely not. How can they demonstrate damages?

~~~
hackunomatter
I think, basically, Uber will pay some $$$ to make the lawsuit go away and
"license" Waymo's tech (which they already had, courtesy Mr. Lewandowski, but
now will legally have it).

~~~
bykovich2
You don't think Google's out for blood? Didn't they announce a Waymo
partnership with Lyft a couple of weeks ago?

~~~
ianamartin
I agree. Google doesn't want a license agreement. As pointed out below, yes,
there is investment, but I think Google/Alphabet is out for blood and the
investment dollars will be recouped in the civil settlement if not the
arbitration with Levandowski.

Either way, I don't think Google cares. They want to be first on the market.
And based on how badly Uber has been flouting the law, I suspect Google gets
there first no matter what. This just slows Uber down.

It won't matter though. Money will change hands. And that's about it.
Google/Alphabet/Waymo/Lyft will be first to market in a pretty shitty way,
followed by Uber. The tech world and early adopters will go nuts and in this
case probably die in a fire. Then Apple and Tesla will come in with a far
superior safety/user experience and take over.

None of this really matters at this point. It's a waiting game. This is what
Apple always does and what Tesla has started doing: wait for the early entries
in the market to do their thing, learn from their mistakes, and pwn the market
later with better UX and marketing.

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think that's the whole story.

If Google would let it be known that you can take a bunch of IP and walk out
the front door to a competitor that would be a very expensive signal.

So for them this is as much about this concrete case as it is about how Google
will deal with situation where their IP grows legs.

------
aioprisan
That too much longer than expected. What was Uber thinking?

~~~
camus2
From the start it was obvious that the interests of the employee and Uber's
didn't align at all in that lawsuit.

The question now is, what did Uber know and when did it know it. Did Uber had
contact with that employee when he was still working at Google? I wouldn't be
surprised if Uber sued the guy in the future.

------
joering2
_... comes as a result of his involvement in a legal battle between Uber and
Waymo, the self-driving technology unit spun out of Google last year._

Honest question - can they do that to him, or anyone else, before guilt is
actually proven? What if the result is that nothing is found?? Can he counter-
sue for wrongful termination??

Next time if you are company X and are angry your employee Y left for company
Z, just sue Z in hopes they will let Y go.

~~~
chc
They're firing him because they ordered him to cooperate with the
investigation and he refused to do so, not for being guilty of a crime.

------
walshemj
Isn't anyone concerned that you can be fired for excising your rights under
the constitution?

------
wdb
What stops Uber from hiring him again as a contractor?

------
ProfessorLayton
Interesting. Could Levandowski throw Uber under the bus without incriminating
himself?

Additionally, I wonder if Uber has clawback agreements in place for their Otto
acquisition.

~~~
kognate
Probably not. The biggest hurdle here is that it was Levandowski who took the
documents on his own initiative. Even if he'd been asked by someone high up at
Uber to steal the information he might escape criminal prosecution but he'd
never keep his money.

------
throwaway13234
Statement from Levandowski's lawyers:

[https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/19/levandowski-waymo-
fifth.pd...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/05/19/levandowski-waymo-fifth.pdf)

"The bite of the Court’s May 11, 2017 Preliminary Injunction Order, as it
relates to nonparty Anthony Levandowski, can be summarized quite simply:
'Waive your Fifth Amendment rights... or I will have you fired. The choice is
yours, Mr. Levandowski.' But, even when framed as a “choice,” this command
runs counter to nearly a half century of United States Supreme Court
precedent, beginning with Garrity v. State of New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967),
in which the Court held that the Fifth Amendment forbids a government entity
from threatening an individual with the choice “between self-incrimination and
job forfeiture.” Id. at 497, 500. As the Supreme Court observed in Garrity,
the “option to lose [one’s] means of livelihood or pay the penalty of self-
incrimination is the antithesis of free choice to speak out or to remain
silent.” Id. at 497. As the Supreme Court made clear, whenever a state actor
imposes this choice between “the rock and the whirlpool,” it engages in
unlawful constitutional compulsion, which, among other things, operates to
immunize any resulting testimonial statements."

Isn't anyone else here bothered by the due process implications of Judge
Alsup's demand to force Levandowski to give up a Constitutional right or be
fired? I'm generally a fan of Alsup, but this sets terrible precedence.

~~~
austenallred
As easy as it is to hate on Uber, this is indeed troubling. Odd that you can
tie such things to Constitutional rights.

~~~
joshuamorton
The thing to note here, is that as far as Alsup is concerned, Levandowski
isn't a party to the case. There's Uber and Waymo. Uber has been instructed to
get information for Waymo as part of a civil proceeding in which Levandowski
is not a party. To do anything less than their fullest to compel Levandowski
to give that information to Waymo would make Uber liable.

Its worth remembering that, at this point, this is only a civil suit, so among
other things, silence can actually be used against you (adverse interference).

~~~
gnicholas
legalese note: I think you mean "adverse inference", not "adverse
interference". I only note this because "interference" is a word used in some
legal jargon (e.g., "tortious interference"), so this typo could be confusing
to others.

~~~
joshuamorton
You're correct. That was a typo on my part.

------
accountyaccount
probably a good move

------
Arizhel
>So yeah, it happens; it's just a spectacularly bad idea for the police to do
it. If they hadn't declined to file charges, my friend and another murder
victim would probably still be alive today

Sorry about your friend, but why is it a "spectacularly bad idea" for police
to do so? What alternative do they have? If the sole victim is unwilling to
cooperate with the investigation and subsequent trial, their chances of
actually succeeding in imprisoning that scumbag are approximately zero. If you
want to blame someone, go find the stupid, selfish woman who wanted to "let it
drop" 5 years ago. Remember that old saying about evil flourishing because
good people do nothing.

~~~
xhedley
Arizhel, I have never been subjected to rape and attempted strangulation
myself. But someone that I know well has.

In the country that I live in, the justice system rightly requires that guilt
in criminal cases is proved "beyond reasonable doubt". In court, the accused
has every reason to allege that the alleged victim was "up for it" and
"consenting" and "enjoyed it".

The victim who "lets it drop" in these circumstances may be selfish - but they
aren't stupid when they weigh the cost to themselves of an adversarial court
case against the gain to themselves of a rape conviction. In an ideal world
all women would feel strong enough to testify in a rape case but maybe this
isn't an ideal world.

Testifying that someone raped you isn't like testifying that someone stole
your wallet. It's way more intimate and personal and dangerous.

To the thread starter - I am so sorry that your friend was raped and killed.
Please look after yourself and talk to someone about how you are feeling.

~~~
Arizhel
OK, but that still doesn't explain why it's a "spectacularly bad idea" for
police/DA to not bother prosecuting in cases like this. What exactly are they
supposed to do when they don't have a cooperative victim? Why is it not-stupid
for the victim to avoid the costs of an adversarial court case, but it's
stupid for the DA to avoid a case that he or she is guaranteed to lose?

~~~
hluska
My Dad was a police officer for 41 years and, by chance, he is visiting me. I
read him your comments. Based on his 41 years of extremely high level
investigative experience (including lead investigator in more sexual assaults
than he cares to remember) , you literally don't know what you're talking
about. He laughed at your comment and said, "Wow, another asshole armchair
investigator with no experience."

First, the DA in the American system is not guaranteed to lose. Rather, unless
the alleged perpetrator is extremely wealthy, the DA has a tremendous
advantage. This is unbelievably common knowledge and something he picked up
working closely with FBI and DEA agents.

Second, when you don't have a cooperative victim, a skilled investigator will
investigate why. Often this happens because either the perpetrator made a very
graphic threat and/or the victim suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
In this case, a highly skilled investigator would make sure that the victim
had access to the best victim services people around.

Further to that, a skilled investigator/prosecutor combination will take steps
to shield and protect the victim from an adversarial system. One common method
would be to overcharge, announce they're going for a max sentence and plea
down to avoid trial, while still guaranteeing a sentence, probation and sex
offender registries.

There is your precious answer. Now, take some time to evaluate what kind of
heartless asshole calls a victim 'stupid'.

------
sfdghjkl2345678
It's ON!!!!

------
AngelloPozo
Uber followed through on their public warning. Doesn't look good I must say.

------
Everhusk
It's sad to see Uber destroy a talented engineer's credibility like this...
Moment of silence for the man who once went out and built a self driving
motorcycle on his own [1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CYGT97i8qU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CYGT97i8qU)

~~~
scott_karana
I think he ruined his own credibility via mass theft of his precious
employer's files.

His current employer is irrelevant.

Plus, "on his own" is not correct. Team Blue 2005 had nine members:
[http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/TechPapers/BlueTea...](http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge05/TechPapers/BlueTeam.pdf)

------
yeukhon
I think no one will ever dare to hire Levandowski. His career is over. Maybe
still too early to draw any conclusion, but I can't seem to have any counter
potential excuse or reason to believe the self-driving programs weren't
stolen. Why on earth would someone like him do that? Conceited arrogance?

Now I don't understand taking the Fifth. If everyone takes the Fifth, how do
you convict someone? Find evidences, and have the a grand jury find the person
guilty?

~~~
pcsanwald
I think his career is very unlikely to be over, assuming he stays out of jail.

~~~
djtriptych
I don't think he's been charged with or even suspected of a crime.

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phamilton
His situation was referred to a federal prosecutor. I'd say that's at least
'suspected of a crime'.

