
Who is Anthony Levandowski, and why is Google suing him? - defenestration
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/23/anthony-levandowski-google-uber-self-driving-cars-lawsuit
======
ChuckMcM
Such an interesting case to watch from the outside.

Clearly the guy did not realize that Google spends inordinate amount of
resources watching their own employees. When I was there, a couple of laptops
were stolen from HQ and the amount, and detail, of the laptops they had
(location beacons, video footage from dozens of cameras, and RAT like tools on
the laptops themselves) let them capture the crooks, recover the laptops, and
identify the contractor who had assisted in access to the building in
something like a few hours after they were reported stolen. I was really
impressed by that, it certainly let anyone who was thinking about it know just
how silly it would be to try to do something counter to the company's
interests.

But this comment, _" At Google, Levandowski said, he was always chafing at the
slow pace of progress. He finally left the company in January 2016, a month
after Waymo alleges he had downloaded the technical files, and within days had
formed a new company, 280 Systems, which Waymo claims became Otto."_ I find
perhaps the most interesting. I can say a lot of things about Google but
'slow' is not something that generally came to mind. So that is surprising.

And then there is what this guy put at risk, there is this comment: _" After
covering his tracks, the lawsuit alleges, Levandowski pocketed a multimillion-
dollar payout from Google and, using the secrets he had just stolen, promptly
set up a new company, Otto, which was acquired shortly after by Uber for
around $680m."_

Presumably, as part of the acquisition he was signing that he wasn't
infringing on any previous agreements by joining and that he had rights to the
material in question. And so if this goes against him, it seems Google will
have cause to get back their payouts, and Uber will have cause to get back the
$680M they paid too. And perhaps a huge chunk of that will come out of his own
net worth. Maybe he squirreled away a bunch of cash that he thinks is out of
reach of the IRS/Courts but really?

Going to be interesting indeed.

~~~
spaceflunky
What will be fascinating to watch is how justice is served here.

Regardless of the wrong Levandowski may have committed, he is still an
extremely talented engineer in a field where a 'space race' of sorts is going
on between a handful of heavily monied-up players.

On one hand, I think Waymo has ability to financial ruin Levandowski. On the
other hand, no matter how tainted he is by this scandal, there are still 10
other players in this field who would be willing to pay him a huge salary. So
he could easily get a multi-million dollar salary from someone else.

I suppose what could happen is that other companies would be unwilling to work
with Levandowski because if a new employer of Levandowski's happens to develop
technology similar to Waymo's, Waymo could sue the new company and say the new
company received Waymo's proprietary information from Levandowski. Even if
that didn't happened, Levandowskis presence is enough to prove otherwise. In
other words, just the presence of Levandowski in another self-driving car
project is huge legal liability. And that may be his downfall.

It is, however, sad to think that this technology could be set back a few
years because of Levandowski's actions.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yes, and the question 'what is justice' is going to get a workout I suspect.

If he loses, I don't think he will be as easily re-employable as you do. Sure
he is clearly a talented engineer but he will be on the record as having
_cost_ two companies in this space _millions_ of dollars, primarily due to his
own actions. I don't know of any hiring manager who will sign off on that
level of risk to the company.

Oddly, if he wins, I think it will result in still greater restrictions,
surveillance, and lock downs on employees at Google so in some way it may
effect way more people than just the self driving car crowd.

That said, I think the risk of setting the technology back will be Google
aggressively pursuing infringement claims against anyone trying to develop
self driving cars in an effort to 'not lose' the investment they made. Worst
case scenario is a 'digital cash' type disaster[1] but even just suppressing a
lot of research will be an impact. Again, if Google wins there will be a lot
concern about hiring ex-Google engineers fearing taint.

[1] David Chaum developed some early digital cash patents and aggressively
sued anyone trying to develop micropayments or e-cash in the late '90s while
simultaneous producing no useful technology of his own, pushing out the
possibility of useful e-cash until as least 2018.

~~~
argonaut
Yeah, if he loses I see him trying to start his own firm.

------
username223
> He also found a lobbyist and got involved in getting laws passed in Nevada
> and California to allow the testing of autonomous vehicles. His backroom
> lobbying did not endear him to some executives at Google.

> “I thought you could just do it yourself,” he said. “Then I found out that
> there is a team dedicated to that, a process. Got a little bit in trouble
> for doing it.”

Wow. What world is this guy living in, where he thought he should personally
hire a lobbyist to change some laws to make his job easier? Maybe it's the
difference between me and a 10x-er, but I just don't understand this.

~~~
closeparen
Would you prefer that he check the regulations, find out that self-driving
cars are illegal, and therefore just never develop one?

I don't understand _that_.

Laws change to accomodate the facts on the ground, as they should. People
leading the changes of facts on the ground are in a natural position to push
for corresponding changes in law.

How do you think the first human-driven car was permitted to drive on a
street?

~~~
tracker1
There was probably no law requiring a license/permit or otherwise to have a
motor vehicle, or horse, or age restriction... and likely no sobriety
restrictions, depending on location, either.

------
imh
>“Google was very supportive, but they absolutely did not want their name
associated with a vehicle driving in San Francisco,” he said. “They were
worried about an engineer building a self-driving car that kills someone and
it gets back to Google.”

In what possible world is that a bad thing to worry about?!

~~~
empath75
In a word in which self driving cars are safer than human drivers, presumably.

------
jb613
What concerns me is that we are going to see more and more of this in the
coming years - corporations concerned over ex-employees taking their knowledge
with them and taking legal recourse. In this case, they complain about access
of 14k proprietary files - which is pretty damning, but I could see similar
damning evidence over accessing a couple of critically important design docs
relatively near the end of employment. How do you distinguish between files
being accessed merely for the purpose out your work vs theft? How can you
ascertain what was in their minds and hearts for accessing for those files -
and worse, how little would it take to sway a judge or jury that accessing of
such files were deliberate (ie part of the bigger picture)? Courts have been
wrong before. Previous generations this didn't come up because they stayed in
1 or 2 jobs their entire lives, at least in this aspect, today's environment
is completely different.

------
jsjohnst
The actual complaint [0] filed February 23rd is extremely thorough and very
damning. Somehow I'm not shocked.

[0]
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7dzPLynxaXuQjY3dkllZ2ZKb0k...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7dzPLynxaXuQjY3dkllZ2ZKb0k/view)

------
coldcode
Move fast and break things has interesting side effects. If in fact you can
prove he took documents, not just what was in his brain, then likely Google
will win as that law is fairly obvious. If you can't, what knowledge he knows
that he took with him is much more difficult to prove as "stolen".

~~~
geofft
Here's the post by Waymo: [https://medium.com/waymo/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-
against-otto-...](https://medium.com/waymo/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-
and-uber-86f4f98902a1)

> _Recently, we received an unexpected email. One of our suppliers
> specializing in LiDAR components sent us an attachment (apparently
> inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s LiDAR
> circuit board — except its design bore a striking resemblance to Waymo’s
> unique LiDAR design._

> _We found that six weeks before his resignation this former employee,
> Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 highly confidential and
> proprietary design files for Waymo’s various hardware systems, including
> designs of Waymo’s LiDAR and circuit board. To gain access to Waymo’s design
> server, Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto
> his company-issued laptop. Once inside, he downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s
> highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design
> files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the
> laptop. Mr. Levandowski then wiped and reformatted the laptop in an attempt
> to erase forensic fingerprints._

The full legal complaint is at the bottom of that post. It doesn't say how
Waymo detected it, but presumably they have internal IT logs.

The claim is not about anything in his brain.

~~~
disposableteen2
Did they reconstruct this from the server logs or were they monitoring his
laptop in real time?

~~~
mc32
They probably have all kind of activity meta data on all emps but don't
actively monitor and only go back and reconstruct in these kinds of events
(leaks, IP disputes, emp misconduct, etc.)

------
dboreham
Presumably they can cite the decision in Hooil vs. Pied Piper

~~~
DannyBee
Humorously, when we were going over the scenario, I told them the case would
have been miserably lost by Richard, but since Richard had to win, I had to
help them come up with a way that was at least not-truly-terrible (and fix the
dialogue :P)

But they actually had a completely written legal complaint and everything.

~~~
dboreham
Your work is appreciated. Watching that episode originally my thinking was
"surely nobody experienced in the business would be unaware of how to behave
and act to avoid future IP lawsuits", but I guess this real-life case proves
otherwise..

------
mingyeow
I am actually sincerely curious - is this considered a felony if proven? Seems
like a major offense to steal such a massive amount of information blatantly
for self enrichment, even if done under the missive of "changing the world"

This cannot end well.

~~~
isubkhankulov
The suit is a civil tort, seeking damages. A felony is a criminal charge,
usually against a person. I'm sure Google can call the CA District attorney
and/or the western US district attorney to make a criminal complaint, State
and Federal, respectively. I'm not an expert on the actual criminal charges
available on each level but probably something about trade secrets if we're
talking federal charges.

------
vinchuco
>The engineer made Google a world leader in self-driving cars. Now the company
is accusing him of stealing its secrets and taking them to Uber

Oh. OK.

The title is not too informative and sort of clickbaity.

------
dclowd9901
One thing I hadn't thought of til just now: how was he able to start a company
in a competing market right after leaving google?

~~~
denimnerd
California's laws don't prohibit it.

------
fffernan
He should go to jail. The state of California should prosecute him.

------
joshu
Strangely the article deletes Sebastian Thrun's roll. Shitty journalism.

~~~
MegaButts
Sebastian Thrun left Google 3 years ago, and had already been splitting his
time between Google and Udacity 5 years ago. The article is talking about the
recent events leading up to a lawsuit, not the history of self-driving cars
(in which case we'd have to go back to the 80's and Carnegie Mellon, where
coincidentally Sebastian Thrun once worked as a researcher).

~~~
joshu
It paints levandowski as the origin of google's program, and X predating the
program as well, neither of which are true.

------
SNBasti
Just curious, is he related to the football player Robert Levandowski from FC
Bayern ? :)

~~~
kkleindev
It's Robert Lewandowski

