
Anthony Levandowski Charged with Theft of Trade Secrets - coloneltcb
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/technology/google-trade-secrets-levandowski.html
======
hintymad
Why did reporters keep calling Levandowski an engineer? He's really not, at
least not for quite a number of years.

Anyway, Levandowski was a lousy leader, and was really detrimental to Uber's
ATG. He bloated ATG from fewer than 100 people to more than 2000 within less
than a year, without paying the slightest attention to culture. As a result,
the number of people grossly exceeded the quantity of work. Political
infighting quickly became rampant. Chaos ensued. Morale nose dived. Worse yet,
instead of aligning and uniting the teams in Pittsburg, he created a huge
fight with the Pittsburg teams, so much so that Travis, then the CEO of Uber,
had to fly to Pittsburg every few weeks to resolve the conflicts.

It's sickening to even think about what he did in Uber.

~~~
hintymad
P.S., Levandowski caused similar drama when he was in Google's self-driving
car division too, per the book Autonomy by Lawrence D Burns.

~~~
meowface
It's baffling to me how everyone seems to hate the guy and say he was a
terrible leader, employee, and person, and yet companies seemed to have been
valuing him like a diamond. How did that work? Is he just good at duping and
persuading and sweet-talking people? Does he have some past accomplishments
that were respectable? Does he have some insight into autonomous driving no
one else has? Why would Google and Uber bet so much on this guy?

~~~
parsimo2010
He was on the Berkeley team for the original DARPA Grand Challenge. Their team
was notable for being a motorcycle while everyone else used a car, the
complexity of using a motorcycle earned them big points with the higher-ups
even though the bike didn't do very well on the course.

So if you were a CEO looking to hire a senior guy for autonomous vehicles, he
was one of the most senior in years of experience, pretty much nobody was
working on autonomous vehicles prior to the Grand Challenge.

~~~
ehsankia
Sure, but once it becomes clear that he doesn't fit in the culture and causes
more issues than he solves, why does he keep getting promoted and his pay
increased?

~~~
parsimo2010
I suggest that wasn't as clear as you think it was to the right people (either
through incompetence, ignorance, or bad leadership), or that if they did have
some idea that he wasn't a great fit they were hoping that he would produce a
miracle that would make all the pain worth it.

Coming in with wunderkind status gives you a lot of leeway with some people,
and things need to be pretty bad before the people that hired you will admit
that they made a mistake, hired the wrong person, and paid them way too much.
Admitting such a mistake does some damage to your ego and reputation of hiring
problem solvers. Plus, by many accounts he was producing decent results- after
all, he's led some pretty famous projects, and most of the projects weren't
regarded as failures, so why should he be regarded as a failure? Other than
stealing IP and being a dick, he's not usually called a loser or a failure.

------
cletus
The level of greed, hubris and stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze
me.

Levandowski was paid a bonus of $120 million while at Google, which is more
money than any reasonable person will need for several lifetimes. This was
actually a running joke at Google (while I was still there) to describe $120M
as "1 Levadownski". Like Sundar one year was described as earning "only 1.7
Levadownskis" (he got paid $200M one year).

Why someone would risk jail time doing something so clearly wrong (taking
material trade secrets from an employer) for even more money is just
staggering to me. Even if he escapes prison time the stress and cost of a
protracted criminal trial is huge. The loss of reputation is likely permanent.

I get why some high fliers have big egos and they privatize their success
(even when pure dumb luck can be a huge factor). This is the hubris part.
Right or wrong, that belief in your own abilities is almost a prerequisite for
disruption.

The interesting part is how he "cheats". Like he clearly went to efforts to
cover his tracks. Those aren't the actions of someone who felt they didn't do
something questionable. So at this point, it's not about the hubris of the
individual, it's about being _perceived_ as being gifted, intelligent, a
visionary and so on.

Honestly it makes me glad when such charlatan have their almost inevitable
fall from grace.

~~~
fstuff
It's weird walking away from 120 million but I think I might get what he was
thinking. He was probably over confident with the tech, and thought it was
close to roll out. He was also probably thinking the tech was worth billions.
I bet Anthony felt he built the tech himself and he owned it. He probably
wanted and felt like he deserved a bigger piece of the multi billon dollar
self driving pie than just 120 million.

~~~
Ascetik
Imagine not being satisfied with 120 million dollars. Unreal to think about,
but greed is never satisfied.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
You can't even buy your own wide-body private jet or ultra-yacht with 120
million dollars.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/most-luxurious-private-
jets-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/most-luxurious-private-jets-in-the-
world-photos-details-2018-1)

[https://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-
top-...](https://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-10-most-
expensive-luxury-yachts/)

If you're aiming for the billionaire narcissist bracket - because of course
it's the lifestyle you deserve - 120 million is chump change.

------
kragen
"Theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built.

Fairchild was "theft of trade secrets" from Shockley; Intel was "theft of
trade secrets" from Fairchild. When Camenzind left Signetics and designed the
555 (under contract to Signetics), he was "using trade secrets" of Signetics;
in today's legal environment, they could have just ordered him to stick around
as an employee and work on a less risky project. MOSTek was built out of
"trade secrets" of Motorola. Unix was only released under a source licensing
agreement, and for decades the Lions book, the bible for Unix kernel
engineering, was illegal and could not be printed legally, because it
contained "trade secrets" (and copyrighted code!) of AT&T. (Or, rather,
Western Electric.) Indeed, economists have published a number of papers
arguing that that California's prohibitions on non-compete agreements and on
employer ownership of private work product underpinned the 1970s–1990s shift
from Boston to Silicon Valley.

So this movement toward resolving such conflicts in the courts, instead of by
companies competing to out-innovate one another, is very troubling. Investors,
and in this case Google upper management, are killing the goose that laid the
golden egg; they want to shift power from engineers, who make things, to
lawyers and investors, who specialize in getting paid for them.

This is probably a major factor in the widely-observed shift of the center of
innovation from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen, where shanzhai ("theft of trade
secrets") is a way of life.

I live in a poor country which is poor mostly because the established economic
powers are able to strangle new centers of wealth creation in the cradle,
using the government and laws. Don't let that happen in your country.

Engineers create wealth. Lawyers and investors just compete to privatize it.

~~~
pcwalton
> So this movement toward resolving such conflicts in the courts, instead of
> by companies competing to out-innovate one another, is very troubling.

A lot of the things you cite _were_ actually fought out in the courts.
Motorola sued MOS Technology [1]. AMD and Intel have been in constant legal
battles since their inception. The complicated question of Unix ownership
started the famous SCO-Linux litigation. This isn't anything new.

And Anthony Levandowski is one of the least sympathetic figures in the
industry; virtually no story about people who worked for him has been a
positive one. I have sympathy for ordinary senior engineers getting strangled
by non-compete agreements. Not for Levandowski.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502#Motorola_l...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_6502#Motorola_lawsuit)

~~~
kragen
Do you think MOStek would have been able to survive in today's legal
environment? I don't think so, and that's what worries me.

The SCO-Linux litigation wasn't complicated. It was just fraud on SCO's part,
under copyright law that was well-established at the time. With the
Google/Oracle precedent in place, SCO would probably win.

I agree that Levandowski, like weev, is profoundly unsympathetic, but we can't
let that blind us to the precedents he is being used to set. If Levandowski
wins his case, ordinary (and extraordinary) senior engineers will be safer
from getting strangled by non-compete agreements; if he loses, they will be in
more danger.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The Google-Oracle precedent is not actually relevant to SCO v IBM, because IBM
didn't re-implement an interface copyrighted by SCO.

~~~
kragen
You're right, of course, because it turned out SCO wasn't the owner of the
relevant copyright.

~~~
deelowe
True, but the bit about interfaces is also not comparable between the two.
There wasn't a lot of commonality between openserver and IBM (RedHat) Linux.
It's not like the libraries on one system would run on the other. SCO's
seminal allegation was that code was copied between the two, but they never
produced evidence. Likely, because there was none. The case was eventually
dropped when it was determined SCO couldn't even make a claim to begin with
and the rightful copyright holder, Novell, stated they didn't believe SCOs
claims. Then SCO went bankrupt and the whole situation just kind of quietly
went away.

~~~
kragen
They did eventually show some “code”, namely signal.h and a couple of other
similar files.

However, thanks to iBCS, it is actually possible to run SCO Unix binaries on
Linux, and has been since last millennium. That's why interfaces like signal.h
shouldn't be copyrightable: the goal of copyright Law is not to give SCO
control over code their customers write.

------
uuilly
I used to work for Anthony at 510 systems. He tried to hire me for Otto as
well. Watching this whole thing unfold from, obscure story in 2011 to the
Waymo Vs. Uber trial to federal charges and national news is rather surreal.
Anthony is one of the most creative, energetic thinkers I've ever encountered.
If he stopped taking shortcuts he'd probably be the next Jobs or Musk.

~~~
methehack
That's tragic and awful. I think calling this a "shortcut" though is
misleading, at least from what the times is reporting here.

It's one thing to own your own brain, it's another take 14K files, including
circuit board designs and lidar designs. It's yet another to start using them
at new-co that is a direct competitor to old-co. I'm by no means an IP
fanatic, but that really does cross over to theft in my mind. But, on balance,
the very specific details really matter here, so we'll see...

~~~
magduf
Taking PCB design files and using them at a competing company absolutely is IP
theft. I'm honestly surprised anyone would think they could even get away with
this; the old company just has to get their hands on one of the competitor's
units and open it up and look at it.

~~~
ZhuanXia
Many of us do not believe IP is a legitimate property right.

~~~
magduf
Many people think the Earth is flat. What's your point?

------
danso
FTA, the significant aspect of this new twist in Levandowski's ongoing legal
saga:

> _It is not uncommon for tech companies, which fiercely guard their
> intellectual property, to sue former employees or the firms they join after
> they leave. But criminal charges of a senior executive for theft is
> unusual._

~~~
jerf
"According to the complaint, Mr. Levandowski, who worked on self-driving cars
at Google, downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information
about Google’s autonomous-vehicle research before leaving the company in 2016.
He then made an unauthorized transfer of the files to his personal laptop, the
complaint said."

If the allegations are true (always important to bear in mind from a one-sided
view of the complaint), I can see why they took that step in this particular
case. Any "senior executive" should know that's illegal.

~~~
dekhn
levandowski never liked when rules got in the way of progress. his attitude
was "whatever it takes to birth self-driving cars".

~~~
throwaway_law
>never liked when rules got in the way of progress.

Yes, that seems to be the Silicon Valley Culture.

"Move fast and break things"

"Its better to apologize and seek forgiveness, than ask for permission"

"Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to
have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good.
Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about
observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil.
They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter."

~~~
inlined
I used to go back to my university and speak at the ethics class in my
recruiting trips. I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb,
etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I
had no real answer.

~~~
throwaway_law
>I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all
succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no
real answer.

You should go back to it, as those are examples of why ethics are needed more
than ever.

As someone in the "trenches" and who sees the damage done by them everyday,
I'd suggest you can point to the trail of damage they left in their wake and
the real lives that have been negatively effected.

In the case of Uber I would simply start with highlighting the number of
drivers who now have criminal records as a result of doing nothing more than
driving for Uber. How Uber as a matter of policy would fire drivers who were
charged criminally for illegally operating rides for hire for Uber. Perhaps
most shockingly for these students perhaps informing them of the reality they
are far more likely to become an Uber driver than the founder of the next
Uber.

~~~
amyjess
I would also recommend hanging out on subreddits like /r/uberdrivers,
/r/lyftdrivers, or /r/lyft and look for every instance of drivers using "we're
independent contractors" to justify abusive behavior towards customers that
would get them fired if they were actual employees and in some cases behavior
that is straight-up illegal.

Some things I've actually seen on those subreddits:

* Give three-star ratings (or worse, one-star) to any passenger who has a wheelchair or a service animal to make sure you're never matched with them again. Straight-up ADA violation.

* When you mark that you've arrived, keep your doors locked until the destination shows up, and if it's a "sketchy" (read: majority black) neighborhood, keep your doors locked, wait five minutes, call them, immediately hang up, report them as a no-show, and collect a $5 no-show fee from them (waiting five minutes and calling is a requirement to collect the no-show fee). Redlining is illegal, and this is straight-up fraud.

* If you get a request to pick someone up at a supermarket, drive _just_ close enough to the supermarket that the "arrive" button becomes pressable, then do the above and collect your no-show fee. Again, straight-up fraud.

* One-star every passenger who doesn't tip. Retaliating against people who don't tip would get you fired from any other service job.

* One-star every passenger who orders a shared ride, no matter what. Again, that kind of retaliation would get a real employee fired. (Yes, shared rides suck for everyone involved, but retaliating against a customer for ordering the most annoying thing on the menu wouldn't be tolerated at a restaurant, yet Uber and Lyft are a-OK with it.)

* One time, a woman complained about how a Lyft driver kicked her out of his car in the middle of the ride because she just nodded along to his stories and didn't engage him in conversation, and he told her "if you don't want to talk, order an Uber instead". The response on the subreddit was universal: he's an independent contractor, so he has every right to kick her out for any reason, and Lyft isn't even allowed to fire him for it because that would count as interference in how an independent contractor does their job. At any other job, flipping out on a customer for not making enough conversation with you would get you in huge trouble, and _advertising your employer 's biggest competitor_ would get you fired in a heartbeat.

* This came from the Rideshare Guy blog and not Reddit: since repeatedly cancelling rides after accepting it will get you in trouble, drivers used cancel rides by putting their phones in airplane mode because a loss of connectivity would auto-cancel without penalties. When Uber started detecting that a few years ago (2014-5 maybe?) and counting it against a driver's cancellation rate, drivers started _picketing Uber 's local hubs_ over it. In the rest of the service industry, lying to your employer over this would get you in huge hot water, and publicly complaining about it even more so.

Every single one of these was justified by saying "we're independent
contractors, we can refuse service to anyone for any reason". Again, a few of
these are straight-up illegal, but since only the contractor is liable and not
Uber/Lyft, enforcement is exceedingly difficult, and for the ones that _aren
't_ illegal, they're still unethical, and any reputable employer would fire an
employee engaging in that kind of behavior, but Uber/Lyft drivers get to hide
behind "we're contractors and not employees, so Uber/Lyft firing us for how we
treat customers would violate _our_ rights".

Unethical behavior is actively harmful to customers.

~~~
magduf
>to justify abusive behavior towards customers

I guess you never used taxis before Uber was invented! The whole industry has
been a huge racket for decades.

>Redlining is illegal, and this is straight-up fraud.

I guess you were never black and trying to get a taxi in NYC to go to the
Bronx. There were countless complaints from black people about this practice
with the cabs.

Basically, while your complaints are justified, though they definitely seem
like cherry-picking the worst horror stories, the situation wasn't actually
any better before these services existed. People didn't have any recourse when
cab drivers treated them poorly, or made up bogus fares, turned off the
taximeter and made up numbers, drove them around in circles to make more
money, etc. It didn't matter that the drivers were technically employees; the
cab companies had an oligopoly enforced by law, and didn't have to worry about
customer service or reputation. And there certainly was no way for customers
to inform each other about lousy drivers.

The real problem here is a lack of decent government regulation, and worse,
when the (local) government does try to regulate, it just results in cronyism
and high prices rather than better service and experience for the taxpayer.

I'll also point out that Uber doesn't have much presence in Japan, because
their taxi drivers are actually highly professional and aren't a bunch of
lying crooks like the ones in America, so people don't feel the need to flock
to it. The fundamental problem is obviously the culture and the people in
America, and that's why Uber is successful there.

------
tryitnow
I would have a lot more sympathy for Levandowski if he had taken trade secrets
and created his own company.

But he didn't take the engineer/entrepreneur route. He took the corporate
espionage route and just stole stuff from one company so that another company
would profit, in the process further enriching himself.

At one point he was a good engineer. Then he became just another greedy
executive.

~~~
denzil_correa
> But he didn't take the engineer/entrepreneur route. He took the corporate
> espionage route and just stole stuff from one company so that another
> company would profit, in the process further enriching himself.

Levandowski actually had his own startup Otto which was acquired by Uber.

~~~
jonathankoren
It was acquired in eight months, and founded specifically after Levandowski
and Kalanick had a meeting. Otto looks like a prearranged sham legal entity to
justify a huge payout, than a bonafide startup.

~~~
sdan
"If you buy us, you'll also buy some Waymo code"

~~~
jonathankoren
I figure it was just two bros figuring out how to funnel a tens of millions
dollars into Levandoski’s pocket.

~~~
sdan
If I'm hearing this right, this is pretty much money laundering

------
chkuendig
He's already off the Pronto.AI about page, his current startup where he was
the CEO until this news: (mentioned towards the end of the NYT article)

[https://pronto.ai/about/](https://pronto.ai/about/)

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:I7ifOu...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:I7ifOuQOp-
QJ:https://pronto.ai/about/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ch)

~~~
SahAssar
They do mention it on the homepage and link to this though:
[https://pronto.ai/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Pronto-
Statemen...](https://pronto.ai/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Pronto-Statement-
Aug.27.2019.pdf)

------
minimaxir
Official filing: [https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-self-
drivin...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-self-driving-car-
executive-indicted-alleged-theft-trade-secrets-google)

PDF: [https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-
release/file/1197991...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-
release/file/1197991/download)

~~~
dmix
> The prosecution is being handled by the Office of the U.S. Attorney,
> Northern District of California’s new Corporate Fraud Strike Force

I'm curious if this explains the delayed timing... New agency team gets
started and looks around for the biggest fish to fry. Everyone already
dislikes Uber and AI is big right now so it's win-win. Smart move by the
prosecutors if so.

(Or it could just be a long process due to the other civil trial happening
first or just the FBI criminal investigation taking long, and the new group
simply took up the prosecution, I'm just speculating)

~~~
sangnoir
IIRC, there was a criminal referral made by the judge during the (civil) Uber
v Google proceedings. It probably took time for the grand jury to be set up
and complete its investigations after that.

~~~
dmix
Interesting that would explain it. Thanks

------
leoh
For more background, this New Yorker essay is useful.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-
steal...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-
googles-intellectual-property)

~~~
keithyjohnson
Great article, I liked that it illuminates the question--whats a trade secret
vs knowledge from on-the-job-experience? And where's the line across which a
company can say you've used a trade secret? It's scary to think that one of
the outcomes of this case could be a precedent that allows companies to go
after what's in your head.

~~~
compiler-guy
It's unlikely that this will be a precedent for companies "going after what is
in your head."

The accusation is that Levandowski downloaded numerous proprietary files and
plans, which is very far from personal knowledge.

------
rrss
Is levandowski actually exceptionally talented, such that one of him is worth
120-600 other employees?

What has he actually accomplished? All I've read is that he built a self-
driving motorcycle for the Grand Challenge, but IIRC his motorcycle made it
about 25 feet before falling over.

~~~
johnsimer
talent != value created != compensation earned

~~~
rrss
Great, cool. Did he actually create value at Google or Uber, or is his primary
skill just convincing Page and Kalanick to give him money?

------
khazhou
I am going to admit out loud something that I suspect many people here also
feel:

 _I am envious of Anthony Levandowski_

Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that
his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei
and Travis as _equals_ (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain)
gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-million
bonuses.

I'm well-paid in silicon valley but my stock grants have been flat for years.
I haven't been able to grow a large team (let alone 2000 people like
Levandowski at Uber apparently). If I'm caught in an elevator with our Senior
VP, I don't really know what to say (and I'm certainly not invited up to the
executive floor to continue the conversation afterwards).

And yet here we have a guy who did all this by orders of magnitude and at
multiple companies. I don't want to be a dirtbag like him, but I will admit I
am envious.

~~~
bob33212
Not me, totally fine if I never have 2000 people working for me.

~~~
khazhou
Oh I know, me neither. But I've been denied headcount several times. I don't
want 2000, but envy the magical ability to get at least a bigger number.

Unfortunately, time and again I've seen that the person who grows that big
team, etc, is an unqualified idiot asshole. Good guys don't frequently win.

~~~
kenneth
Nice guys finish last is a saying that rings true in multiple fields.

It's also entirely within anyone's control to realize that and act
accordingly.

I'm less of a nice guy these days, and my life is better for it. Though I try
to ultimately be very nice to the people I care about.

------
m0zg
So I've been reading about this dude, and apparently he started _several_
technology companies _while working at Google_, and sold a couple of them back
to Google. Clearly his Google employment contract terms weren't the same as
mine. In fact "normal" employees would be fired the same day for some of the
things he did even before he copied off a bunch of Google IP.

I kind of wonder what's so special about the guy that Google wanted him so bad
that they let him basically write his own employment contract, allowed him to
have huge conflicts of interest, and then also paid like tens of millions in
bonuses per year.

I also wonder what else he wrote into that employment contract of his. You can
charge anybody with anything, doesn't mean it'll stick.

~~~
dannyw
Larry Page founded his own side startup while CEO. Levandowski worked on on
Larry’s startup.

------
ummonk
It doesn't change the criminality of his actions, but something I haven't ever
seen any info about: were the designs he downloaded and took with him for
LIDAR systems that he had played the primary role in developing while at
Google or were the designs largely the work of other Googke employees?

~~~
moftz
He stole schematics, does a senior executive draw schematics? Likely no. He
probably considered it all his own and didn't think about how many people
played a role in building this tech.

------
crag
I seriously doubt this will result in any jail time. Levandowski's lawyers
will do everything they can to see to it no time is served. But he will
probably pay a fine.. chump change to this man.

And this pisses me off; people in America get thrown in jail for stealing
chewing gum.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Most engineers I have met in Silicon Valley have a very high standard of
personal ethics. For example, I have seen engineers risk their own careers to
insist that their employers give back to open source projects when the
employer is in violation of an open-source license's terms.

But I've also seen a few, rare bad apples. There are some people who are
borderline sociopathic, who don't think twice about theft, misdirection,
misappropriation of credit, and throwing co-workers under the bus for personal
gain.

Usually, such people are not caught, and are not punished ... ever. People who
learn about such sociopaths, just avoid them.

But sometimes these sociopaths go too far. This seems to be one such case.

This prosecution will discourage the very worst behavior and it will feel
therapeutic for people that have felt victimized by various sociopaths who
used them as ladders on the climb to fame and wealth ... but the less criminal
kinds of sociopathy in the workplace is probably never going to go away. And
there's no real way to stop it.

I haven't been to Google or worked with Google in a long time, but for a while
there, say between 2010 and 2015, I felt like it was chock full of sociopaths
in mid-level management. I don't even think Anthony would have stood out as
particularly sociopathic in that environment.

~~~
2sk21
Any thoughts about this article in Wired? [https://www.wired.com/story/inside-
google-three-years-misery...](https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-
years-misery-happiest-company-tech/)

------
ones_and_zeros
I'm just here to thank whoever changed the title that used this as an
opportunity to smear engineers. Levandowski was not an engineer. He was an
executive and this type of behavior is completely in line with executive
behavior.

------
philshem
Here's a nice write-up of the backstory, from 2018:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-
steal...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-
googles-intellectual-property)

and HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219612)

------
unscrupulous_sw
> It is not uncommon for tech companies, which fiercely guard their
> intellectual property, to sue former employees or the firms they join after
> they leave.

Is it really that common?

I feel like most software engineers don't really take intellectual property
all that seriously. Most will not think twice about backing up emails when
leaving the company which might contain code diffs, design docs, etc.

Friends from different companies usually talk about internal system designs
and technical problems pretty freely. One of the circles I hang out with even
backup and share the interview question database from every company they've
been at.

So while it's probably crossing a line, it's still not something I expect they
will ever get sued for, let alone criminally charged. (This is in contrast
with friends from the finance industry who are a lot more tightlipped about
everything and you do hear stories about regular employees getting sued)

~~~
creato
> I feel like most software engineers don't really take intellectual property
> all that seriously. Most will not think twice about backing up emails when
> leaving the company which might contain code diffs, design docs, etc.

You can't be serious. I would never think of doing this, and I can't imagine
who would.

~~~
bifrost
You'd be a rare bird.

Most employees don't even bother to not pirate software, look at porn or
whatever on their work laptops. Its somewhat hilarious.

~~~
azylman
You're comparing apples to oranges.

I know a lot of engineers at a lot of companies who look at porn on their work
laptops (which isn't illegal). I don't know a single engineer who would take
documents from their previous company to their new company (which is very
illegal).

------
tempsy
Interesting this is only against Anthony and not Uber this time. The stakes
seem much smaller here. I would be surprised if he actually goes to prison for
this. And max fine of $8 million or so is small for him

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
The maximum penalty is 250k per count _or_ twice the gross gain/loss,
whichever is greater. So the financial penalty could be quite significant.

~~~
tyingq
Wouldn't a conviction open him up to a more costly civil suit? Harder to
defend a civil suit if you're guilty in a related criminal charge.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Maybe so. At the time, everyone wondered why Google did not sue him, just
Uber. Now I wonder if Google's legal team wasn't already in touch with the
FBI/US attorney's office. It might be that the reason why they didn't pursue
him in civil court was to leave the way open for the criminal procedure to
blaze the trail. That would be sick, if so.

~~~
ksherlock
I got the impression that Google couldn't sue him, per se, because their
employee arbitration requirements were working against them in this case.

------
thenightcrawler
Likelyhood he faces jail for this? What will become of his new company pronto.

------
Animats
This is Google harassing him.

They can't sue him in a civil suit, because, as a Google employee, Google made
him sign an arbitration agreement. There's already been an arbitration between
him and Google, there was some settlement, and Google is now barred from suing
him.

~~~
mikejb
The judge from the Google vs. Uber litigation referred the case to the US
attorney. Looks like they found enough evidence to charge him. Not sure how
Google is involved in this "harassment".

------
keeptrying
I really don't think it was about the money. He was making $120M a year at the
time?

He probably had a sense of ownership on that idea and wanted to see it through
to economic viability.

I don't know - thats the only way I can rationalize

------
embedded
Levandowski still lists his occupation on Linkin as "VP Engineering at Uber
ATG". How the _!_!@ can that still be true? Hasn't Uber cut ties with him yet?

~~~
OBLIQUE_PILLAR
because its not true anymore?

------
oneepic
Can someone explain the difference between this situation and the following
situation:

\- engineer at Company A has expertise in a certain field, and is really,
really good at solving problems in this field and knowing what to do next at
any point in time. They bring quality to Company A's systems. \- engineer
moves to Company B to do the same kind of work, and uses their expertise to
bring Company B's systems up to high quality as well \- Company A says that
this engineer must have stolen trade secrets.

~~~
deleted_account
The indictment[1] sheds some light on the difference: "On or about December
11,2015, he downloaded approximately 14,000 files from SVN. These files
contained critical engineering information about the hardware used on Project
Chauffeur self-driving vehicles, including schematics for the printed circuit
boards used in various custom LiDAR products."

In other words, the accusation is that he stole technology that was the output
of the entire Project Chauffeur team, not simply stuff of his own creation.
Presumably, those materials were non-trivial and represent the combined effort
of many engineers over many years.

Imagine you're toiling on a team for years and your absurdly compensated boss
decides they want the whole pie, clones the repo their laptop, and dips out to
found their own start up based on everyone's work.

[1] [https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-
release/file/1197991...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-
release/file/1197991/download)

~~~
greenyoda
> In other words, the accusation is that he stole technology that was the
> output of the entire Project Chauffeur team, not simply stuff of his own
> creation.

Even "stuff of his own creation" that he created for Google while an employee
there would be Google's intellectual property (assuming the usual terms of
employment), and if he took it with him after leaving, it would still be
theft.

------
paul7986
I use to feel bad for Google and wanted this thief to face justice. But umm
he's just doing what he witnessed and was taught(told) to do while working for
the big G.

Google blatantly steals IP from the biggest fish to the little dreamers they
inspire and such is well documented. See this popular HN thread...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929)

~~~
paul7986
Why is this point being downvoted? It is not relevant to this discussion or
it's something else???

Again It's well documented the big G steals IP!!

~~~
pb7
Because you're letting your emotions get the best of you.

~~~
paul7986
You might too if the company who inspired you to dream and create tech invited
you to demo and then treated you like a dog(possibly stole from u). I met with
other names like Samsung, Intel, Black n Decker and no deal was made there too
but I was treated respectfully with dignity!

I told my story for years here then last December lo and behold Ji Qie of MIT
tells the same story I've told for awhile but with emails/evidence clearly
showing Google getting caught stealing IP. She met with Google ATAP too!

Overall the narrative shouldn't be only about Anthony doing wrong rather he
was mimicking what he witnessed and was taught (directly or indirectly) by his
employer, Google to do; steal IP!

