
U.S. judge says Uber withheld evidence, delays Waymo trial - AnimalMuppet
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-uber-ruling/u-s-judge-says-uber-withheld-evidence-delays-waymo-trial-idUSKBN1DS26X
======
thisisit
The trial seems to be ongoing right now, live tweets can be found here:

[https://twitter.com/CSaid](https://twitter.com/CSaid)

But this doesn't look good for Uber at all:

[https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935558449324212230](https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935558449324212230)

“Jacobs became aware that Uber thru Clark & Henley, had a sophisticated
strategy to conceal, cover up or destroy docs w intent to impede govt
investigations."

and

[https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935569588309327878](https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935569588309327878)

"Judge quotes Jacob's atty letter: Uber employees went to Pittsburgh to
educate the AV group about ephemeral, encrypted communications "to prevent
Uber's unlawful schemes from seeing the light of day""

I have seen people wonder on HN whether Uber gets flak due to their nature or
are they inherently worse than other giants. While other companies are no
saints the constant stream of stupid decisions makes it seem that Uber has
(had?) a culture of always trying to find shady way of doing things.

~~~
leggomylibro
I think that most companies have 'N-month email retention policies', where N
is somewhere between 1-6.

Did the malfeasance happen more than a few months ago? Gee, sorry, no internal
communications; that's policy. Did someone keep incriminating communications
from more than a few months ago? Oooh, that's against policy - the
recalcitrant employee has since been terminated and clearly does not represent
our lofty ideals.

But I don't think that most companies go out of their way to use encrypted
platforms to shield communications which they know are likely illegal from
investigators.

~~~
ggcdn
structural engineers are required to keep all communications, notes, etc for
seven to ten years, depending on the jurisdiction.

These super short email retention policies seem extremely unethical to me.

~~~
mslate
The Sony Pictures hack of 2014 caused a lot of companies to reflect on their
data retention policies. Uber's special in that they set their retention
policy to subvert criminal investigations, not to protect "trade secrets"

I agree about structural engineers being an ideal though--old school engineers
get "accountability" better than anyone

------
swang
okay someone tell me if i missed anything uber has done...

* trying to dredge up dirt on journalist for being negative towards the company.

* kalanik denies that an incident involving a uber driver choking a passenger ever happened.

* kalanik boasting that he should have called the company "boober" from all the women he gets

* offering customers rides with "hot chicks" in france.

* having a "god view" that employees used to spy on exes, politicians and celebrities. they paid a measly $20k fine and supposedly continue to still allow employees to use god view.

* kalanik took people out to a escort bar in south korea (on company dime)

* created a greyball program, to try and avoid authorities from getting a ride and hide their wrong doings from city officials

* had a high level uber executive go into india and get the medical records of a rape victim and held onto those records for no good reason. oh yeah he also showed those records to kalanik and another executive and wasn't fired on the spot for it. they literally didn't fire him after their initial "cleaning up" of the company until news outlets started sniffing around

* ignored california's dmv and started putting self-driving cars onto the road, one of which decided to run a red light. then tried to pass off the issue as, "human error"

* paid off hackers to delete user data. did not notify proper authorities

* sexual harassment / toxic workplace issues

\--------- and now \---------

* withholding evidence from a trial

* using ephemeral messages so they dont leave a paper trail

* allegedly denied areas from service by redlining them

~~~
Analemma_
It's the Trump strategy: do sleazy and illegal things at such a high rate that
no one can keep up with the firehose. They know apologists will bamboozle the
public by taking each instance in isolation and going "it's no big deal", and
it works because no one has enough working memory to keep the whole picture in
their head at once and be appropriately outraged enough.

------
trowawee
Welp. Someone has committed perjury today.
[https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935584091990138881](https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935584091990138881)

"Russo is on the stand now. He says that Jacobs' statement about recruiting
inside sources at competitors is false."

------
internetman55
When did some of these of prominent tech people begin thinking that acting
like psychopaths was the way to achieve business success?

~~~
potatolicious
When they successfully popularized the narrative of Founder-as-Ubermensch, as
modern-day titans tirelessly hauling human progress forward.

And conversely, the narrative that those with grievance against startups or
their actions are anti-progress, that opposition to a tech startup means
you're either stupid or corrupt.

When you're operating under the notion that what you're doing will literally
move the human race forward, it becomes very easy to rationalize things that
don't pass a simple smell test. Surely a bit of minor illegality is acceptable
when you're going to Change The World(tm)?

I for one am glad to see this lie finally being challenged en masse.

It's unclear to me still how much of Startup/Founder Mythology was intended
for PR purposes, and how much did startup execs end up believing for
themselves.

~~~
__jal
> It's unclear to me still how much of Startup/Founder Mythology was intended
> for PR purposes, and how much did startup execs end up believing for
> themselves.

Why choose? For a while, everyone who counted won - execs, investors,
ibankers, even some of the workers, some of the time - when the rubes bought
the line.

But eventually it starts causing problems - like when the rubes start actually
expecting accountability. If you're the, ahem, ubermench, then you are also at
fault when you screw up, as much as the Kalanicks of the world try to weasel,
bully or deflect.

The sooner this bullshit dies, the sooner we can behave like a somewhat sane
industry.

------
a3n
I indulged in a bit of forward-fantasy, imagining an eventual death penalty
for Uber.

The objection to a corporate death penalty is usually "but what about the
employees?"

Well, what about them? The desk-workers are mostly in high demand, no problem.

And the drivers ... well, I see lots of Lyft and Uber stickers on the same
cars. If there's no Uber in town, Uber users will likely use Lyft.

Is that an unseen danger for corporations in the "sharing" economy? Your
employees are portable by definition?

This got me also thinking, why isn't there a two way auction for ride sharing,
with companies competing to "sponsor" the ride, and drivers competing to drive
the ride, and on the other side, customers competing to buy a ride. Or just
cut out the Uber/Lyft middlemen and have independent drivers compete?

Is it too soon to "Fix Ride Sharing!"?

~~~
beager
Real-time bidding for ride sharing would be pretty cool, across any number of
services and independents. A regulatory mess for sure, but as we're seeing,
the extant players already constitute a regulatory mess.

~~~
skgoa
Exchanges for distributed bidding exist for financial securities. It's a bit
of an IT hassle, but not an unsolved problem.

~~~
beager
As it does for adtech which I was referring to. I’m sure it’s part of Uber and
related services as well, but it should be applied across services to create
maximal competition.

------
nolok
Did I get this right ? They got the letter because some one from a 3rd company
CC'ed Waymo instead of Uber on an email containing that letter (the one that
1. Claims Uber did some nasty things and 2. Uber didn't submit as evidence as
if it didn't exists) ?

That's either one hell of a fuck up, or someone took as big a stand as they
could

~~~
florean
Judge Alsup got the letter because the US Attorney's office passed it along to
him. I haven't seen anything about how the US Attorney obtained it, but
presumably criminal prosecution and subpoenas provide a greater disincentive
to lying than civil suits. Also, there were two parties who would have had
this letter: Uber and the lawyer(s) who wrote the letter on behalf of the
former Uber employee. Unlike Uber, those attorneys would have little incentive
to be anything but transparent.

~~~
florean
Oh, now we know how the USA got it:
[https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935912822478794752](https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935912822478794752).
Uber "voluntarily disclosed the Jacobs letter" because Jacobs threatened to
involuntarily disclose it. However, Uber tried to hide it in this case
(despite it/Jacobs mentioning Waymo); the USA gave it to Judge Alsup because
he had initially recommended the case for criminal investigation and they
thought he might find it relevant in his trial. At this point, Uber has lied
so consistently it seems like they should forfeit their opportunity to offer
testimony. I wonder if the judge will allow any of this to be brought up with
the jury.

~~~
florean
Only in @kateconger's replies[0], but it appears Alsup is still deciding
whether he'll allow the Jacobs letter to be admitted as evidence for the jury.
Excluding a letter alleging Uber stole Waymo trade secrets would be a big blow
to Waymo. Especially one that Uber paid $7.5m to suppress. There isn't going
to be a smoking gun, so Waymo has to make the case that Uber probably stole
Waymo trade secrets because they've acted like they probably did.

[0]:
[https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935971693192818688](https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935971693192818688)

~~~
florean
I was joking about Alsup allowing Uber's pretrial malfeasance to be disclosed
to the jury. But the quotes in this Ars Technica article[0] make me wonder.
"My normal inclination is, let’s decide the case on the merits but I’ve never
seen a case where there are so many bad things like Uber has done." "It looks
like you covered [the Jacobs letter] up, refused to turn it over to the
lawyers that were most involved in the case, [and] to me, for reasons that are
inexplicable." It sounds like Alsup is split on the Jacobs letter because he
might be a "disgruntled employee who sees the handwriting on the wall". And he
really wanted to know why Jacobs' lawyer got $3m for writing a letter. Alsup
knows something doesn't smell right about the Jacobs settlement. If it is
allowed...

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/waymo-asks-
ubers...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/waymo-asks-ubers-top-
lawyer-does-uber-pay-money-to-extortionists/)

------
revelation
Is there a transcript available yet? I love Alsups no-nonsense attitude and
reading those are always great entertainment. Not to mention it's a primary
source :)

~~~
gpm
I'm pretty sure it's still going on (so no), both
[https://twitter.com/kateconger](https://twitter.com/kateconger) and
[https://twitter.com/CSaid](https://twitter.com/CSaid) are live tweeting.

~~~
florean
Unfortunately, @CSaid mistakenly used Waymo instead of Uber in a few places,
but she did have an interesting tidbit I haven't seen in any of the subsequent
articles[0]: the former employee of Uber claimed that he was reprimanded in a
performance review and then demoted for "not protecting more info from
discovery." How is that not a huge deal?

[0]:
[https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935573560461967360](https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935573560461967360)

~~~
gpm
Are you sure that that should say Uber and not Waymo?

Judging by the tweets around there it was Waymo's turn to speak, and it seems
more likely Waymo would be quoting the letter than Uber.

I think it is a pretty big deal

~~~
florean
I didn't say the tweet I referenced was one she was mistaken about. I said it
had an interesting tidbit that I had not otherwise seen reported. For ones she
got wrong, see
[https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935599952515837952](https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935599952515837952)
and
[https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935541698284863488](https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935541698284863488).
The judge was clearly upset at Uber's lawyers, not those of Waymo. Mistakes
happen, but it made her stream more confusing than it should have been,
because you had to think harder about each reference to either company.
@KateConger's stream was much clearer, but she didn't mention the performance
review testimony.

~~~
gpm
Ah your right, my mistake.

------
paul7986
And Uber wants this trial to be heard by a jury? Are they stupid or they can’t
settle this out of court without Waymo owing their ass?

I mean almost weekly in the press the public hears about how horrible Uber is
and is operated.

Maybe the jury will be all older ppl and those who don’t have smartphones.

~~~
valine
I think you’re overestimating how much the general public cares about Uber.
The scandals haven’t negatively affected Uber financials, I doubt they will
have an impact on the trial.

~~~
saas_co_de
> haven’t negatively affected Uber financials

SoftBank share purchase discounts Uber by 30%

[https://www.ft.com/content/2a2131e0-d3ef-11e7-a303-9060cb1e5...](https://www.ft.com/content/2a2131e0-d3ef-11e7-a303-9060cb1e5f44)

------
NelsonMinar
It never fucking ends with this company, does it?

------
warcher
White collar tech bros _will not hold up under investigation_. A ivy-league
mba has way too much to lose to risk going to jail over some stock options.
Doing this kind of dirt can only survive via staying under the radar--
somebody is gonna flip and this whole house of cards is gonna go down in a
stampede of Uber employees rushing to drop the dime on each other.

~~~
icebraining
This is a civil lawsuit. Why would anyone go to jail?

~~~
scott_karana
Evidence of criminal activities could become apparent during a civil trial,
and lead to subsequent criminal charges.

Plus perjury, etc.

------
AnimalMuppet
Not much detail yet. I'm hoping for some more as time goes by...

~~~
jaclaz
>Not much detail yet. I'm hoping for some more as time goes by...

This has ben just posted with some more details:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15799737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15799737)

[http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Waymo-
case-...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Waymo-case-
Dramatic-turn-as-judge-says-Uber-12388930.php)

------
Fricken
This whole time I've been asking where is Uber in really deep shit? So here
you go, Drogans, there could be some deep shit flooding out from Uber's septic
tank. And the Trial is delayed again, at Judge Alsup's request. This whole
time Alsup has been like 'let's get this on with already'. Now he's pushing
back the trial date based on what the DOJ showed him behind a closed door. Now
here's a weird thing. Larry Page has 3 flying car companies, and he funds them
all himself. One of them is Kitty Hawk, of which Sebastien Thrun is CEO.
Anthony Levandowski has worked for Kittyhawk, but I'm having a hard time
figuring out if Levandowski was doing work for Kitty Hawk after he left Waymo,
but it's possible he did. Larry Page also has a secret Flying car company
called Tiramisu[1]:

>A motion filed last month by Uber to force Google's self-driving car spinoff
company Waymo to provide witnesses on a range of topics reveals the existence
of Tiramisu.

>The company is listed as relevant to an ongoing Uber-Google self-driving car
spat because it alleges that Anthony Levandowski, the engineer accused of
stealing lidar and other technical secrets from his workplace at Google's
self-driving car project and taking them to Uber, may have been working for
the company in his free time.

Now, in the Depositions of Larry Page and Travis Kalanick, it had been
revealed that they had been in talks about Flying Cars, or VTOL aircraft.
Possibly you recall when Uber dropped the white paper for Uber Elevate[2].
Uber has been talking about flying cars in the news, and has forecast 2020[3]
as the year they reveal or deploy some kind of autonomous vertical take off
and landing taxi.

So there is possibility that Uber and Larry Page are involved together in some
way in Tiramisu. If true, there is also a possibility that Sebastien Thrun and
Anthony Levandowski have both been involved. And as an extension of that,
there is the possibility that they've already been using Waymo's top-secret
technology in flying autonomous vehicles for Tiramisu for years. This
increases the liklihood that Page may have known about the Otto stunt before
it happened.

Alsup I think just learned about all this from the DOJ. Something is going on
there with Tiramisu that screws everything up.

[1][https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/433maw/larry-
page...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/433maw/larry-page-has-
another-side-company-called-tiramisu-what-is-it)

[2][https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/](https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/)

[3][https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16613228/uber-flying-
car-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/8/16613228/uber-flying-car-la-nasa-
space-act)

------
josefrichter
is there anyone in that company who's not an asshole? the lack of any culture
there is appalling.

~~~
euyyn
One of the nicest, shyest, and most polite persons I've worked with left
Google for Uber a couple years ago. So I can assure they've got great people
too, apart from the shady ones that make the news.

------
TheTechnician
I hope they go hard on them. I hate the way in the US it's just become
expected that everyone is corrupt as hell.

------
beedogs
I hope Google/Alphabet end up owning Uber after this trial. Then they can shut
it down.

------
olympus
Can a judge hold a company in contempt and fine them for disobeying a judge?
Even if Uber isn't guilty of stealing IP from Waymo they have certainly been
less than forthcoming. I'm sure that Waymo has done some shady stuff too. If a
person withholds evidence or obstructs a case a judge can throw them in jail.
What's the equivalent stick that the judge has to compel a corporation?

~~~
awalton
> "I'm sure that Waymo has done some shady stuff too."

Please point us to the memo from Uber that proves Waymo is operating a
"Competitive Intelligence" team that looks more like a CIA Ops team than a
Business Intelligence unit. I'll wait.

This "2017 and there's Bad Guys on Both Sides" bullshit needs to die.

~~~
bllguo
Seriously, what's with this widespread assumption that because there are two
sides, they must be relatively equal? The amount of harm this absurd belief
has caused is immeasurable.

~~~
pessimizer
It's just another form of the law of averages, the signature ingredient in the
rationalizer's cookbook.

