Uber says Levandowski on his own for $180M to Google

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/uber-says-guilty-engineer-on-his-own-for-180-million-to-google

by megacorp • 6 years ago

78 33 6 years ago

gpm3• 6 years ago

Uber's lawyers be lawyers and try to save their client $180M dollars, Levandowski's lawyers also be lawyers and try and save their client from being totally and utterly bankrupt. It's not mentioned in the article but it's a safe bet that Google's lawyers are also being lawyers and trying to earn the company $xxM dollars by forcing Uber to pay whatever Levandowski can't afford to.

That's basically the entire contents of this article... well except for the last part which I added. I really wish journalists would actually look into the legal arguments and comment intelligently instead of just reporting one sides legal brief as if it was some form of moral argument.

saagarjha• 6 years ago

It's not mentioned in the article but it's a safe bet that Google's lawyers are also being lawyers and trying to earn the company $xxM dollars by forcing Uber to pay whatever Levandowski can't afford to.

There's also probably a part where Google is warning its employees and its competitors that if they do something like this, they'll go after both of them.

ghaff2• 6 years ago

I really wish journalists would actually look into the legal arguments and comment intelligently instead of just reporting one sides legal brief as if it was some form of moral argument.

To be fair, at least in newspaper-style journalism, it isn't really in scope for journalists to give their opinion on legal arguments. Of course, they can (and should) find competent individuals who can do so and then quote them.

wmf2• 6 years ago

The very concept of news gives undue weight to whatever argument was most recently filed in a legal case. It seems easy and obvious how to de-bias this but I guess there's no incentive to do so. (Vox is trying.)

shadowgovt2• 6 years ago

"totally and utterly bankrupt" Levandowski got 120 million just for leaving Google. He'll be fine. He might have to sell one of his various houses, but he'll be fine.

sfkdjf9j3j• 6 years ago

The article said he's already bankrupt from an arbitration with Google.

WoahNoun• 6 years ago

I really wish journalists would actually look into the legal arguments and comment intelligently

That's what the opinion page is for. I absolutely do not want newspaper journalists making commentary on legal briefs.

gpm3• 6 years ago

Intelligent commentary doesn't have to be opinion, it can be bringing in the relevant facts.

What court is this in front of? What documents publicly exist (hint: lots of them) and where can we find them? What rulings has the judge already made? What legal standards have been cited by the parties? What precedent has been cited by the parties? What are the relevant past rulings in the related cases? When can we expect further development.

Instead they've just cited some sound bytes from a few lawyers in a way that doesn't even acknowledge that there is a justice system that this is working its way through.

Not to mention this isn't really news... it belongs in the opinion section. Right now it's basically just repeating the opinions of Uber's lawyers instead of the opinions of the journalist (except for a small portion where they repeat the opinions of Levandowski's lawyers).

dijit• 6 years ago

I dislike Uber as a company, I'm still not over susan fowler and the way they skirt the law in most municipalities is definitely criminal.

However, I have to agree with Uber here.

I work on video games, if I bring some engine code from my current employer to a new employer that's theft. Anything I made on company time or with company resources is not mine to take. However taking learnings is totally fine (because: of course it is) and that factors into things because it's experience.

If he did this without Uber knowing then he's alone. If Uber knew he might do it or promoted this behaviour then that vindicates my feelings towards them and they definitely should be punished as hard as the law allows.

"Take nothing but memories" applies to more than just nature.

downvoteme1• 6 years ago

What if Uber hired him just so he can bring the code to Uber from Google

rubyn00bie• 6 years ago

I think that's what Levandowski is trying to say, that Uber hired him very likely for the trade secrets.

At the time, Uber was run like it was above the law, so I wouldn't find this too surprising myself.

detaro• 6 years ago

And Levandowski says Uber's review before agreeing to the indemnification clause included reviewing the files he took from Google, and they nevertheless agreed to the clause and did run his defense when it came to it. That's the core disagreement of the case: Uber saying he acted alone, Levandowski saying Uber knew what was going on.

nostrademons• 6 years ago

The previously reported court-filings made a pretty suggestive case that Uber knew. Otto wasn't founded until after Levandowski met with Travis Kalanick, and they reportedly had a verbal agreement to sell the company to Uber before the company was formed. The whole thing seemed like a sham to steal Google's trade secrets while creating plausible deniability.

Uber also continued to employ Levandowski long after the lawsuit started, until Judge Alsup pointed out that it's very hard to argue that you had no knowledge of your employee's illegal actions and would not condone such a theft while that employee is on your payroll running the division created by this theft at the same time you're getting sued for the theft.

sp3322• 6 years ago

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/04/levandowski-says-uber-m...

Levandowski claims that Uber was fully aware of the circumstances of Levandowski's 2016 departure from Google.... Levandwoski says he cooperated fully, giving investigators access to his email accounts and personal files....

Kalanick wasn't concerned. "Uber eats injunctions for breakfast," he allegedly told Levandowski....

Uber's acquisition terms for Otto included a sweeping indemnification commitment for Otto employees, including Levandowski.... Levandowski says Uber specifically promised to protect Levandowski if he was accused of misappropriation of trade secrets or breach of loyalty to a former employer - two of the key accusations Google later leveled against Levandowski. The indemnification clause said that Uber would pay any expenses arising out of a lawsuit from a former employer, including damages.

khazhoux2• 6 years ago

Unclear without additional details. What did Levandowski tell Kalanick?

"Travis, I'm sure if you acquire me, Google will claim non-compete, trade secret theft, and all that. Will your legal department cover me?"

--or--

"Travis, I'm going to steal trade secrets from Google and bring them with me. When Google finds out, will your legal department cover me?"

yokaze• 6 years ago

Problem is, Uber made a contract which explicitly indemnifies him. I'm fairly certain, that is not standard from Uber.

From what I heard, what "the guilty engineer" did, was an open secret.

Those two things together make it rather unlikely that Uber, or more exactly, the people involved in the decision at Uber at that time, where completely in the dark.

carlsborg• 6 years ago

Quote:

"[Levandowski] agreed to plead guilty to trade-secret theft and was driven into bankruptcy when Google won a contract-breach arbitration case against him -- he was counting on Uber’s promise when it first hired him to provide legal cover, known as indemnification, from his former employer.

Uber now says it has no obligation to reimburse Levandowski for the $180 million."

neonate• 6 years ago

https://archive.md/lUvyt

m3kw9• 6 years ago

Wait, the then ceo Travis Kalanick was in on this wasn’t he?

alephnan• 6 years ago

What are you suggesting? Corporations exist to shield the owners from the company's liabilities to a limited extent.

praptak• 6 years ago

Legally, to encourage taking inevitable risks needed to run a business. Not to shield greedy sociopaths from the social consequences of their unethical decisions.

khazhoux2• 6 years ago

I don't recall reading anywhere that Travis knew explicitly that L was stealing material from Google. My (generous, charitable) impression is that Uber knew the risk that Google would claim breach just because it's the same field, same line of work.

2ion• 6 years ago

One of the reasons why I'm careful to get involved with trillion dollar companies. A job there may be gainful and prestigeful, but getting stomped into the mud by an army of ill willing lawyers with infinitely deep pockets over any sort of workplace invention issue is bound to be a road to ruin.

ghaff2• 6 years ago

That can happen when you willfully steal trade secrets.

perl4ever• 6 years ago

I think different people have different moral intuitions regarding that. Some might consider that trying to keep trade secrets is a zero-sum or maybe even a negative sum game, from the perspective of society.

Assuming you don't identify with Uber or Google, you might not assign any monetary value to this episode, and therefore there could be cognitive dissonance at the weight of "$180 million" and actions taken proportional to that.

tozeur• 6 years ago

Reposting an old comment on Levan’s lawyers thoughts:

A friend of mine heard his personal attorney speak at a law school class. Even his attorney thought Anthony was a “jackass” for stealing the IP; his defense fell on him being an engineer who, at the end of the day, just wanted to build cool shit and wasn’t malicious.

beachy• 6 years ago

Sounds like an egregious breach of attorney client privilege if true.

wmf2• 6 years ago

A lawyer's own opinion shouldn't be privileged although it's probably unprofessional to share it for other reasons.

shadowgovt2• 6 years ago

That seems fair, given that they know that he got $120 million when he left Google.

Uber says Levandowski on his own for $180M to Google

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