Ex-Uber staffer says in letter the company had a unit stealing trade secrets

A lot of companies seem to have a culture of "It's okay to do this as long as there is no written evidence of it".

Thats everything from a boss walking away from a conversation about things which shouldn't be said in the workplace, to things being spread by word of mouth, but not email.

Quite a few big tech companies have a policy of deliberately not keeping certain information. Instant Messages are frequently only kept until read, then auto-deleted. Emails might only be kept for 18 months, then deleted.

Waymo is being hauled over the coals here, but I don't think Google or any other tech company is saintly either. They all have policies in place whose goal is to prevent information being retrieved later in court to use against them.