Uber says Levandowski on his own for $180M to Google
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
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.
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.
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.
That's what the opinion page is for. I absolutely do not want newspaper journalists making commentary on legal briefs.
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).
If you want something like that there are professional journals that provide in depth legal reporting.
A large part of the the point in my top comment could be phrased as "the scope of this article is so small as to be entirely pointless".
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.
At the time, Uber was run like it was above the law, so I wouldn't find this too surprising myself.
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.
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.
"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?"
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.
"[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."
> 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.
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.