No, it was blatant theft of IP and some might consider corporate espionage.
He was a high level exec at Waymo, who stole the IP which represented the core competency just before he jumped ship to Uber.
He was a high level exec at Waymo, who stole the IP which represented the core competency just before he jumped ship to Uber.
I don't know about "consider," he plead guilty to theft of trade secrets and was charged with crimes defined by the Economic Espionage Act.
But I think most engineers don't know that stealing IP from your former employer is a federal crime punishable up to 10 years.
It's kind of like what happened with Aaron Schwartz (where the ethics of what he did might be more debatable than Levandowski). I don't think either of these smart people realized what they were doing could put them in prison.