TL;DR: The "Bombshell" is Alphabet/Waymo's lawsuit against Lewandowski and Uber for stealing trade secrets, and an interpretation that Lewandowski formed Otto basically as a cover to get a big payday from Uber in exchange for the secrets.
This is from the big Bloomberg article/interview that came out today:
'Kalanick began courting Levandowski this spring, broaching the possibility of an acquisition during a series of 10-mile night walks from the Soma neighborhood where Uber is also headquartered to the Golden Gate Bridge. The two men would leave their offices separately—to avoid being seen by employees, the press, or competitors. They’d grab takeout food, then rendezvous near the city’s Ferry Building. Levandowski says he saw a union as a way to bring the company’s trucks to market faster.'
Which implies to me that the plan was for Uber to acquire Otto all along.
"Otto was designed to be sold to Uber before it was created, there's a reason it was self-funded despite having nearly 100 employees by the time it was acquired. Anthony Levandowski met Travis Kalanick years ago and had been planning something like this for a while. It's basically an open secret."
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-13/one-reaso...
Makes sense! (cough)
I guess it's up to the legal process to decide if he did or not.
>the subtext of Alphabet’s filing is an even bigger bombshell. Reading between the lines, (in my opinion) Alphabet is implying that Mr Levandowski arranged with Uber to:
>Steal LiDAR and other self-driving component designs from Waymo
>Start Otto as a plausible corporate vehicle for developing the self-driving technology
>Acquire Otto for $680 million
Sounds like a farytale to me, unless those logs are captures and stored independently then otherwise anyone can claim having any kind of evidence against anyone involved.
Besides, there might be many reasons of him doing that, let the backup be one.
- He installed custom software to access the files.
- The files were in a data store he had no normal access to.
And here's my best guess as to why Google knows so much:
- Google requires access to their networks using either your Google assigned device, or a pre-approved list of devices of your own (basically chromebooks). I know from past interactions with a friend that works at Google that they often give beta versions of software (Android) and/or hardware (Nexus phones, chromebooks) to employees to test. It's entirely possibly that quite a lot of debugging data is reported on some build. Additionally, that same friend noted that Google has a whole department dedicated to rooting our invalid access like what is alleged here, and since they control the devices available to access their network, there's really no conceivably limit to the amount of activity data they could collect about employee usage.
In short, I see no reason why Google couldn't have as much data as they allege and possibly much more. to me, the fact that they waited until this stage to present it also seems calculated to benefit the most from those trying to defraud them (why not stop the forming of Otto initially, or the buyout?). If that's the case, I don't really have much sympathy for Uber, as they seem to possibly have been integral to the crime, and may have escaped punishment if it hadn't gotten this far.
Edit: Whoops, said Waymo where I meant Otto,
You mean Otto?
My point wasn't that Google doesn't have data; my point is that they want to use it as evidence.. but said evidence has been created by themselves!
That's like saying the police created their own evidence by performing an investigation.
I imagine logs by themselves might not sway some people, but logs combined with whatever is found in a discovery process from Uber along with the fact that a parts supplier of Waymo happened to be making the exact same part for Otto (either because the secret part was requested or because they were provided the exact same design docs), doesn't make it look very good for Otto/Uber (if that allegation is correct).
As someone who several years ago "managed" to take over a publicly traded company (via a federal judge's order once certain evidence was presented) and gather and present evidence of massive fraud, etc., and working entirely as an amateur in this effort, managed to aid in recovering assets and capturing the former CEO and sending him to prison for several years, I find stories of (allegedly) fraudulent action (and solid response) like this heartwarming.
If Uber had no self-driving car program to speak of before talking with Levandowski, and discovery shows they basically started from that conversation, then that would seem to open up all of Uber to any discovery process - they can't justifiably claim "it's the self driving car division that did all this". This seems much more than a civil process from my reading of it. It could be great theater.
If I was on Uber's BOD, I'd immediately relieve the CEO simply based on the allegations here, and if I didn't have the votes to do that, I'd immediately resign my seat.
That sounds like an interesting story!
Have you told it elsewhere?
And I would guess that the next four years will be a popular market for legal stories of corruption (from people of all political affiliation).
I'm not near to you and I'm not sure what the options are to ship crates of beer but count me in.
I'll swap you a story of attempting to help the father of a friend who was CEO of some company that ended up with me fronting the bill for a lawyer to keep him out of jail.
He who smelt it...must certainly have dealt it.
Would you feel the same if the company in question would not be Uber (whose CEO may be a liability for Uber ATM anyway) but, say, IBM? This is an honest question.
Enough accusations and then you are guilty until proven innocent?
Wtf
The man is unquestionably toxic - it's entirely possible the entire company is toxic.
Board members and shareholders aren't responsible or particularly concerned with innocence or guilt, but are very concerned with trust and respect that customers (or potential-investors/business-partners/governments) have in their company's leadership.
They're not deciding whether to put him in jail or not, but board members are legally obligated to determine whether or not he's adding or detracting from shareholder value.
Even if every single accusation against him and the culture he's built is false - the public perception needs addressing. Perhaps "remove" is the wrong wording, but if you're an insider/board member who thinks every single accusation and report is false - you'd at least have to seriously consider asking Travis to publicly "recuse" himself while the investigations are under way - without that anything coming out of the investigation is going to be about as believable as the Police Union guy announcing "We've investigated the matter and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing!".
I'm inclined to agree that there's significant circumstantial evidence here that at the very least extremely pointed question should be currently being asked of the CEO, and in the absence of immediately and publicly verifiable evidence countering these claims - the CEO should quite reasonably be "relieved" (as in - temporarily taken out of decision making and business information collecting capacity) while the investigation continues.
But Uber has continuously demonstrated if not the sort of company who's ethical constraints would bind it to that sort of behavior. (To the extent that I'm now cynically wondering whether the current "Uber is an awful place for women to work" controversy has been intentionally orchestrated and played up in the press to help suppress this information...)
Lyft started with a different business snd pivoted to Uber's (itself all a pivot?). Did Lyft "steal the concept?"
I think in the Uber/Otto case the theft is pretty specific. The laws outline what it means to steal corporate secrets. (This is distinct from violating IP or copying an idea). Usually this sort of theft involves being privy to corporate secrets and breaking contractual agreements to not take certain information with you.
I agree 100%. When you wrote "stole the concept" I thought you meant Uber's original business approaches.
The kind of person who does this stuff, really doesn't understand even the concept of 'crossing a line', or indeed legality. Hence, it seems to them really offensive that anyone should get in their way, and up TO that point their self-confidence carries them and helps persuade others that they're the golden boy.
The real lesson is 'how did we get here in the first place'. It's easy to bust the biggest megastar and make a story of hubris and disastrous, Icarus-like fall, but isn't it the very same system that put them there at that valuation?
The rule seems to be 'Seem like the biggest monster around, but if we catch you actually BEING it, you're busted'.
Um. Nope. Uber based on its business on weakening the rule of law by wilfully ignoring the taxi regulations https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-... . To add insult to injury they worked steadily on reinstating indentured servitude by pushing subprime loans on drivers where the payments come out of their wages and their cars not starting if they are remiss. http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-and-its-shady-partners-are-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-31/inside-ub... https://twitter.com/shashashasha/status/688734478181732352 And to crown it all, when they started automated car testing they put cyclists in deadly danger https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self...
What's "wonderful and exciting" about this? Uber from day one has been running from the law. You can't do that forever. It's been some sixty years now when the "I fought the law and the law won" song was recorded. It's still true.
"From Waymo’s filings, it seems that they have Levandowski dead to rights on stealing their LiDAR designs." This is one of the dumbest quotes in the post. Of course the lawyer's job is to write up their side of the story. He hasn't even heard the other side of the story and he's already coming up with conclusions. That's pretty terrible.
I hear what you're saying, but I think you're being unfair. This isn't bloggism; I think it's a pretty solid analysis from a lot of available information. There is definitely another side, and it's definitely making an appearance in this thread, but I don't think it's unfair to say "yep, that looks like a hole in one." Certainly smells like one, and it's not partisan or agenda-based to say that.
Could you elaborate on what you feel the agenda is here?
You don't know he dumped anything onto a USB drive. As far as the testimony knows, he plugged in a USB drive to the laptop. Any lawyer worth her salt would rip that to shreds. Do you know he didn't copy a movie onto the USB drive and watched it from the laptop? Do you know he didn't use the USB drive to copy information onto the hard drive? To qualify that as "Dead to rights" is particularly stupid.
The only person being unfair is the blogger, and you, by coming to a conclusion without hearing all the evidence. It's not solid analysis, it's lazy and premature.
I actually haven't drawn any conclusion, particularly on the person involved. This is basically standing on the sidelines and saying damn, they have a good case. It'll be impressive to see the defense.
You've drawn the conclusion and assumed I have. I'm merely remarking that the case is extraordinarily strong and the evidence, as circumstantial as it is, is compelling, unless you feel that the evidence is fabricated. And a lawyer can't rip all of what I read to shreds, though I understand what you're saying.
Of course you think they have a good case. All you've heard is their side.
Maybe he has an explanation that we will find out (maybe he was performing surgery to save him!), but right now, the evidence doesn't look good. This isn't complicated whether English is my primary, secondary, tertiary, or quarternary language. I also have performed forensics investigations not unlike the deposition I've read, and at no point did I say "gosh, that's thin." That's my point. He was remarkably dumb in the alleged narrative, if it's all true. Given my experience with Google's investigative abilities, I don't doubt any of the evidence submitted.
I disagree with you, you are wrong, and I understand every inch of the words I am typing. It's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that Google and Waymo have done their due diligence bringing a coherent and well-defended complaint here. Please do me a favor and don't assume that because I'm on the other side I'm deficient or inferior to you in some way. It's how I know there is literally zero fruit down the path of engaging you.
> "He hasn't even heard the other side of the story and he's already coming up with conclusions"
I tried pretty hard throughout the entire article to make it clear both that I was speculating, and that Uber will contest these claims in court.
In the 'dead to rights' quote you referenced, my first three words were "From Waymo's filings". I am aware that Uber hasn't had a chance to respond, if I was to expand that sentence it would be something like: "If everything in Waymo's case is accurate, then they have a very comprehensive case to make against Levandowski stealing their LiDAR designs, based on forensic evidence as well as testimony and eyewitness accounts.