Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google
techcrunch.com
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Executives must be prosecuted when their money saving results in deaths or else there is no incentive for them not to make this trade off.
If you think their car isn't safe; don't buy one and don't be driven in one. It isn't reasonable to say they can't have the occasional accident though.
When I took the Uber self driving cab in Pittsburgh (randomly called on my Uber), there were two people in the car.
One person was a driver, and the other person was in the passenger seat with a laptop. They were both very polite. The person with the laptop was very focused and watched the sensors take in information.
The driver -- at least in my case -- was very cautious and almost never let the car do anything by itself. He was almost driving it the whole time.
This is right after Uber brought over the team from Carnegie Mellon (so 2015 ish?).
I would expect them to be very careful with a passenger in the car scrutinizing but much less so in a test car. If a high enough percentage of the millions of miles these companies are doing are tests without passengers, there could be a lot of road miles happening with a single overburdened driver that the public isn't seeing much of.
Probably a prosecutor that works for some local government that could be also be liable for letting Uber operate that car in their jurisdiction. I imagine that discussion happened.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2019/03/19/...
The UK actually has a law against this, see "Causing Death by Careless or Inconsiderate Driving (Section 2B of the Road Traffic Act 1988, amended by the Road Safety Act 2006, s. 20)" here: http://www.brake.org.uk/news/15-facts-a-resources/facts/497-...
It means you can be prosecuted for causing a death in a moment of inattention. It's a bad law from both sides: As you can see from the link above it doesn't satisfy the charity (who want stronger penalties), while at the same time being a catch-all law which could catch anyone out who drives, even if they are generally very cautious drivers.
By the way I should add there was already a separate law for causing death by dangerous driving.
One more reason why we need self-driving cars I suppose.
But they weren't killed in a car accident, she was killed in a robot accident.
The car didn't accelerate or steer into the victim.
That's what's called a settlement, a.k.a. hush money.
Very, very different from criminal charges.
The pedestrian ultimately got hit because a lot of fallback systems failed: They disabled the software's ability to emergency-break (1), they disabled the cars' systems to emergency break, and the operator of the vehicle was distracted, not reacting in time.
(1) This was actually done due to false-positives, i.e. the car slamming on the breaks in non-emergency cases. (I find that's a relevant point, because without that detail it just sounds more ludicrous than it already is).
And the emergency breaking relied on the human operator but the system was not designed to warn the operator.
As noted below Uber settled (that typically means their insurer settled) so there is no need for a civil lawsuit. That is efficiency of the system and how the system is supposed to work. In other words you only bring a suit against the insured if the insurer wrongfully denies your claim, here the insurer paid up, so there is no need for a civil suit by the estate of the deceased against Uber.
The criminal side of things is interesting...but for sake of argument lets say you were in an accident, further assume it was your fault, resulting in a fatality. Typically, unless there was a separate crime (e.g. DUI, drag racing, etc...) there will be no criminal charge, just a civil traffic ticket for the accident (in many jurisdictions there will be a specific charge/penalties for an accident resulting in a fatality, but that will still be a traffic ticket, meaning non-criminal).
I am curious if the "driver" received a traffic ticket for the accident, my guess is he did, I can't imagine the responding officer(s) not issuing a traffic ticket for an accident much less one resulting in a fatality. Interestingly these traffic tickets for accidents with fatalities do usually carry a potential penalties that include suspension of the drivers license, so I do think the law will need to catch up with reality in that regard because suspending the driver's DL doesn't seem to punish the right party in the case of a self-driving car, so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment (obviously you can't suspend the DL of a self-driving car or a car company).
Why not? This (suspending permission to operate on public roads) seems like a perfectly reasonable response to a self-driving car company being negligent.
>so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment
Police can't just make up traffic violations that don't currently exist and Courts can't begin dishing out punishments that don't exist for violations that don't exist.
I think the deceased and their family would disagree.
Sure there are existing regulations, but the idea is that as this new technology evolves and is being tested in the field we will find failures and create new regulations to govern.
Consider when the horseless carriage began replacing horse and buggy, traffic laws evolved over time as we realized we needed lanes, traffic signals, speed limits, etc...
Those laws continue to evolve to this day (ex.: red light cameras, ride-for-hire, etc...), to suggest new laws are not required for driver less vehicles and the current laws are sufficient, especially where we have driver-less vehicle death, suggests a serious disconnect with how law works.
Why not? They have to have some kind of license to operate, right? Even if it's not labelled "driver's license". If their vehicles are going around running people over, revoke whatever license it is that they have until they get it fixed.
>so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment
- Supply chains run dry mid April. Huge supply shock... and will be arriving right as the beer virus starts to crush the west coast.
No one has a risk model that can price those things. It's entirely possible large institutions will go insolvent in the chaos.
- Cap table: what % is owed to other founders, investors, employees, etc?
- The total acquisition price may include substantial legal and other fees that will lower the actual amount received by the owners or shareholders.
- How much of the acquisition is financed through cash vs. equity? Equity may vest over a certain time period, and be subject to certain requirements (your sustained performance, ability to clear legal scrutiny, etc.).
- Taxes.
Taking all of this (and probably more) into consideration, it doesn't seem unreasonable for a founder to ultimately net <10% of the total sale price. Again, this is all wild speculation in this particular case.
That doesn’t sound right.
CGT operates by treating net capital gains as taxable income in the tax year in which an asset is sold or otherwise disposed of. If an asset is held for at least 1 year then any gain is first discounted by 50% for individual taxpayers, or by 33.3% for superannuation funds. Capital losses can be offset against capital gains. Net capital losses in a tax year cannot be offset against normal income, but may be carried forward indefinitely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_Australia
Maybe the 50% your thinking of come from this?
For most CGT events, your capital gain is the difference between your capital proceeds and the cost base of your CGT asset. (The cost base of a CGT asset is largely what you paid for it, together with some other costs associated with acquiring, holding and disposing of it.)
There are three methods for working out your capital gain. You can choose the method that gives you the best result – that is, the smallest capital gain.
CGT discount method
Eligibility: For assets held for 12 months or more before the relevant CGT event. Not available to companies. For foreign resident individuals, the 50% discount is removed or reduced on capital gains made after 8 May 2012.
Description: Allows you to reduce your capital gain by 50% for resident individuals (including partners in partnerships) and trusts 33.33% for complying super funds and eligible life insurance companies.
How to do it: Subtract the cost base from the capital proceeds, deduct any capital losses, then reduce by the relevant discount percentage. See: The discount method. Indexation method
Eligibility – For assets acquired before 11.45am (by legal time in the ACT) on 21 September 1999 held for 12 months or more before the relevant CGT event.
Description: Allows you to increase the cost base by applying an indexation factor based on the consumer price index (CPI) up to September 1999. How to do it: Apply the relevant indexation factor, then subtract the indexed cost base from the capital proceeds. See: The indexation method. Other method
Eligibility: For assets held for less than 12 months before the relevant CGT event. Description: Basic method of subtracting the cost base from the capital proceeds. How to do it: Subtract the cost base (or the amount specified by the relevant CGT event) from the capital proceeds. See: The 'other' method.
https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Capital-gains-tax/Working-out...
If you own things and sell them for a capital loss you get a tax credit to use later.
If you sell for a capital gain within 12 months then you will pay tax on the full amount of profit from the sale. For individuals this is just added to your income tax.
If you sell for a capital gain having held the asset for over 12 months you get a 50% discount to how much profit is taxed.
The tax credit for a capital loss can be used to offset a capital gain but it gets applied before any discount is applied.
I am not an accountant but I have listened to one.
Source: Family members went through bankruptcy in Florida and were able to get back on their feet much quicker because their house couldn't be seized.
Sure, you shouldn't lose your reasonable family home over debt. But that doesn't mean people like OJ Simpson should be able to keep their multi million dollar estates even though they have filed for bankruptcy.
In order for a creditor to take a lien on your home after a bankruptcy proceeding in CA, I believe they need to prove that after a Sheriff's sale (which generally does not get market value), there will be more than the exemption limit left over after all the mortgage and taxes and fees are paid.
If they can't then they won't be able to levy your home and force a sale. So in a worst case scenario, you would need to take out an additional mortgage or heloc on the available equity in your home to bring the total available equity under the exemption limit ($75k+) and then pay that money towards the bankruptcy debt.
So basically what is happening, is you get to keep your home, but you are forfeiting all you home owner's equity that exceeds the exemption limit.
This is going to hurt him far, far more than what he did could ever have hurt Google. Yeah, maybe Google would have lost more than this on paper, but definitely not in terms of marginal utility. Google remains an extremely wealthy and powerful company and now Anthony is broke.
There is moral hazard written all over this, and you are either too naive to see it or are trying to defend the stacked kangaroo courts of American criminal proceedings for employees of large multinational corporations.
We know that the guy stole proprietary technology and maybe there might have been intentions to use it by Uber, BUT there's no proof tying it to Uber (of course). As always. These guys aren't dumb enough to make the mistakes that Microsoft made in the 90's.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/14/ieee-analysis-shows-uber-pai...
Today, it's virtually impossible to hide money overseas as an American after FATCA and various other crackdowns unless you are willing to entirely give up your US citizenship. Since the $USD is the reserve currency of the world, the US government has enormous leverage in mandating foreign banks to report on the assets of every single US citizen with money abroad.
In fact, foreign banks are so scared right now, many will refuse to even deal with Americans outright. It's a huge draconian nightmare for expats--99% of whom are not rich by any means.
Ironically, if you're looking to do something nefarious, the best place to do so is actually right here in the US! Numerous states allow you to create anonymous corporations and trusts.
He may have realized early that Bitcoin is unconfiscatable.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...
If he has less than $100M in assets, then he will only pay a portion of the judgment. If he, his lawyer and his accountant were smart, he would have moved most of his assets into trust funds, iras and other judgment proof assets. Like Epstein did to protect his wealth from civil lawsuits of the rape victims.
> I would be highly surprised if his employer (Uber) shouldered any of the this
Uber fired him 3 years ago. If they were willing to shoulder the costs, they wouldn't have fired him.
But hey, if it helps to hide away millions of dollar, I guess why not?
They can confiscate the money/assets, can they stop the barters who of which they've no records?
Can’t stand the TechCrunch Cookie Monster.
Ah, take the text, it's not that long:
---
Anthony Levandowski, the engineer and autonomous vehicle startup founder who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has been ordered to pay $179 million to end a contract dispute over his departure from Google.
Reuters was the first to report the court order.
An arbitration panel ruled in December that Levandowski and Lior Ron had engaged in unfair competition and breached their contract with Google when they left the company to start a rival autonomous vehicle company focused on trucking, called Otto. Uber acquired Otto in 2017. A San Francisco County court confirmed Wednesday the panel’s decision.
Ron settled last month with Google for $9.7 million. However, Levandowski, had disputed the ruling. The San Francisco County Superior Court denied his petition today, granting Google’s petition to hold Levandowski to the arbitration agreement under which he was liable.
Levandowski himself may not have to pay the money personally, as this sort of liability may fall to his employer depending on his contract or other legal quirks. However, Levandowski personally filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that the presumptive $179M debt quite exceeds his assets, which he estimates at somewhere between $50M and $100M.
A representative for Levandowski declined comment for this story.
Devin Coldewey contributed to this story.
Rather I think he stole the designs for expediency out of greed.
Could someone with a legal background say what this means in practical terms? Stating you have assets worth "between $50M and $100M" while declaring bankruptcy obviously looks absurd on it's face but I'm guessing there's much more to this?
First, there's zero incentives for him to be precise. If the upper bound is far below his debts, he'll end up with zero regardless of whether he owns 50M or 100M or 150M.
There are incentives for him to be right. Putting incorrect numbers in a legal document is a faux pass at best, and at worse can be assumed to be malicious.
Although I would imagine if it was very egregious, like $1m toilets when essentially no one else has anything reasonably close to that, that a judge would probably strike that down and require you to liquidate it.
http://www.gibblaw.com/are-the-proceeds-from-sale-of-homeste...
There is a certain amount of disregard for other people who want to make cool stuff too IMO.
Sure, he's not building war weapons or anything like that, but he stole the IP and he made an F* ton of money from it, specifically selling it to competitors. That seems like about the only malicious thing you could do with that IP, if you ask me. Being not malicious would be if it did that for free.
What are the odds that he ends up living kind of normal after this? Like living in the suburbs in a 2500sqft house and commuting to some job that pays $130k? I think close to nil.
That'd be some interview. "Could you tell us about a time when you had to resolve a difficult issue? Say when you nicked IP from Google and had to pay $179M as restitution? And could you then explain why we should trust you within a hundred miles of our IP?"
Levandowski may be a jackass but that lawyer is not much better.
So his lawyer is just maintaining the same position that he did in court, otherwise this would be outrageous.
Maybe what he did was wrong but I don’t like calling him a “jackass.”
Smart guy.
They are technically on the hook for his too but they will definitely try to argue that since an actual crime took place, their indemnity only goes so far. And I'm sure there is some language to that effect in their policies as well.
Waymo confirmed that Uber had paid the $9.7 million owed by Ron, as Uber indemnifies workers under its employment agreements. But Uber had said in financial filings that it expects to challenge paying for Levandowski, who is fighting a federal indictment on charges of stealing trade secrets from Google.
This has nothing to do with arbitration. Levandowski was sued for IP theft (and faces criminal charges for the same)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal...
"Even the Levandowskis’ nanny assumed a minor role in the drama, when she filed a multimillion-dollar suit of her own, claiming that Anthony had been emotionally abusive to her, and that he had a drawer that was filled with sex toys. (The lawsuit, which offered no evidence of her claims and contained multiple factual errors, was eventually dropped.)"
> However, Levandowski, had disputed the ruling.
The second comma is unneeded. It’s not a comma splice though.
There are some really long sentences with awkward commas, but I believe they’re grammatically correct. It would just be better to break them into multiple sentences.
I’m not an English expert, but I am a native speaker. Although the above sentence is understandable, when you look at it closer the sentence structure is a bit wonky. Anecdotally, I don’t like starting a sentence with “However,”, and this article has that twice. I think it is that kind of style where the author is making a statement and then forcing you to hold it in memory, so to speak, is what the commenter is referring to. It gets mentally taxing to keep track of all of the threads.
Instead we should ask, if a sentence is unclear and wretchedly wrought, what purpose is served in pointing out its grammatical correctness? That is like admiring a two legged horse.
The author was no doubt under a tight deadline and just bashing it out with even less thought than I give to this post, but nevertheless has an MSc in Journalism (how is that an MSc?) and a BA, and can surely do better.
But I agree that there is nothing wrong with that sentence.
Don't forget he still has criminal charges pending: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-self-drivin...
[1]:https://threatpost.com/equifax-settles-class-action-lawsuit/...
Honestly, I don’t see much difference between this and the oracle java case. Google can’t have it both ways.
I don't remember anything about ML and especially not model parameters. But, yes, I'm somewhat sure those would meet the criteria for copyright.
What's far more interesting is the copyright status of the output of ML models: does it meet the required "creativity" when it's just the product of a computation you set up once, a long time ago? And is the ML model's creator still close enough to the product to be considered its author? If your text generator was trained on Wikipedia data, are the wikipedia authors co-creators? This stuff is going to be fun...
I bet Google and a bunch of other companies are excited about the message this sends to other arrogant engineers who might be considering leaving and building new companies with ideas developed at their prior places of employment. That precedent is worth billions if not trillions.
I bet this will make companies think twice about acquiring startups founded by Google employees.
He literally copied gigabytes of work onto hard drives and stole them.
I don't know what IP is in question, but it seems to me that he had been working in AVs longer than almost anyone in the industry, so it's believable that Uber was valuing the Otto team's accumulated experience, rather than any stolen ideas.
Other co-founders, yes, but Anthony was overall product lead. The article goes into detail.