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What will be fascinating to watch is how justice is served here. Regardless of the wrong Levandowski may have committed, he is still an extremely talented engi

What will be fascinating to watch is how justice is served here. Regardless of the wrong Levandowski may have committed, he is still an extremely talented engineer in a field where a 'space race' of sorts is going on between a handful of heavily monied-up players. On one hand, I think Waymo has ability to financial ruin Levandowski. On the other hand, no matter how tainted he is by this scandal, there are still 10 other players in this field who would be willing to pay him a huge salary. So he could easily get a multi-million dollar salary from someone else. I suppose what could happen is that other companies would be unwilling to work with Levandowski because if a new employer of Levandowski's happens to develop technology similar to Waymo's, Waymo could sue the new company and say the new company received Waymo's proprietary information from Levandowski. Even if that didn't happened, Levandowskis presence is enough to prove otherwise. In other words, just the presence of Levandowski in another self-driving car project is huge legal liability. And that may be his downfall. It is, however, sad to think that this technology could be set back a few years because of Levandowski's actions.

ChuckMcM 10y ago
Yes, and the question 'what is justice' is going to get a workout I suspect. If he loses, I don't think he will be as easily re-employable as you do. Sure he is clearly a talented engineer but he will be on the record as having cost two companies in this space millions of dollars, primarily due to his own actions. I don't know of any hiring manager who will sign off on that level of risk to the company. Oddly, if he wins, I think it will result in still greater restrictions, surveillance, and lock downs on employees at Google so in some way it may effect way more people than just the self driving car crowd. That said, I think the risk of setting the technology back will be Google aggressively pursuing infringement claims against anyone trying to develop self driving cars in an effort to 'not lose' the investment they made. Worst case scenario is a 'digital cash' type disaster[1] but even just suppressing a lot of research will be an impact. Again, if Google wins there will be a lot concern about hiring ex-Google engineers fearing taint. [1] David Chaum developed some early digital cash patents and aggressively sued anyone trying to develop micropayments or e-cash in the late '90s while simultaneous producing no useful technology of his own, pushing out the possibility of useful e-cash until as least 2018.
- argonaut 10y ago
  Yeah, if he loses I see him trying to start his own firm.
jb613 10y ago
"It is, however, sad to think that this technology could be set back a few years because of Levandowski's actions." I am less concerned about one piece of technology and more concerned about the future of employer relations in general. Employers will become increasingly suspicious of employees leaving and will take actions to either prevent this or to stifle the actual knowledge gained to be used elsewhere.
tomcam 10y ago
> there are still 10 other players in this field who would be willing to pay him a huge salary. Seems unlikely if his work is the poisoned fruit of IP theft as Google claims
sfifs 10y ago
Just from the filing of this lawsuit, he's probably already damaged goods to anyone who might be looking to hire him... not that he needs money though. Firstly there appears to be public evidence of stealing from the employer and any hiring company would wonder if it would be the next target. Secondly, just by having him work on your tech, you might get exposed to lawsuits from Google. No HR and Legal department would sign off on a such a hiring decision.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Yes, and the question 'what is justice' is going to get a workout I suspect. If he loses, I don't think he will be as easily re-employable as you do. Sure he is clearly a talented engineer but he will be on the record as having cost two companies in this space millions of dollars, primarily due to his own actions. I don't know of any hiring manager who will sign off on that level of risk to the company. Oddly, if he wins, I think it will result in still greater restrictions, surveillance, and lock downs on employees at Google so in some way it may effect way more people than just the self driving car crowd. That said, I think the risk of setting the technology back will be Google aggressively pursuing infringement claims against anyone trying to develop self driving cars in an effort to 'not lose' the investment they made. Worst case scenario is a 'digital cash' type disaster[1] but even just suppressing a lot of research will be an impact. Again, if Google wins there will be a lot concern about hiring ex-Google engineers fearing taint. [1] David Chaum developed some early digital cash patents and aggressively sued anyone trying to develop micropayments or e-cash in the late '90s while simultaneous producing no useful technology of his own, pushing out the possibility of useful e-cash until as least 2018.

argonaut 10y ago
Yeah, if he loses I see him trying to start his own firm.

jb613 10y ago

"It is, however, sad to think that this technology could be set back a few years because of Levandowski's actions." I am less concerned about one piece of technology and more concerned about the future of employer relations in general. Employers will become increasingly suspicious of employees leaving and will take actions to either prevent this or to stifle the actual knowledge gained to be used elsewhere.

tomcam 10y ago

> there are still 10 other players in this field who would be willing to pay him a huge salary. Seems unlikely if his work is the poisoned fruit of IP theft as Google claims

sfifs 10y ago

Just from the filing of this lawsuit, he's probably already damaged goods to anyone who might be looking to hire him... not that he needs money though. Firstly there appears to be public evidence of stealing from the employer and any hiring company would wonder if it would be the next target. Secondly, just by having him work on your tech, you might get exposed to lawsuits from Google. No HR and Legal department would sign off on a such a hiring decision.