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'“To the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr. Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with docu

• jerf 10y ago
  No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of adversarial justice. But you shouldn't read much of anything at all into that quote. For those of us on the outside, while we are justified in considering that a possible hypothesis, we are also justified in looking at the facts and considering that it may indeed be the case that these documents were never given to Uber. I for one have no trouble believing that the documents were downloaded by an individual but that they were never given to Uber, as I rather suspect "keeping more than one really ought from one's previous job but never raising to the level of actually giving that stuff to one's next employer" is really quite common.
  • M_Grey 10y ago
    >...it may indeed be the case that these documents were never given to Uber. Then they should have their legal team pilloried and set ablaze for advising them to be this cagey.
    • jerf 10y ago
      I'm not particularly committing to either hypothesis right now. If Uber is indeed screwing around with discovery I would imagine they're going to end up in very big trouble. I for one would pretty much consider that prima facie evidence every executive even remotely involved in that decision, including simply being aware of it, should be immediately fired by the shareholders and everything possible clawed back from them. I don't consider that out of the question, but it's a pretty serious accusation on its own. Uber's kinda big to get away with that sort of shenanigan.
      • nikanj 10y ago
        Then again, a large part of Uber's success has been built upon shenanigans. It seems likely that they might develop an arrogance towards the legal system, after years of playing chicken with it.
        • __jal 10y ago
          You can generally predict Uber's behavior by assuming it behaves like a stereotypical frat house. The behavior is: - Go for it and see if anyone complains - See if ignoring the complainers makes them go away - See if bullying the complainers makes them go away - Can it be solved with money? - Last resort: cheat. - If you get caught, call the lawyers; in public, whine about the raw deal you're getting.
          • M_Grey 10y ago
            Unfortunately for them, the combination of Google alleging massive theft, the issues around Applebaum, and the high profile exit of some of their execs, none of that is likely to work.
            • praneshp 10y ago
              Hey, what issues around Applebaum? Some googling didn't help me, the most prominent result is a journalist called Anne Applebaum.
              • M_Grey 10y ago
                Well, in hindsight I can see that's my fault... Jacob Appelbaum. My bad! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13891513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13891513
                • dullgiulio 10y ago
                  I have missed the connection between Appelbaum and Uber. Does he work for them now?
  • CalChris 10y ago
    > No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal computer.
    • maverick_iceman 10y ago
      How can they access an employee's personal computer?
      • maxerickson 10y ago
        By asking.
        • rhino369 10y ago
          They don't even have to access it. They just have to ask for the documents.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        "You will provide us this, or you will be an ex-employee."
    • komali2 10y ago
      Until the facts of the case come out, don't fall into the dangerous dark hole of fully buying into either story. The other day I booted my old galaxy s3 to put a new ROM on it and turn it into a dashcam. I found on it that google drive had offline backed-up some documents from a company I had worked at several years ago, and no longer did. Should I be sued for trade secret theft?
      • CalChris 10y ago
        Uber admitted today
  • bradleyjg 10y ago
    "that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working" I don't think the paragraph implies that at all. Rather it says that Uber has not threatened Levandowski with employment sanctions in order to get him to cooperate with its discovery obligations. Uber could do so without running afoul of the 5th amendment as that only binds the government. Google's lawyer is arguing that the court ought to treat that as constructive non-compliance. There's no implied allegation of perjury or other criminal behavior.
    • Natsu 10y ago
      He invoked the fifth. Uber could fire him, but I don't seriously expect them to be able to get more out of him than the court itself can. Would you rather lose your job or go to prison isn't a hard question to answer, after all.
      • kmonsen 10y ago
        Also, if you already have virtually unlimited money loosing the job doesn't seem so bad.
        • bradleyjg 10y ago
          If this case goes very badly for Uber they may well decide to turn around and sue Levandowski. He may not have virtually unlimited money after that.
          • deleted 10y ago
            [deleted]
      • vkou 10y ago
        If Uber fires him, they run the risk of him throwing them under the bus, in exchange for legal leniency. That's a problem with criminal conspiracies - you either have to stand by your partners, or hold a threat worse then jail time over their heads. Easy for a mob boss, less easy for a unicorn.
  • ABCLAW 10y ago
    Judge Alsup's comments on pages 14 and 15 of the transcript mirror the statement you're attempting to discredit. Perhaps it is a bit more concerning when the argument is made by the trier-of-fact himself.
    • themgt 10y ago
      Yeah, reading through pages 14 -> 20 Uber sounds like they're in some shit. Essentially Levandowski wants to keep his criminal 5th amendment protections at the same time Uber is keeping him as head of the division and the judge thinks it already looks likely he stole 14,000 documents. Uber's almost trying to launder his criminal protections into their civil case while he's still running the department they accused him of stealing the IP for? IANAL but this does not sound good: Judge: "And if [Levandowski] doesn't testify to that at the deposition, well, I guess Uber -- you know, Uber is -- if you think this is going to help you, my preliminary view of it is it's not going to help you; and that if there's not a clear-cut path to showing that those 14,000 documents weren't used, then you're looking at a preliminary injunction."
      • bonzini 10y ago
        > launder his criminal protections into their civil case Which they just can't do right? Fifth amendment can be used against you in civil cases.
        • ABCLAW 10y ago
          Uber isn't claiming the fifth amendment. A senior executive of theirs is. Their argument is that his choices aren't theirs. Judge Alsup doesn't seem very sympathetic to that line of reasoning. He did not, however, decide upon that point at this stage, given that these matters were not properly in front of the court.
          • bonzini 10y ago
            Not talking about claiming it, but about "laundering it" as the parent comment put it. And in fact as you say, it's being interpreted as making excuses more than respecting the choice of their executive.
  • woodandsteel 10y ago
    Seems to me that Alsup is saying he is trying to remain open to the possibility that Uber is not guilty, but that Uber's behavior so far is making it really hard to do that, and it better do something better real soon or he is might well exercise the nuclear option, namely shut down its self-driving program.
• elastic_church 10y ago
  Its actually really impressive that Uber is standing behind him at all. Nobodies get fired from their job from any old baseless accusation.
  • Lazare 10y ago
    Uber has shown little adherence to principle but a great fondness for game theory. Game theory does not yield a lot of positive reasons why Uber would be backing Lewandowsky. > from any old baseless accusation The accusations may be false, but they are not baseless. They're so strong, in fact, that Uber is probably going to be hit with a preliminary injunction. Baseless accusations, by definition, would not have brought Uber to this stage.
    • elastic_church 10y ago
      Oh I see why my comment perturbed the collective conscious, but I wasn't making any statement on the merit of the accusation, just his continual employment and how impressive that is. I was saying that most people get fired for any accusation whether they have merit or not. This employee has an accusation that has substantial merit and is still employed. So thats actually broadcasting confidence amongst current and future employees regardless of what kind of thing gets slung their way.
      • Lazare 10y ago
        Your suggestion could be true, yes. In theory. But the obvious explanation (and the one Occam's Razor points us to) is quite different: That Uber would fire Lewandowsky if they thought they could benefit, but they believe standing behind him will minimize their legal liability and/or maximise their chances of benefitting from the purchase of Otto. A normal guy accused of something baseless doesn't have any pull on Uber and their top exec's; Lewandowsky might. In other words, your conclusion is that "if they're standing behind this guy when everything is pushing them to fire him, they'd NEVER fire a normal guy!" A better conclusion is probably "if they're standing behind this guy when everything is pushing them to fire him, there must be something really strong forcing them not to. A normal guy would still be screwed, because they don't have...whatever Lewandowsky has." I mean, obviously we don't know what Uber's top execs are thinking, or what really happened with Lewandowsky and Otto. But we know a bit about how Uber think in general, and we've seen some past decisions they've made. Do you really argue selfless altruism and employee loyalty is the most likely explanation here?
• komali2 10y ago
  Good, I'm happy he still works there. People should not be fired because of accusations. It opens the door for abuse of the justice system. Let's not fall into the trap of assuming Waymo is the "good guys" and Uber is the "bad guys." Leveling an accusation isn't hard. Anybody can sue anybody as long as you have enough evidence or a good enough argument to convince a judge to hear the case.
  • tajen 10y ago
    I'm happy some people still think like you. The respect for trials was lost at one point in recent history (and I don't know whether the million-dollar coffee and counter-argument explains it [1]), but the theory of justice is that the judge determines what is fair. I'm especially disgusted that so many men lose their jobs upon women's accusations: Without a judge, I can't verify that said men were guilty or just that a woman leveraged the system. And this happens with many other types of suspicion. [1] https://youtu.be/KNWh6Kw3ejQ https://youtu.be/KNWh6Kw3ejQ
    • joshuamorton 10y ago
      This argument doesn't follow. Your link explains why frivolous lawsuits are more of a myth than most people believe. You then proceed to lambaste people for people bowing to lawsuits which, your source contends, are probably more reasonable than you think.
      • tajen 10y ago
        I don't really understand what you point out, and I believe this is the misunderstanding: > You then proceed to lambast people for people bowing to lawsuits GitHub and other cases aren't lawsuits, that's my point: They're just people being fired without fair trial. It doesn't prove there was harassment/theft/conflict/etc. What I'm saying is we should apply the presumption of innocence and not demote people preemptively, but help the real justice system investigate whether accusations are true.
  • chc 10y ago
    Leveling an accusation isn't hard, but making somebody plead the fifth in a civil case where they haven't done anything wrong is. When one of your executives is refusing to cooperate with an internal investigation because it might expose him to criminal liability, that's a little past "From my point of view, Waymo is evil."