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Why does this article not mention that when Kalanick found out that Levandowski had this material, he immediately told him that Uber didn't want it, and told hi
by pfarnsworth 9y ago
Why does this article not mention that when Kalanick found out that Levandowski had this material, he immediately told him that Uber didn't want it, and told him to destroy those discs? The Bloomberg article on this topic said this directly.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/ex-uber-ceo-kalanick-knew-of-engineer-s-google-info-waymo-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/ex-uber-c...
- _jal 9y agoPerhaps for the same reason you didn't mention the possibility of contempt mentioned in the Bloomberg article? There are multiple ways to tell a story. I realize partisans have discovered that yelling at journalists is a great way to distract from the underlying story, but it works better on Sunday shouty shows and swampy blogs.
- pfarnsworth 9y agoThat is less material to the story than the idea that Kalanick wasn't involved in some conspiracy to steal Waymo's tech. The media wants to propagate the story that Uber and Levandowski were conspiring to steal Waymo's technology, but this makes it clear that it wasn't the case, and if there was theft of secrets, it was Levandowski on his own.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoTFA also does a poor job describing Levandowski's departure, leaving out the fact that the court effectively ordered them to do so if he wouldn't play ball. So far the only thing we actually know is that Levandowski refuses to talk, for which he lost his job.
- _jal 9y agoThe media wants to tell any story that gets attention. Complaining about the media is a distraction, but at least here there's the amusement of accusing the media of conspiring to tell the story of a conspiracy that doesn't exist. The contempt charge is less material to the story you are interested in talking about, but looks rather important to me. And we don't have proof of anything - Maybe Kalanick got cold feet partway through. We don't yet have sufficient detail to know what this means. Although now that you shine a light on this, it does seem to demonstrate is that Kalanick went ahead with a key hire who was anteing stolen IP. Call that what you will, but I wouldn't hire a janitor who did that, nor would knowingly I work for anyone who would do that. And it is also further recklessness - even putting aside ethics and legality, who is to say Levandowski wouldn't do the same thing to Uber if he got a better offer?
- pfarnsworth 9y agoI agree that the entire Levandowski mess is completely Kalanick's fault. He was in completely control when he hired him, and presumably overincentivized him with a $250 million pay package. But that's a completely different issue than the original point. The point is that there was no conspiracy to steal Waymo's trade secrets. There was no conspiracy to use Waymo's technologies in Uber self-driving cars, who already had hundreds of engineers and professors working on it for years. We don't know what the full conversation was between the two of them, but we do know from the article that once Kalanick knew that Levandowski had some sort of files, he told him to destroy it immediately and that he didn't want that to be used by Uber. I think that part is very clear.
- _jal 9y agoI do not know that there was no conspiracy, and neither do you unless you have nonpublic information. We have a very narrow slice of information that has been filtered through the legal process. Your particular slant on the story is great, enjoy. At least you've dropped the cheap media bashing; that was my primary point.
- pfarnsworth 9y agoYou're no longer making any sense. I still believe the media is terribly biased. And this is Waymo's own testimony that Kalanick asked to destroy the documents once he found out about them. How could there be a conspiracy?
- _jal 9y agoI'm done. This is a pointless discussion. I will answer the question: > How could there be a conspiracy? You're posting in multiple threads in this discussion; you couldn't have missed that many people in this thread have pointed out the obvious; it could be a wink and nod. "Honey, don't steal any jewelry from your job at PreciousGemCo. That would be wrong. You know how I do love my diamonds..." If you're unable to imagine other scenarios that fit the very few facts we have, (1) perhaps you can talk to a CPA, hacker, attorney, con-man, or someone else who is familiar with fraud that's more subtle than Three Card Monte. And, (2) I'd strongly suggest for your own good that you have someone you trust review any contracts you might want to sign.
- jedberg 9y ago> Sunday shouty shows Never heard that before, but I'm totally stealing it from you.
- bronson 9y ago"Levandowski, I want you to destroy the discs and also have the driverless car working in six months."