I have been thinking about this with the Anthony Levandowski case. How long does it take before someone has expertise valuable enough to go full Count Zero and

I have been thinking about this with the Anthony Levandowski case. How long does it take before someone has expertise valuable enough to go full Count Zero and extract them outside the reach of legal consequences? It's basically the approach Samuel Slater took, and I keep expecting to see it repeated today in either AI or biotech.