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The question remains what really happened. One possibility is that Levandowski and Uber really did have a plan to steal Waymo's technology, but then didn't actu

The question remains what really happened. One possibility is that Levandowski and Uber really did have a plan to steal Waymo's technology, but then didn't actually use it. Like maybe it wasn't as good as Uber thought it would be, or for some other reason they didn't adopt it. The reason I say they didn't use it is if they had, then it would still be there in Uber's technology, and it would be easy for Waymo to prove that in court, and so they would have had no motive for settling. The other possibility is that it was never planned to be an IP theft. Maybe Uber payed so much just because it was desperate to hire Levandowski. But then the question is why Levandowski copied the files. His explanation that it was to guarantee he got his bonus doesn't make much sense, and so it seems pretty sure he invented it after the fact when he got caught. But maybe he was just being irrational at the time and that really was his reason, or maybe he had some other odd reason for doing it. I mean, it is pretty clear he is a person with, shall we say, "non-standard" ways of thinking about things. I wonder if we will ever learn what the true story was.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The reason I say they didn't use it is if they had, then it would still be there in Uber's technology, and it would be easy for Waymo to prove that in court, and so they would have had no motive for settling. Time is a motive for settling, as is the fact that even with the best case juries are unpredictable. The money at issue probably isn't a big deal to Alphabet, the behavioral consequences are. If what they've got in the settlement on that front is, in their view, adequate to ensure that their technology isn't going to be used to compete against them, getting that now is probably better than going through the legal process and getting to a judgement.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The reason I say they didn't use it is if they had, then it would still be there in Uber's technology, and it would be easy for Waymo to prove that in court, and so they would have had no motive for settling. Time is a motive for settling, as is the fact that even with the best case juries are unpredictable. The money at issue probably isn't a big deal to Alphabet, the behavioral consequences are. If what they've got in the settlement on that front is, in their view, adequate to ensure that their technology isn't going to be used to compete against them, getting that now is probably better than going through the legal process and getting to a judgement.