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U.S. prosecutors seek 27 months imprisonment for former Uber self-driving head
- joncrane 6y agoHe apparently filed for bankruptcy because he "owes" $179 million to Google? My question is, how is he paying his (presumably very expensive) lawyers?
- ilikehurdles 6y agoIf he's any smarter than me (and he clearly seems a lot smarter than me), he probably keeps many of his assets in bankruptcy-protected accounts/LLCs.
- alistairSH 6y agoWell, he did steal a bunch of stuff and get caught. That's not particularly smart.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIt’s okay to get caught (from a risk, not a moral perspective), it’s whether it was worth it after the costs (time and money) are tallied. Doesn’t make you dumb, it’s always a calculated risk if you’re considering a crime.
- monadic2 6y agoSeems like a low-quality signal.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoLLCs aren't protected against bankruptcies. The protection they offer only goes the other way: if someone gets a $170 million judgement against an LLC you own, that liability (usually) does not extend to assets you personally own. In this case, any (share in) LLCs he may own would be part of the assets, together with shares/cars/cash/etc., subject to be auctioned off with the proceeds being divided among his creditors.
- ensignavenger 6y agoActually, it depends on your state. https://www.limitedliabilitycompanycenter.com/llc/charging-order-protection-and-llcs/ https://www.limitedliabilitycompanycenter.com/llc/charging-o...
- FBISurveillance 6y agoI'd bet he used some mechanism, e.g. Cook Islands Trust or similar in a defendant-friendly jurisdiction. If you do shady business, you have to have plan B.
- kanobo 6y agoUber was gonna cover the cost but only right before judgement did they renege. I'm guessing he still has enough for the bankruptcy court to disperse.
- jocker12 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23877872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23877872
- ilikehurdles 6y ago> Federal prosecutors are also seeking three years of supervised release and an agreed-upon restitution payment of nearly $756,500 to Alphabet Inc’s self-driving car company Waymo > Levandowski filed for bankruptcy protection in March, shortly after a court confirmed that he must pay $179 million to Google to end a legal battle over his split from the Alphabet Inc unit. I see is guilty of a few things, but the size of the fines seems astronomical. Does the scope of his crime justify this punishment?
- iaw 6y agoThey had previously paid him $120M so it seems like it's actually in the same ballpark of transaction size.
- sadfev 6y agoNo, it was blatant theft of IP and some might consider corporate espionage. He was a high level exec at Waymo, who stole the IP which represented the core competency just before he jumped ship to Uber.
- qppo 6y ago> some might consider corporate espionage I don't know about "consider," he plead guilty to theft of trade secrets and was charged with crimes defined by the Economic Espionage Act. But I think most engineers don't know that stealing IP from your former employer is a federal crime punishable up to 10 years.
- CydeWeys 6y agoIgnorance of the law is no excuse. Almost all engineers should at least know that doing so is wrong. And this guy was an executive, not just an engineer.
- qppo 6y agoI'm not suggesting that it's an excuse or that engineers don't know it's wrong, just that I'm guessing most of them don't know they can go to jail for pulling this shit. It's kind of like what happened with Aaron Schwartz (where the ethics of what he did might be more debatable than Levandowski). I don't think either of these smart people realized what they were doing could put them in prison.
- peteradio 6y agoAnyone can clarify what sensitive docs he took with him, citations appreciated?
- kanobo 6y agohttps://medium.com/waymo/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-and-uber-86f4f98902a1 https://medium.com/waymo/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-... - 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary design files for Waymo’s various hardware systems, including designs of Waymo’s LiDAR and circuit board - 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. - supplier lists, manufacturing details and statements of work with highly technical information
- qppo 6y agoThe indictment [0]. He plead guilty to [1]: > Levandowski admitted to taking a single spreadsheet called “Chauffeur TL Weekly Updates — Q4 2015.” According to court documents, the file contained quarterly goals and weekly metrics and the objectives and key results for Levandowski’s team. It also included a summary of technical challenges the team faced and some that had been overcome. [0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-release/file/1197991/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/press-release/file/1197991... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/19/levandowski-guilty/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/19/levando... TL;DR he stole lidar and plead down to a lesser charge.
- DeonPenny 6y agoI'd do 27 months for millions of dollars. I might even do it for thousands of dollars if you give me a computer and internet access.
- dheera 6y agoHonest question here. Why are we, the taxpayers, paying for 27 months of free housing and food for this guy? Considering he's not a physical threat to society, only an intellectual one, I'd much rather he be slapped with a financial punishment large enough to be meaningful.
- munk-a 6y agoGiven that he's declaring bankruptcy going after a fine alone might make him judgement immune.
- vkou 6y ago> Honest question here. Why are we, the taxpayers, paying for 27 months of free housing and food for this guy? That's a great point, he should be sent to work in the uranium mines of Kamchatka to earn his keep for those 27 months. The non-snarky answer is 'because sentencing in this country is a mixture of rehabilitation, punishment, and public safety', with a very heavy emphasis on punishment. (And quite frankly, I could think of more sympathetic persons and sentences to raise your question in defense of.)
- dheera 6y agoI suppose, but the way I think of it is -- Q: Why do we (or should be) putting rapists, thieves, murderers behind bars? A: Because I'm happy to chip in and pay for their locked-up housing and food to make sure that they're not on the streets hurting people. But this guy? I don't give a damn about him. He's not a threat to me, my company, or anything I'm involved with, and I shouldn't be paying for his punishment or rehabilitation costs. If this guy walked past my home at night I wouldn't give a damn. If Brock Turner came anywhere near my home or friends' homes I'd be scared. Which of the two really should be behind bars? Why is this harmless-to-me guy being locked for 27 months at MY expense but Brock Turner getting 6 months?
- ttmb 6y agoSo let's say I did the same thing. I don't have any money, so there is no meaningful financial punishment that can be applied to me. In which case, we'll need an alternate punishment, ie - jail. In which case we've just set up a punishment system where poor people go to jail and rich people don't.
- IMTDb 6y ago> “It is, unfortunately, no exaggeration to say that a prison sentence today can amount to the imposition of a serious health crisis, even a death sentence, given the BOP’s (Federal Bureau of Prisons) current inability to control the spread of the coronavirus,” No exaggeration ? °-°
- munk-a 6y agoNot a huge exaggeration - but I'd like to see some explanation of why that's in any way relevant to the trial. Maybe the DOJ should be requesting funds from congress to help improve prison safety or even look at upscaling work-release programs - or maybe the executive branch could pardon all those low level drug offenders and the DOJ could finally remove mandatory sentencing rules around possession charges. Maybe in this virus world centralized prisons aren't morally acceptable and we need to look at smaller more integrated facilities for all but the max-security folks. But it doesn't matter for this dude's case, it's completely irrelevant. He can take on the same risks that society deems appropriate for black kids who had a joint behind their ear. (edit: As I noted in a response actually yea, it is a huge exaggeration so I don't disagree with the parent's point. I still personally prefer to tear down the BS from the angle I noted above but yea the lawyer's numbers are also totally BS)
- IMTDb 6y agoIf we consider p(him dying) = 1 if convicted to a death sentence. The point of the lawyer if that p(him getting covid in prison) * p(him dying of covid as a healthy 40 year old) ≈ 1. If it's not a huge exaggeration, please run me through the numbers. Because p(him dying of covid as a healthy 40 year old) < 0.015 I would love to pay those attorney's fee with few lottery tickets if that's how this guy plays with statistics.
- munk-a 6y agoThat's fair yea - so I think there a few ways this lawyer's statements can be proven to be nonsense. The numbers in that formulary are mostly unknown so I'd be more comfortable attacking the statement from the angle I outlined above but I agree the numbers clearly don't match what the lawyer is implying.
- bloomboom 6y agoThis is a great example of unequal prosecution. A startup that has its IP copied illegally would be lucky to not be ignored by the feds. Even if it was the proximate cause of a startup’s failure (which is admittedly rare). But for Google and Goldman Sachs which never suffer any real damage in these cases, the feds are their private army capable of raiding and imprisoning anyone who copies some files illegally, even if they suffer no actual harm whatsoever. There is no question Google should be able to use the law to stop someone from using their IP illegally and be compensated for any damages. But this attempt to make an example out of someone just because they’re powerful is despicable. The combination of powerful corporations with vendettas and prosecutors out to make their bones is a huge flaw in our system.
- raincom 6y agoYes, "prosecutorial discretion" is one form in which corruption occurs.
- refurb 6y agoHuh? The alternative is the prosecutor is required to prosecute everything crime cops bring to them, no matter the evidence or likelihood of conviction. Sounds worse than what we have now.
- Nasrudith 6y agoIt is comparable to bueracratic systems vs "feudal" appointees with discretion. Despite the inefficiency, inflexibility, and occasional stupidity from bueracracies historically they have been an improvement especially for scalability. Essentially removing discretion would "bueracraticize" it compared to a more fiefdom style prosecutorial discretion. There is some potential long term improvement of forcing legislators to write their laws better at the cost of far greater court load, travesties of justice, and similiar in exchange for lessened corruption. The improvemrnt part rests upon assumptions of outrage over the proper thing. Not the best of track records given dumb knee-jerk laws. So yeah, almost certainly worse short term but it may be better long term. Not exactly an inspiring cause.
- raiyu 6y agoWhite collar crime vs blue collar crime. White collar crime steal $179MM of assets and get 27 months of home arrest. Blue collar crime rob a bank to steal $10,000 and spend 10 years in prison.
- vkou 6y agoA better example would be this case: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2019/10/04/corey-cook-graffiti-ice-federal-building/3864444002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2019... Caught spray-painting a federal building in political protest? (Which costs less than a hundred dollars to clean up.) Prosecutors were seeking ten years for that adventure. Actual sentencing was probably a bit less than a year, but I likewise doubt Lewandowski will serve all 27 months.
- jonathanjaeger 6y agoWhile this is a fair point (due to the difference in money), there is something to be said about the trauma imposed on people who are witness to a bank robbery, not to mention the potential lives hurt/lost if things go sour. I'm not saying in your above example that the 27mo and 10yr sentences should be shorter or longer, I'm just noting that there are reasons the two aren't equal.
- nkrisc 6y agoYou're right, they're not equal. The white collar crime is capable of so much more damage.
- mc32 6y agoI think armed robbery sentences depend on whether it was the first time or this is far down the list of incidents (also rap sheet might have a history of other things), but a fist time non violent robber probably will not get ten years in the klink, though you could if the judge and prosecutor impose maximums. Most states consider “no priors” in sentencing guidelines.
- raiyu 6y agoFair point, but the penalties for white collar crime are still very lax even when "everyday" people are affected. Look at the last recession which led to many "average" american families losing their homes. That wasn't possible without fraud especially the ratings agencies that were giving out false ratings and still no one went to prison.
- tome 6y agoTop comment: unfairly lenient Second-top comment: unfairly strict https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23989843
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ebg13 6y ago> Second-top comment: unfairly strict I see that as a misread of the truth behind the second comment. The comment is in relation to "A startup that has its IP copied illegally would be lucky to not be ignored by the feds." The first comment references unfair leniency in relation to the person doing the crime. The second references unjust application only in favor of the powerful. Those are not the same dimensions and are not comparable.
- jjoonathan 6y agoWould we prefer that the mob immediately settle on one option, grab its pitchforks and torches, and get to work?
- esoterica 6y agoIt's kinda funny how the both the criticisms of the punishment as being too strict and too lenient are being constructed from the same left-leaning perspective. 1. It's inequitable that white collar criminals face lower sentences than blue collar criminals despite the nominal values involved being way higher 2. It's inequitable that people are being threatened with years in prison for non-violent property crimes against mega corporations.
- ch4s3 6y agoI think there are a few different angles here for it being too strict. 1. There's are large elements of randomness and bias in our legal system which make it incredibly uncertain if someone will go to jail for a crime they commit, and sentences are given at times months to years after a crime is committed. This means long sentences provide only marginally more disincentive than a shorter sentence. 2. It is incredibly expensive to imprison people, so we should aim to keep people jailed for the smallest amount of time necessary to protect society and/or deter crime. 3. It is simply inhumane to put any non-violent person in jail for a quarter century. 4. Corporatism incentivizes this kind of crime and society should address the root of the problem rather than focus on people who respond to the perverse incentives of systems we live in.
- chx 6y agoOne of those headlines where I was like "blimey, Uber made a detached head self-drive!"
- misiti3780 6y agoso does he have to pay google/waymo back that 800K on top of the 179MM ?
- kanobo 6y agoHe was so brazen in using identical schematic and suppliers. It amazing to think all this is a result of the supplier getting confused from having two clients with identical schematics and accidently cc'ing the wrong engineers.
- credit_guy 6y agoI was thinking I'd read that the head of the Uber self-driving car division at the time of the killing of Elaine Herzberg [1] is being pursued by prosecutors for her wrongful death. Instead, it's about some IP stuff. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg
- Simulacra 6y agoFrom what I see in a cursory search, the back-up driver Rafaela Vasquez of the self-driving car that killed Elaine Herzberg was looking at their phone most of the time, which led to the fatal crash. I can't seem to find anything about this person being charged with anything. IANAL: Would this not be involuntary manslaughter at least?
- ohples 6y agoPlease don't use the word "accident" here. There was clearly negligence involved.
- Simulacra 6y agoThank you for pointing that out, I agree, and updated.
- justSayin000001 6y agoThey are mutually exclusive, and both work in this case. You may not like it, but by definition they both work.
- chrismcb 6y agoUnless it was done on purpose, then it was an accident. Negligence can be involved in an accident.
- kbos87 6y agoSo nice that they’ve decided this is what they want to go after the self-driving division of Uber for, and not the gross negligence that led to a woman’s death when their car plowed into her walking a bike across the street.
- zacksinclair 6y ago> “It is, unfortunately, no exaggeration to say that a prison sentence today can amount to the imposition of a serious health crisis, even a death sentence, given the BOP’s (Federal Bureau of Prisons) current inability to control the spread of the coronavirus,” Levandowski’s attorneys wrote. I find this ridiculous for his attorneys to use as a defense against his potential incarceration. While likely true (and certainly deplorable on its own), this applies to anyone going through the criminal justice system and Levandowski is no special case. Conditions in prison should hardly be an excuse for house arrest vs incarceration.
- josefresco 6y agoI dunno, if I was fighting for my freedom I sure would hope my attorneys do everything (legal) in their power to assist in my defense. Ridiculous or not it's a valid concern.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tdfx 6y agoYeah I would say it's not ridiculous to ask for, but would be ridiculous if the judge granted it.
- chrismcb 6y agoWhole it may be ridiculous, he is doing his job in trying to get his client of and our a weaker sentence. And yeah, any lawyer today woukd be making the same argument. Keep in mind, the constitution prohibits unusual and unjust punishment. So, or choose, conditions in prison should be brought up... By any good lawyer, at any time.
- zacksinclair 6y agoI agree the lawyer is doing the right thing for his role - perhaps I should have phrased as "ridiculous for this argument to be taken seriously" or some such.
- paledot 6y agoAnd sorry, what's Uber on the hook for here? Don't tell me they didn't know.