A good hand was smashed, and the technical genius fell to the altar.
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Big Data Digest” (ID: BigDataDigest) , author: Yang Wan cattle.
Last week, Anthony Levandowski, Silicon Valley’s top self-driving technology engineer and former Google executive, admitted he had previously stolen trade secrets about self-driving technology from Google.
On March 19, local time, Levandowski acknowledged that after leaving Google, he downloaded a Waymo confidential file, which brought phased progress to this three-year dispute in the field of autonomous driving.
Larry Page’s confidante, the self-driving entrepreneurial road of Silicon Valley star engineers
In the field of autonomous driving, Anthony Levandowski knows everyone. Anthony Levandowski is a star engineer in Silicon Valley. As a leader in autonomous driving technology, he is committed to the development of autonomous vehicles, and is the confidant of Google co-founder Larry Page.
At the end of 2015 and early 2016, Levandowski decided to leave Google and set up his own company, Ottomotto.
At that time, the wave of autonomous driving was heating up, and many visionary companies began to enter the field. Levandowski’s new company is targeting a new area of driverless trucks. Another founder, Lior Ron, once headed the research and development of Google Maps and Moto X. With his own appeal, he gathered a group of Google, Apple, Tesla, Cruise AutomatiThe elite of on (driverless startup acquired by GM).
In August 2016, OttoMotto was acquired by Uber for approximately $ 680 million (mainly a company’s equity) in exchange for Otto’s technology and an experienced autonomous driving technology team. At that time, Uber founder Kalanick described Levandowski as “one of the world’s leading automation engineers” and an “really urgent” entrepreneur.
Google sues, Uber fires, opens long investigation path
When Levandowski entered Uber, he was immediately assigned a heavy responsibility and became the main person in charge of his autonomous driving project.
However, only a few months after the acquisition, in August last year, Waymo, the parent company of Google, filed a lawsuit against Uber, saying that Uber was using the trade secrets stolen from Google to develop Uber’s self-driving cars. . And Waymo made it clear that the plan was assisted by Levandowski.
According to the New York Times, federal prosecutors have charged Anthony Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and high fines.
Science and technology companies that specialize in intellectual property protection are not the only ones suing ex-employees or other companies, but charges of theft against a senior technologist are unusual.
According to the indictment, Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files before leaving Google in 2016, containing key information about Google’s self-driving car research. The indictment says he transferred the files to his laptop without authorization. Later that year, Anthony Levandowski joined Uber when Uber bought himNew self-driving truck startup Otto.
33 thefts (parts) listed in the indictment
Uber has denied the allegations. However, when a federal judge asked Levandowski to give evidence and testimony, he firmly upheld the individual rights mentioned in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, “In any criminal case, the defendant must not be forced to give evidence without due process of law. , Shall not deprive the defendant of his life, freedom or property. ” Levandowski therefore avoided self-incrimination.
Uber then pressured him to cooperate with the investigation in the coming months, but after he missed the deadline to submit information, Uber fired him in May 2017.
This incident has caused Google, Waymo, and Uber to become involved in high-risk competition around autonomous driving technology. It is reported that in February 2018, Uber and Waymo reached a settlement, and Uber transferred approximately $ 245 million of stock to Waymo.
In August 2019, Levandowski was charged with stealing 14,000 proprietary information files related to the autonomous driving program from Google, 33 counts of theft and attempting to steal Google’s trade secrets.
At the time of his interrogation, he pleaded not guilty to all charges and paid $ 300,000. His parents and a friend successfully bail their house as collateral.
Levandowski arrives in court in November 2019
The federal prosecutor’s criminal prosecution of Levandowski in Northern California has opened a new chapter in the legal battle.
Miles Ehrlich, one of Levandowski’s lawyers, said outside the court: “For more than a decade, Anthony LevAndowski has been an industry pioneer in the areas of autonomous driving and truck technology. The evidence in this case will eventually prove that Anthony did not steal anything. “
On March 4, 2020, Levandowski was asked to pay Google $ 179 million for contract disputes, a dispute over employees that occurred when he sold the startup to Google. Levandowski filed for bankruptcy protection, claiming that his personal assets were less than $ 100 million, and in fact Google had paid him $ 120 million in bonuses.
On March 19, in a recent case trial, Levandowski finally admitted to stealing Google trade secrets!
As part of the plea agreement, Levandowski agreed to accept one of the 33 charges in exchange for the prosecution to withdraw another 32 charges. He also acknowledged that he downloaded a Waymo spreadsheet file after leaving Google, and that he knew it would be illegal to misappropriate and own these trade secrets.
A spokesperson for Waymo said in an interview with the Verge website, “At today’s criminal hearing, Levandowski’s confession ended a major case for our company and the autonomous driving industry, and we successfully protected Our intellectual property. “
A good hand is destroyed, and the driverless veteran falls to the altar
Levandowski was born in Belgium. When his father took him to California, he started helping local companies build websites and started earning money while classmates were still studying.
Later, he became a student at the University of California, Berkeley, and showed great talent in making robots. He designed a robot toy and earned a lot of royalties through it.
Levandowski was already a researcher working on autonomous driving technology before the concept of autonomous driving became popular. On March 13, 2004, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored a self-driving challenge to encourage autonomous vehicle technology development, when 15 teams brought their autonomous vehicles to California, California. In the desert outside Stowe. Levandowski’s “blue team” is the only team with a motorcycle. The self-driving motorcycle “Ghostrider” they use is now available at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
