"much of Silicon Valley’s genesis can be traced to Fairchild Semiconductor, which was founded by a group of young engineers who came to be known as the Traitorous Eight after they left their previous employer, en masse, to set up a rival company."
and
"is that California makes it so easy to betray, cheat, and steal. The state’s founding commercial laws generally prohibit companies from constraining their employees with “non-compete clauses.” As a result, for most of the state’s history, workers could jump from company to company, carrying secrets in their heads,"
Is the author really so obtuse not to realize there's a difference between "changing employers and using your knowledge at the new employer" and "changing employers and bringing a treasure trove of confidential documents with you"?
The author isn't trying to convey what's actually happened; they're trying to find a tone which resonates with the majority of readers to drive clicks. This piece didn't quite resonate, so they'll put out a new story in a few days about how Levandowski is a thief stifling innovation.
If the author wanted to report the facts, the headline would be about the court verdict and the nature of the documents stolen, not the author pontificating about Big Evil Tech.
People have probably been taking a treasure trove of documents with them for a long time. What has maybe changed is that companies have the technology to prove it and the appetite to litigate it at the same time.
Also, as I understand it Fairchild Semiconductor's success was due to technology which their previous employer just wasn't interested in researching. It was a pretty clear cut case of employees putting their skills and general technical knowledge to better use elsewhere, not "carrying secrets in their heads".
Apparently. The author doesn't even seem to understand how all corporations have legally binding NDA's and intellectual property rights have changed since the 1960's.
I've seen numerous HNers make that exact same point, usually with a snarky tone, so ... maybe it's not as obvious what the difference is, or everyone likes being the hipster contrarian.
Is there actually a difference? If he had memorized every detail in those documents, that would have been okay -- but taking the documents isn't? Is the former only okay because it seems practically unlikely for one human to memorize everything?
The article really downplays the extent of Levandowski's greed and willfully criminal behavior. While Google paid him $120 million he was actively working on Otto, which he sold to Uber for almost $700 million (https://www.businessinsider.com/google-levandowski-120-milli...). This doesn't seem like a case that's going to set some dangerous new precident.
Sounds like a reporter who doesn't really understand how a lot of this stuff works (didn't study it, never worked in the field?) but think he/she does. It seems really common.
He's missing the whole thing about the documents. If Levandowski steals the schematics the new companies circuit boards might look near identical. If he uses his knowledge at the new company to design new circuit boards they won't look near identical and be at risk of copyright infringement cause inevitably he'd change things & improve things cause that's the way people work.
Same thing with code.. if you copy & paste the code from your old employer into your new one's codebase that will look very different than if you design & write a new implementation to do something similar.
It doesn't necessarily sound like Levandowski did any of this kind of work himself though. It sounds more like he walked out the door with a pile of documents explaining the designs of people who worked for him.
Yeah no. It’s never been legal to steal massive collections of technical documents and it still isn’t.
It also remains to be seen how much real actual innovation Levandowski should be credited with, beyond his clear skill at talking people out of huge sums of money. It’s far from clear how disincentivizing this type of behavior will cause any problems.
Like is the premise here that there will be a causal relationship between this indictment and the progress of technology?
Levandowski is on the extreme end of the spectrum, but there's still going to be chilling effect.
Lightly paraphrasing Matt Levine in Money Stuff[1] (which I plug any chance I get), "Google is a big rich company with lots of lawyers to enforce its legal rights in civil courts: and it did so, and got a significant settlement out of Uber. It makes me a little nervous to think that big tech companies can also use the prison system to keep their engineers from competing with them."
I love Matt Levine, but I think he missed the point there, as I don't see anything wrong with what Google is doing, when taking into consideration everything Levandowski did.
This may sound too extreme and unpopular but I am against any form of intellectual property, period. I honestly believe the world without legal enforcement of IP rights would be a better world.
This is grand theft, not some employee sneaking off with what he learned on the job. To top it, this was done in a calculated manner, weeks after he left, he started Otto - a truck driving company which was promptly acquired by Uber.
Because, to my knowledge John Carmack didn't walk away with source code, detailed circuit diagrams, and technical documentation he stole from a company to start another company. The charge here is quite clear. Mr. Levandowski took something with him that the law said he wasn't allowed to take and then profited from it.
[+] [-] Tomte|6 years ago|reply
and
"is that California makes it so easy to betray, cheat, and steal. The state’s founding commercial laws generally prohibit companies from constraining their employees with “non-compete clauses.” As a result, for most of the state’s history, workers could jump from company to company, carrying secrets in their heads,"
Is the author really so obtuse not to realize there's a difference between "changing employers and using your knowledge at the new employer" and "changing employers and bringing a treasure trove of confidential documents with you"?
[+] [-] dymk|6 years ago|reply
If the author wanted to report the facts, the headline would be about the court verdict and the nature of the documents stolen, not the author pontificating about Big Evil Tech.
[+] [-] tryitnow|6 years ago|reply
Articles like this are part of a tendency among some people to think that by taking a contrary position they are somehow more insightful.
It's worth noting that Levandowski did not steal secrets and give them to a struggling startups - which is still wrong, but a lot more sympathetic.
He stole from one goliath and gave to another goliath - this behavior does not stimulate innovation.
[+] [-] doctorpangloss|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makomk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jshowa3|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilasX|6 years ago|reply
(FWIW, I agree equating the two is ridiculous.)
[+] [-] consz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mojoe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perlgeek|6 years ago|reply
The distinction between moving a person's experience from one company to another, and a trove of documents has already been discussed here.
But the second thing is that's not the indictment that could be stifling innovation, it's the laws that forbid it.
If you think trade secrets stifle innovation, blame that laws, not the prosecutor how does his job, or the company that tries to apply existing laws.
[+] [-] ben7799|6 years ago|reply
He's missing the whole thing about the documents. If Levandowski steals the schematics the new companies circuit boards might look near identical. If he uses his knowledge at the new company to design new circuit boards they won't look near identical and be at risk of copyright infringement cause inevitably he'd change things & improve things cause that's the way people work.
Same thing with code.. if you copy & paste the code from your old employer into your new one's codebase that will look very different than if you design & write a new implementation to do something similar.
It doesn't necessarily sound like Levandowski did any of this kind of work himself though. It sounds more like he walked out the door with a pile of documents explaining the designs of people who worked for him.
[+] [-] CPLX|6 years ago|reply
It also remains to be seen how much real actual innovation Levandowski should be credited with, beyond his clear skill at talking people out of huge sums of money. It’s far from clear how disincentivizing this type of behavior will cause any problems.
Like is the premise here that there will be a causal relationship between this indictment and the progress of technology?
[+] [-] basseq|6 years ago|reply
Lightly paraphrasing Matt Levine in Money Stuff[1] (which I plug any chance I get), "Google is a big rich company with lots of lawyers to enforce its legal rights in civil courts: and it did so, and got a significant settlement out of Uber. It makes me a little nervous to think that big tech companies can also use the prison system to keep their engineers from competing with them."
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...
[+] [-] htk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dymk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharadov|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaupitiBlue|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zaphar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhauris|6 years ago|reply
0: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/occve...