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posted by on Saturday June 03 2017, @08:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the poor-downtrodden-Uber dept.

Uber Fires Former Google Engineer at Heart of Self-Driving Dispute

Uber said Tuesday that it had fired Anthony Levandowski, a star engineer brought in to lead the company's self-driving automobile efforts who was accused of stealing trade secrets when he left a job at Google.

What Mr. Levandowski did when he quit Google to start his own company, Otto, which was acquired by Uber for nearly $700 million last year, is the key question in a closely watched lawsuit that pits one of the world's most powerful companies against Uber, a richly financed up-and-comer.

The stakes are enormous for both businesses. Google was a pioneer in autonomous car technology and has spent nearly a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars on its effort, which is now run through Waymo, a subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet. And Travis Kalanick, Uber's chief executive, has said the future of his ride-hailing company, privately valued at nearly $70 billion, hinges on work being done to create cars that can drive themselves.

The dismissal of one of Uber's most prized technical talents also points to the risks of the star engineering culture that has emerged in Silicon Valley in recent years, leading to giant paydays for a small group of employees.

No Johnny Cab for you.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @12:39PM (#519829)

    ... Anthony Levandowski, a star engineer brought in to ...

    This type of star engineers does not exist. For anyone who has never worked at one of the big 5 (MSFT, GOOG, FB, AMZN, AAPL), what this means is that this guy is just very adept at office politics and backstabbing. That's how he worked his way up the chain over there.

    Real Star Engineers(*) are the ones you don't hear about, the ones that actually get shit done instead of working on their public profile.

    (* Just like those same Real Scotsmen)

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