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Uber is just too underhanded to play the underdog against Waymo
The most remarkable thing about Waymo v. Uber is that so many of the people following the lawsuit are essentially rooting for Google to crush a smaller firm with a lawsuit. It's a tale as old as time: a maverick upstart galls a bigger, more established competitor, and the bigger guy strikes back in the courts. It's practically an American fairy tale, and yet Uber's lawyers are hard-pressed to get this archetypal narrative to stick. Nobody sees Uber as the underdog.
For one thing, through a collision of multiple scandals, Uber has become extraordinarily unpopular, and the discovery process in this lawsuit hasn't done much to alleviate its reputation as an unethical, underhanded company. But the other part is that the supposed maverick upstart hasn't managed to get one over the complacent megacorporation.
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick says that Google is (and was) in the lead when it comes to self-driving cars.
Charles Verhoeven, lead attorney for Waymo, ended his questioning of Kalanick by asking him about a note that said, "Cheat codes. Find them. Use them."
When Waymo attorney Charles Verhoeven took over again to interrogate him, he returned to cheat codes. "In the context of video games, you know what a cheat code is?"
"Yes," Kalanick replied. "But those codes in those games are put there on purpose by the publisher of the games and they want the players to have them. It's part of the fun of the game."
"That's just the game," he added, before Verhoeven could continue.
Verhoeven tried again, "A cheat code allows you to skip ahead, allows you to skip a level and not do the work."
"No — " Kalanick began to say, before Verhoeven quickly turned to the judge and said, "That's it, your honor." And with that, Travis Kalanick exited the courtroom.
Verhoeven was also able to play the "Greed is Good" scene from the 1987 film Wall Street for the jury because Anthony Levandowski (the engineer accused of stealing trade secrets from Waymo) had sent a link to it to Kalanick.
Previously: Text Messages Between Uber's Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski Released
Waymo's Case Against Uber "Shrinks" After Trade Secret Claim Thrown Out
Uber v. Waymo Trial Delayed Because Uber Withheld Evidence
A Spectator Who Threw A Wrench In The Waymo/Uber Lawsuit
Waymo v. Uber Jury Trial Begins
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @05:13PM (4 children)
really I am thinking fuck them *both*. i aint rooting for either of them
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 08 2018, @05:24PM (3 children)
It's too bad there isn't any easy and likely way in most competitions involving 2 participants, for both sides to lose.
I wish this every time I see or hear about some stupid sports game, and I wish it here with Google vs. Uber. How exactly do you "root against" both teams?
Personally, I'd like to see both Waymo and Uber lose out really big, and go out of business, and then for Lyft to continue as it is, and for two new competitors to Lyft to arise. Things always seem to work out better when there's at least 3 stable and comparable competitors in a market.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 08 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)
If Google doesn't win a substantial cash reward from Uber, then both companies still wasted a lot of money on lawyers, and Uber's reputation has still been dragged through the mud. Or possibly you could call it Kalanick's reputation, since a lot of what came out pre-trial and is coming out now is very specific to how he operated the company.
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:07PM
Yeah, but both these companies are large enough (esp. Google) that wasting a lot of money on lawyers isn't going to affect them much (and these companies are large enough to have lawyers on staff anyway), and Kalanick's reputation is already mud and can't get any worse I think. It's like Larry Nassar: if more allegations came out against him at this point, would it make his reputation any worse?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 08 2018, @11:41PM
3 things I've never regretted spending money on: good lawyers, good cheeseburgers, and sexy ladies.