Laser sauce, cheat code, jam seshs: The Waymo vs Uber trial kicks off According to former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, a "cheat code" is tech bro slang for a hack. Or, in his words, "elegant solutions to problems that haven't already been thought of." The lawyers who were lined up against him in a San Francisco courtroom on Wednesday morning are pretty sure that "cheat code" follows a more …
>"And this right here is why everybody hates lawyers."
The problem is with the jury as well - if the outcome was to be relied on a single judge or group of judges with no jury, there wouldn't be need to characterise people and other Perry Mason showmanship because judges are usually rather level headed and can mentally just skip the irrelevant parts.
As it is in a technical court cases this one may turn out to be, the jury may believe some very different technologies are too similar to prove theft. A layman (think of your granny) can't make head or tails in program listing but could spot identical rows here and there and think it was theft.
I live in a country that doesn't have juries and I'd say justice is usually served pretty well because of the unemotional proceedings.
..."Did you ask Levandowski to bring Google information to Uber?" Uber's lawyer asked his former CEO. "I did not. Ever." A follow-up: "Did Mr Levandowski tell you he was going to bring Google information to Uber?" Kalanick: "He did not."...
Um. In any job interview the company recruiter is interested in what advantage in skills, knowledge, background etc the applicant will bring to the company?
It would be incredible if Levandowski was NOT asked about the work he did at Google, and what aspects of that would be of value to UBER. In fact, if the hiring was really above board, the topic of intellectual property and restrictive covenants limiting Levandowski's employment should have been a major topic of converstation.
If they weren't, well....
"Did you ask Levandowski to bring Google information to Uber?"
"In any job interview the company recruiter is interested in what advantage in skills, knowledge, background etc the applicant will bring to the company?"
Yes. Or at least should be. In this case Kalanick could have just hire him immediately without HR intervention.
Uber cannot ask Levandowski to bring "Google information" since that sounds very much like intellectual property theft. Whatever Levandowski has in his head is fine, but he still cannot bring anything copied from Google, nor can he obviously use anything that Google has patented.
But interviews at this level are not really interviews at all. You or I might apply for a job like Network Engineer IV and thered be a process with HR, screening, etc etc. In the Valley it's more like "I want to hire Jimmy. Make it happen" and then the paperwork follows to make it right.
In this case, the lawyers would have you believe that Kalanick wanted Lewandowski, Lewandowski wanted money, and neither of them appeared to be troubled by ethics. Based on Kalanick's track record at Uber, I'm inclined to believe them.
"Im getting a new Ferrari with my fees, what about you?"
"Im buying a small island in the Florida Keys"
Neither set of Lawyers gives a toss about a specific outcome. They both know there will be appeals, and further appeals, and they will get helluva rich off the backs of something both sides should have agreed in a board room. Uber going "Full Bro, Bro" is gonna cost them everything.
...is how his ex-nanny seems to have such a perfect recollection of the things Levandowski was shouting all night - specifically the names.
In my limited experience, people generally remember the gist of things being said and might even remember a name or two, but that all seems to be rather verbatim.
Meh - either way it'll be interesting to see where this goes.
From what I recall of the original Nanny article here on the Reg, she was a bit rubbish at nannying, and rather good at fact recall and finding out useful stuff.
I think she was a plant: an undercover PI placed by Google to dig up some dirt. And the perfect recall? Recording device. Heck, probably had his whole house bugged.
That would make the law suit she's bringing a cunning sham to get the dirt into the public eye and nicely discredit Kalanickers.
AS I recall of the nanny - she had previously made a student film, and any aspiring film people, authors and commedians that I know always keep a diary/note book of ideas, observations, and just anything they think might lead to an idea one day. So if she felt she was at the beginning of a soap opera/documentuary fodder, keeping detailed notes would be expected.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
