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Tesla Sues Former Autopilot Executive For Allegedly Stealing Secrets, Poaching Coworkers (cnbc.com)

Tesla has filed a lawsuit Thursday against its former director of Autopilot Programs, Sterling Anderson, for breach of contract. The company alleges Anderson took proprietary information about the Autopilot program and recruited fellow Tesla employees to work with him at another autonomous driving company. In addition, the lawsuit names the former head of Google's autonomous car project, Chris Urmson, as a defendant, and alleges both executives were attempting to start a company together, called Aurora. CNBC reports: According to TechCrunch, Anderson had acted as Tesla's director of Autopilot Programs for a little over a year. Tesla alleges that Anderson, while still a Tesla employee, pulled "hundreds of gigabytes" of proprietary data from company computers, and installed it on a personal hard drive. Tesla also alleges that Anderson tried to hide his tracks by wiping phones, deleting browser histories, permanently erasing computer files, and even manipulating time stamps on related files, "in an apparent effort to obscure the dates on which they had last been modified or accessed." Tesla also alleges the pair attempted to poach at least 12 other Tesla employees, though they only successfully recruited two. "Automakers have created a get-rich-quick environment. Small teams of programmers with little more than demoware have been bought for as much as a billion dollars. Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm, was purchased by General Motors in July 2016 for nearly $1 billion. In August 2016, Uber acquired Otto, another self-driving startup that had been founded only seven months earlier, in a deal worth more than $680 million," the company said in the suit.

47 comments

  1. autopilot just got real by turkeydance · · Score: 5, Funny

    it works when the lawyers know the money is there.

  2. -100, Offtopic by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is in no way News for Nerds. It's like commenting about what coffeemaker Tesla installls in its break rooms.

    1. Re:-100, Offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I actually kinda want to know what coffeemaker these billion dollar companies use.

    2. Re:-100, Offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know, right? If they're making billions of dollars, whatever their employees are drinking has GOT to be good. Imagine what our productivity gains could be like!

    3. Re:-100, Offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool story, brah.

    4. Re:-100, Offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Most just have the $20 coffee makers from Walmart if any. The very "successful ones" have vending machines that nobody ever cleans.

  3. IFF the allegations are true by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IFF these are true, it would be nice to Tesla prevail. I fully expected Tesla to be a Tucker repeat, and it's nice to see that they stand a chance of succeeding despite numerous forces working against them.

  4. pure capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure this is just Musk winning in the market, not a guy who buys politicians using the government to destroy his competition.

  5. 100s of gigabytes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He copied Windows of their computers ? Why?

    1. Re:100s of gigabytes by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Interesting

      100's of Gigabytes ... but less than 1 Terabyte. Framing the argument to make it seem bigger.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  6. Poaching? by djinn6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since when is offering someone a higher salary a bad thing? Non-compete clauses are anti-competitive, anti-free-market, and they should be illegal, especially when you're talking about an at-will state like CA, where Tesla has 0 responsibility to keep their employees employed.

    Just goes to show how even the "good" companies think they own their workers.

    1. Re:Poaching? by sexconker · · Score: 2

      Non compete agreements were ruled illegal a few years back in CA. "Poaching" is not a crime unless you're actually killing the employees.

    2. Re:Poaching? by Imrik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't having them work for a new company, it's hiring them specifically because they were Tesla employees with inside knowledge of Tesla's software and contacts.

    3. Re:Poaching? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NO no no, that's not what happened - they poached co-workers - as in boiled them.

      I prefer baked coworkers myself, but hey, out in California....

    4. Re:Poaching? by Luthair · · Score: 1

      I'm reminded of Chris Rock - 90% of people in this room got a job because their friend recommended them.

    5. Re:Poaching? by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2

      Non-compete clauses ARE illegal in California. There's a very narrow exception that allows for non-competes to be valid for senior executives holding lots of stock in companies that are aquired. But for the rank and file? Go ahead and cut out that part of your contract and wipe your ass with it. That's all it's good for. Anti-poaching clauses are also illegal. No less than Apple and Google were recently bitchslapped over the issue fairly recently.

      Musk is not going to win here.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    6. Re:Poaching? by chispito · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just goes to show how even the "good" companies think they own their workers.

      The "poached" part in the lawsuit seems to indicate that he did the recruiting while still working for Tesla. From the lawsuit, linked in the summary

      Anderson collaborated with Urmson on their competing venture on Tesla time, using his Tesla company laptop, and on Tesla's premises.

      I suspect it's designed to strengthen the case. The theft of proprietary tech is the main allegation.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
    7. Re: Poaching? by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

      Even then only when done out of season.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    8. Re:Poaching? by AaronW · · Score: 2

      Add to that the copying and stealing a lot of intellectual property. Taking some people with him he could probably get away with due to the non-compete clause, though transferring any proprietary information would be covered by an NDA, and stealing the source code will get you in a lot of trouble.

      If they had started the new company by building their IP from scratch that would be less of an issue.

      --
      This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
    9. Re:Poaching? by AaronW · · Score: 2

      NDAs are legal, however, and copying material is clearly a huge no-no.

      --
      This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
    10. Re:Poaching? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You may think that's a "problem", but in point of fact it isn't.

      Yes, GM employees can go to work for Ford and remain engineers.

      Non-compete agreements of questionable enforcability and/or walking off with code is a different issue. As far as what you've stated, though, there is no issue, ethical or legal.

    11. Re: Poaching? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They will use the non-solicitation clause of the contract not a to-compete.

    12. Re:Poaching? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      And GM has something that Ford doesn't? In the age of cars containing 80% of subcontracted components?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    13. Re:Poaching? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They have laws to protect battered women too. But it was always a moot point for me since I like eating mine plain.

  7. Kind of amusing... by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...as Tesla is busy poaching Apple's former self-driving car staff...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Kind of amusing... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      poaching Apple's former self-driving car staff...

      If they're former staff, then by definition it's not poaching, no? Yes, I'm too lazy to read the article, but I doubt Tesla is suing over people who used to work at Tesla now being recruited to work at other companies.

  8. Musk had to lay off most of his Congressional reps by raymorris · · Score: 4, Funny

    Musk had to lay off most of his legislators, due to the economy. It's been a bad year for House reps, 13% of them have lost their jobs and become unemployed in just the last six months.

  9. Some history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As I recall in 1996 there was a criminal prosecution of a high level employee for sealing trade secrets from Borland to Symantic. Eventually the case was thrown out (it didn't pass the laugh test) and the Santa Clara prosecutor, who had a cozy relationship with Borland destroyed his career. There was an associated civil suit as well but I believe it also collapsed. Typically California courts take a dim view of attempts to stifle startups with harassment suits but of course I don't know the specific facts in this case. However, the motivation for these suits is not so much an expectation of winning but to divert the startup's investment seed money from development into legal expenses.

    1. Re: Some history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope beyond hope the 'sealing' you're referring to involves live seals.

  10. Re: Bill Clinton pardoned my friend Sterling Ander by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I graduated from high school with him. He was a hardcore Democrat and his father went to prison for them.

  11. Re:Bill Clinton pardoned my friend Sterling Anders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill_Clinton

    Clinton wouldn't have pardoned him if he was guilty so he is innocent beyond a doubt.

  12. After this scheme called AI by Provocateur · · Score: 2

    After this scheme called AI is this hustle played by the gajillionaires called autopilot. This came right after other failed schemes like "cold fusion" "time travel" "ninja blender" "3D TV" "MacBook Pro upgrade" "headphone jack" "facebook"

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    1. Re:After this scheme called AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't blame Mr Anderson amassing information for escaping the Matrix.

    2. Re:After this scheme called AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "ninja blender"

      Well this one worked - I blend ninjas at least twice a week.

  13. Car Movies by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    Remember when there were Movies about "possessed" cars that ran over people... I think things just got real here. (Will the lawyers in line have to take a number??)

  14. Re:Bill Clinton pardoned my friend Sterling Anders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Strange to see the other posts here voted down to -1. I guess people just can't stand the truth.

  15. Re:Bill Clinton pardoned my friend Sterling Anders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just love how you posted a link to a Democrat giving a pardon to apparently his father, but the mods here voted you down. This site is just so biased.

    captcha: supressed

  16. Need easy to use, file level encryption by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With a big a** revoke button.

  17. Re:Musk had to lay off most of his Congressional r by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But don't worry, Ray Morris has a minimum four year contract to suck Trump's and Bannon's dicks three time a day.

  18. Bad wording then by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    No. That is to say, the ones they have been hiring were working at Apple until they moved to Tesla.

    My apologies for the confusion.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  19. Re:Bill Clinton pardoned my friend Sterling Anders by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    I just love how you keep confusing Slashdot with Breitbart.

    No, I don't, really. KGFY.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  20. Re:Musk had to lay off most of his Congressional r by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Naa, that contract already went to you. Didn't you hear you won the bidding process?

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?