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Alphabet Says Uber Knew About Stolen Self-Driving Car Files (cnet.com)
In a Wednesday filing with a California court, Alphabet said a former self-driving executive Anthony Levandowski hatched a plan with Uber to steal more than 14,000 proprietary documents, including designs for the sensors that help the car see its surroundings. CNET reports: Alphabet says Uber's former CEO, Travis Kalanick, knew about the files but told Levandowski to destroy them. Uber has argued that it did not encourage or condone Levandowski taking any files from Waymo or bringing them to Uber, and has noted that his employment agreement affirmed he wouldn't do that. The litigation between Alphabet and Uber has been reported as a primary reason Kalanick was forced to resign as Uber's CEO Tuesday.
The funny thing is how big Uber is. 550 employees in 2014. 14,000 in 2017? I mean, who are these people and what do they do besides collect VC-funded paychecks? Sure there's folks developing the service and keeping it running, and more folks developing phone apps, and more folks to work with and around regulators, and now there's a self-driving-vehicles group but we hear it's really hard to find people who do that sort of work and they're in demand over at Tesla and Apple and Waymo too, as well as at some traditional vehicle manufacturers. The drivers aren't in that count (it's full-time staff), and the dispatch is done by the machines, so what is all the headcount for? Social networking community managers? Staffing the cafeteria and gym?