Waymo vs. Uber: This Year's Biggest Tech Trial

The Trial That Will Determine The Future Of Driverless Cars

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In the era of autonomous vehicles, there are two entities that reign supreme: Google and Uber. All seemed to be running peacefully between the tech goliaths until a severe allegation had surfaced on the innovation front: after several years, a former Google employee has now been accused of stealing Google’s trade secrets and delivering them to Uber. In only a matter of time, the driverless car war between Google and Uber will be resolved in court before the end of the month in what is this year’s biggest tech pissing-contest.

The source of the fiasco between Uber and Google’s parent company Alphabet’s Waymo (the autonomous vehicle project in mind), was simply the case of an email sent to the wrong contact. An accidental click of the button by an Uber vendor concluded in Waymo opening its Gmail inbox to discover a circuit board design nearly identical to its own. The copycat blueprint is said to have been acquired by Anthony Levandowski and two other Google employees. Levandowski, a top Google engineer who also co-founded Waymo in 2009, defected to Uber with thousands of clandestine Waymo documents in hand. Too bad Levandowski wasn’t stealthy enough, because now this incident of a CC gone bad has Uber pinned up against a wall with a $1.4 billion dollar reparations payment breathing down its neck.

Now this incident of a CC gone bad has Uber pinned up against a wall with a $1.4 billion dollar reparations payment breathing down its neck.

Uber is a company that both has a prominent face in the tech industry and driverless car arena. So why then did the company go through all the trouble of stealing Waymo’s trade secrets? According to Waymo lawyers, anxiety over which tech giant would win the autonomous car race prompted Uber to resort to its last, desperate straw. Waymo’s lawyers further claimed that Travis Kalanick, Uber’s former CEO, was ready to do whatever it took to beat Google to the finish line. Uber’s lawyers, however, claim that Levandowski’s intel was never used. Additionally, Uber’s case is focused more upon denying the actions of its little informant rather than accusing Levandowski.

According to Waymo lawyers, anxiety over which tech giant would win the autonomous car race prompted Uber to resort to its last, desperate straw.

In order to understand where the heat of this case lies, let’s travel deeper into the core of this high-tech blame-game. The trade secrets that Levandowski is accused of stealing have to do with LiDAR technology, which simply put is a GPS for autonomous vehicles. After he stole the documents, in 2016, Levandowski created his own driverless truck company, Otto, which was acquired by Uber later in August of that year for $680 million. In addition to the massive pay-check, Uber crowned Levandowski as its VP of engineering. Waymo claimed that the stolen LiDAR schematics then found their way into Uber’s hands, an allegation that the company now has to disprove.

If there’s one thing to take away from this case, it’s that when money and power are on the line, especially in this era of technology, companies will do whatever it takes to maintain their influence, and obliterate their opponents. It’s only a matter of time before the verdict to this case is finalized. Whoever wins, whether it’s Google or Uber, the champion of this legal proceeding will ultimately decide the future of autonomous vehicles.