Uber and Waymo have kicked off their trial over trade secrets.
Here’s what you should know about the trial, which started Monday in the 19th floor of a San Francisco courthouse:
- Waymo claims that Uber stole one of the company’s top engineers along with eight trade secrets from the company.
- The lawsuit was originally filed in February 2017 as Waymo sued Uber over a former engineer who took 14,000 files with him over to Uber.
- Charles Verhoeven, Waymo’s top lawyer, said, “he made a decision to cheat. Because for him, winning at all costs, no matter what, was his culture and was what he was going to do,” in regards to former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.
- The former worker is Anthony Levandowski and he went on to found a company that Uber bought soon thereafter.
- Levandowski has refused to comply with his employer’ demands during this case, resulting in him getting fired.
- Uber says that the company has not benefited in any way from Levandowski’s actions.
- Verhoeven said Uber’s behavior was like a cheat code in a video game, which is a phrase he didn’t know until recently.
- The outcome of the lawsuit will help to determine which company ends up ahead in the race for the autonomous driving vehicle space, which companies such as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG,NASDAQ:GOOGL) had been at the forefront of until Uber’s alleged foul play came to light.
