Charles Duhigg, The New Yorker; Did Uber Steal Google’s Intellectual Property?
"Levandowski, for his part, has been out of work since he was fired by
Uber. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for him, though. He’s still
extremely wealthy. He left Google with files that nearly everyone agrees
he should not have walked off with, even if there is widespread
disagreement about how much they’re worth. Levandowski seemed constantly
ready to abandon his teammates and threaten defection, often while
working on an angle to enrich himself. He is a brilliant mercenary, a
visionary opportunist, a man seemingly without loyalty. He has helped
build a technology that might transform how the world functions, and he
seems inclined to personally profit from that transformation as much as
possible. In other words, he is an exemplar of Silicon Valley ethics.
Levandowski
is upset that some people have cast him as the bad guy. “I reject the
notion that I did something unethical,” he said. “Was I trying to
compete with them? Sure.” But, he added, “I’m not a thief, and I’m not
dishonest.” Other parents sometimes shun him when he drops his kids off
at school, and he has grown tired of people taking photographs of him
when he walks through airports. But he is confident that his notoriety
will subside. Although he no longer owns the technology that he brought
to Google and Uber, plenty of valuable information remains inside his
head, and he has a lot of new ideas."
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