Uber sacks self-driving car guru Levandowski
Star engineer was at center of lawsuit brought by Waymo
Anthony Levandowski, the star engineer who once led Uber’s ambitious selfdriving project and a central figure in its contentious legal battle with Google’s Waymo unit over trade secrets, has been fired.
Uber spokesperson Chelsea Kohler confirmed to USA TODAY Tuesday the ride-hailing company had severed its ties with Levandowski effective immediately.
The New York Times first reported on the firing. Miles Ehrlich, the attorney representing Levan- dowski in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.
Eric Meyhofer, who took charge of Uber’s self-driving car effort in April, will continue to lead the program with Levandowski’s employees reporting to him.
The news is not wholly unan- ticipated after Levandowski refused to turn over documents in the case and, most recently, was ordered by a judge to be removed from any internal projects related to the sensor technology at the heart of the dispute. But the firing represents a huge fall from grace for a man who helped Google with its pioneering autonomous car tech and rocketed to fame and riches in 2016 after founding selfdriving truck company Otto, which Uber bought last summer for an estimated $680 million.
In its lawsuit, Waymo, the autonomous unit spun out of Google late last year, claims Levandowski stole 14,000 files related to Google’s proprietary LiDAR (light detection and ranging radar) just before launching Otto.
Uber has denied the accusations, claiming its LiDAR tech was created without the assis-
tance of any pilfered files. It also contended the issue really was between Waymo and its former employee, and not Levandowski’s new employer Uber.
As the case began to unfold, it quickly became clear Levandowski was not eager to divulge the information being requested of him by Waymo’s attorneys. When Levandowski was ordered by a federal judge to fork over evidence and testimony, his lawyers invoked the Fifth Amendment on his behalf in March to avoid possible criminal charges.
Shortly after that, Levandowski sent an email to fellow Uber employees requesting he not be included in any meetings or memos related to Uber’s LiDAR technology. Last month, Judge William Alsup made that official when he ordered Levandowski to be officially removed from anything related to LiDAR.
Google has been at this research the longest, around eight years, while Uber rushed headlong into a quest for a robotic car in the past few years, hiring experts by the dozen and testing a self-driving ride-hailing car in Pittsburgh last summer.
Google’s renamed self-driving unit, Waymo, recently met the challenge to commercialize its business in both a partnership agreement with Uber’s rival Lyft, as well as in a consumer-testing program in the Phoenix area that will put to use some 600 selfdriving Chrysler Pacifica minivans packed with Waymo tech.
Levandowski’s dismissal comes at a stormy time for Uber. A former engineer’s accusations of a sexist and cutthroat work environment led to an internal investigation whose findings are to be released next week. Uber’s newly appointed head of human resources, Liane Hornsey, recently told USA TODAY a broad “listening tour” of employees did not turn up issues of sexual harassment. Instead, she says the biggest issues are morale and pay.
Also, federal investigators have begun looking into the legality of Uber’s Greyball program, which had been used to dupe regulators. And the court battle with Waymo could take a more serious turn after Alsup recommended Justice officials look into the case for possible criminal charges.
Last week, co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick received news his mother was killed in a boating accident that left his father in serious condition.