Google paid its self-driving car boss US$120 million — and then he left for Uber
Lawsuit says Anthony Levandowski may have also been involved with competitors while at Google
Embattled engineer Anthony Levandowski collected US$120 million from Google, despite involvement with at least one start-up that would ultimately compete with the company, according to new legal filings.
Levandowski was already trying to staff up his competing start-up, Otto, while he worked at Google — but he waited until he got his payout to make the details of Otto public, a lawsuit said.
Levandowski is at the nexus of a battle between what is now Alphabet’s self-driving car company, Waymo, and ride-hailing start-up Uber. Waymo alleges that Levandowski stole thousands of documents and trade secrets for Otto, which went on to be rapidly acquired by Uber. (Uber calls these claims “baseless.”)
New court documents allege that Levandowski’s conflicts of interest may have been much deeper. Not only did Levandowski try to poach Google employees, the lawsuit said, but he may have been involved in competing side businesses called Odin Wave and Tyto Lidar.
Levandowski denied having ownership interested in Odin Wave when questioned in mid-2013, the lawsuit said, and also helped Google do due diligence for a potential acquisition of Tyto — a company that Otto later acquired.
“Throughout this process, Levandowski never disclosed a relationship with Tyto and its employees,” the lawsuit said. “Google now believes that Levandowski in fact had a relationship with Tyto and its employees that conflicted with Levandowski’s duties to Google.”