How Uber's Quest For Self-driving Tech Led To Criminal Case

A self-driving vehicle pioneer who used to work for Google has been charged with stealing secrets from the company before he joined Uber’s efforts to build robotic vehicles.

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Anthony Levandowski was charged with 33 counts of trade secrets theft in an indictment filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Jose, California. The criminal case arose out of a lawsuit that Google self-driving spinoffWaymo filed against Uber alleging technology theft.

Here’s how it wound up in the criminal courts:

HOW IT STARTED

Former Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick believed that the company could not survive without being the leader in autonomous vehicles. One of Uber’s biggest expenses is to pay drivers for ferrying passengers, and that cost could be reduced or eliminated with vehicles that drive themselves. Uber feared it would face a cost disadvantage if another company started an autonomous ride-hailing service first.

That led Uber to start recruiting Levandowski in 2015. Levandowski soon left Google to help found Otto, a self-driving truck startup. Uber bought Otto for $680 million in 2016 and got both Levandowski and Otto’s technology.