The Stakes in the Waymo v. Uber Saga
May 31, 2017 6:15 PM Subscribe
"Then, Waymo was accidentally CC’d on an email meant for Uber"
Highlights include:
"It is an extremely lit time to be a trade secret lawyer."
"I’m still annoyed that I have to call Google “Alphabet” now. It’s an unnecessary rebrand, and I don’t respect it, so let’s skip ahead to the implications for its self-driving car company."
"Travis Kalanick is probably not going to wind up in prison because of this whole mess, but it will likely cement his reputation, which is already not great."
Highlights include:
"It is an extremely lit time to be a trade secret lawyer."
"I’m still annoyed that I have to call Google “Alphabet” now. It’s an unnecessary rebrand, and I don’t respect it, so let’s skip ahead to the implications for its self-driving car company."
"Travis Kalanick is probably not going to wind up in prison because of this whole mess, but it will likely cement his reputation, which is already not great."
"""accidentally"""
posted by Slackermagee at 6:47 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Slackermagee at 6:47 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
A more interesting story would have been, what scam is Uber running with their focus on self-driving cars and when will Kalanick be ejected into space?
Pretty simple. Robot cars don't complain about not making enough money and cut into the bottom line. Plus, they don't need ill-timed surge pricing food and bathroom breaks.
posted by Samizdata at 6:56 PM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Pretty simple. Robot cars don't complain about not making enough money and cut into the bottom line. Plus, they don't need ill-timed surge pricing food and bathroom breaks.
posted by Samizdata at 6:56 PM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Wow. THAT led me down a rabbit hole and a half, including an article on bathroom breaks and gig drivers.
posted by Samizdata at 7:01 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Samizdata at 7:01 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
What this case could change is which company sends robo-chauffeurs to our houses, and how quickly driverless technology goes mainstream. Either way, this case is a win for ordinary people, because we get to sit here and watch the drama unfold.
Unless you are an ordinary person who is a truck driver, in which case, ha ha, you are so screwed. Have you looked into coal mining? I hear that's coming back.
posted by maryr at 7:07 PM on May 31, 2017 [12 favorites]
Unless you are an ordinary person who is a truck driver, in which case, ha ha, you are so screwed. Have you looked into coal mining? I hear that's coming back.
posted by maryr at 7:07 PM on May 31, 2017 [12 favorites]
Aside from Lewandowski looking shady as hell in all of this, another reason to root for Waymo winning this is that Waymo's approach to bringing self-driving tech to market is way (mo') different from Uber's. Uber wants this tech deployed yesterday. Waymo wants it done right. So (aside from truck drivers keeping their jobs for slightly longer) if Waymo isn't pressured by external forces to bring this to market prematurely there will be fewer accidents while they iron it out.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:17 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:17 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
When Levandowski (the former Google head of Waymo, that left only to promptly sell his *new* company to Uber) decided to plead the 5th rather than hand over documents (documents, I might add, for which it is highly probable that they show that he did deliberately and knowingly exfiltrate Google proprietary data), I think quite a few people quickly clued in to the direction this whole matter was heading. When Uber was forced to fire him to reduce their exposure (and in fact used the threat of firing in order to attempt to get him to cooperate with the court) it only added to the certainty felt over this.
posted by mystyk at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2017
posted by mystyk at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2017
Pretty simple. Robot cars don't complain about not making enough money and cut into the bottom line. Plus, they don't need ill-timed surge pricing food and bathroom breaks.
That's not the scam. The scam is getting investor money for a product (robot cars) that will never make it to an actual customer.
posted by dilaudid at 7:21 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
That's not the scam. The scam is getting investor money for a product (robot cars) that will never make it to an actual customer.
posted by dilaudid at 7:21 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
I don't know anyone here but in the early days Google benefitted from a lot of cross-pollination in its employees bouncing to and from competing and like-minded engineering-driven companies.
posted by zippy at 7:29 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by zippy at 7:29 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Uber is a clusterfuck of a company, and I say this looking purely from the outside. Their plan for self-driving cars is absurdly ill-conceived from any business standpoint: Their current business model is that they are a capital light company that basically engages in regulatory arbitrage under the guise of service provision, with the additional innovation of passing on costs to the drivers that cab companies can't. But they don't even understand that business model; they seem to be under the delusion that ride-sharing has network effects akin to Facebook or Google, which it... doesn't. There's basically no barrier to entry. As soon as VC money dries up they are screwed --- because that's actually their competitive advantage right now, they have first mover access to VC and can use it to subsidize rides --- buying market share. But again, if there's no barrier to entry, that market share has no particular reason to stay bought.
Switching from that to a capital-heavy (now instead of renting a few dozen server racks you own tens or hundreds of thousands of cars), highly regulated (because they are going to directly own those vehicles) business model, with little room to pass through costs to employees, and a customer base that has become accustomed to subsidized fares is not likely to end well.
(I'm not exactly going to be crying any tears for them)
posted by PMdixon at 7:35 PM on May 31, 2017 [34 favorites]
Switching from that to a capital-heavy (now instead of renting a few dozen server racks you own tens or hundreds of thousands of cars), highly regulated (because they are going to directly own those vehicles) business model, with little room to pass through costs to employees, and a customer base that has become accustomed to subsidized fares is not likely to end well.
(I'm not exactly going to be crying any tears for them)
posted by PMdixon at 7:35 PM on May 31, 2017 [34 favorites]
In other uber news, they lost $708 million dollars in the first quarter of this year.
posted by ghharr at 8:19 PM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by ghharr at 8:19 PM on May 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
PMdixon, I strongly doubt Uber plans to own the fleet. They plan to become the Airbnb of self driving cars, allowing you the car owner to rent out your self driving car to people who want to use it to get them around while you're at work or whatever. They're hoping they can make this happen before anyone gets it together to regulate it (safe bet) and get the car owners addicted to the extra income stream so they'll have a population of upper middle class fancy car owners to do their lobbying for them.
If they own the self-driving tech and figure out a way to restrict car owners to only use it with Uber, and they beat every one of their competitors to market, I think they'll be sitting pretty. But at this point they're in a race against the clock, and every month they aren't able to go to market with this is a month that their money and public goodwill is drying up.
posted by potrzebie at 8:26 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
If they own the self-driving tech and figure out a way to restrict car owners to only use it with Uber, and they beat every one of their competitors to market, I think they'll be sitting pretty. But at this point they're in a race against the clock, and every month they aren't able to go to market with this is a month that their money and public goodwill is drying up.
posted by potrzebie at 8:26 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Well, if that's true, that has a very different set of problems that boil down to: who's going to pay for the cleaners? We're talking on the order of single hours between third-party use and owner use. That's a lot more friction than AirBnB. (And in fact, as I understand it, most of the action there has gone towards full-time micro-hoteliers --- so again more revenue attributable to regulatory arbitrage than 'unlocking unused capacity.' I could be misinformed on this point.)
posted by PMdixon at 8:42 PM on May 31, 2017
posted by PMdixon at 8:42 PM on May 31, 2017
That's not the scam. The scam is getting investor money for a product (robot cars) that will never make it to an actual customer.
I visited a city where Uber is testing self-driving cars. Saw quite a lot of them around, saw people using them (as passengers), didn't see any accidents. They're basically driverless cars, and if their laser contraption (on the top of the car) were completely concealed, it would be pretty difficult to distinguish them from ordinary cars. They follow the traffic rules and they seem like most other cars on the road (except maybe more well-behaved?) - just a bit spooky because they have no driver. Didn't dare to try riding in one, but some friends had and said it was a pretty okay experience (if you could get past the ghostly lack of human driver).
I think this will actually be a viable mass market product eventually, in years to come. Uber already has these cars in 3 states.
posted by aielen at 9:26 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I visited a city where Uber is testing self-driving cars. Saw quite a lot of them around, saw people using them (as passengers), didn't see any accidents. They're basically driverless cars, and if their laser contraption (on the top of the car) were completely concealed, it would be pretty difficult to distinguish them from ordinary cars. They follow the traffic rules and they seem like most other cars on the road (except maybe more well-behaved?) - just a bit spooky because they have no driver. Didn't dare to try riding in one, but some friends had and said it was a pretty okay experience (if you could get past the ghostly lack of human driver).
I think this will actually be a viable mass market product eventually, in years to come. Uber already has these cars in 3 states.
posted by aielen at 9:26 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Related: Uber, But for Meltdowns: Sexual harassment, corporate-espionage charges, taking advantage of drivers: The company that practically courts bad PR is in an existential crisis.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:29 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by tonycpsu at 9:29 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I visited a city where Uber is testing self-driving cars. Saw quite a lot of them around, saw people using them (as passengers), didn't see any accidents. They're basically driverless cars, and if their laser contraption (on the top of the car) were completely concealed, it would be pretty difficult to distinguish them from ordinary cars. They follow the traffic rules and they seem like most other cars on the road (except maybe more well-behaved?) - just a bit spooky because they have no driver. Didn't dare to try riding in one, but some friends had and said it was a pretty okay experience (if you could get past the ghostly lack of human driver).
Time will tell. But my understanding is that these demonstrations are more like parlor tricks- driving on well-maintained, mapped roads in clear weather, with a human operator that can take control at any moment if necessary.
posted by dilaudid at 9:41 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
Time will tell. But my understanding is that these demonstrations are more like parlor tricks- driving on well-maintained, mapped roads in clear weather, with a human operator that can take control at any moment if necessary.
posted by dilaudid at 9:41 PM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
That's not the scam. The scam is getting investor money for a product (robot cars) that will never make it to an actual customer.
Absolutely disagree with this claim. Things are in open road testing right now.
posted by jaduncan at 12:10 AM on June 1, 2017
Absolutely disagree with this claim. Things are in open road testing right now.
posted by jaduncan at 12:10 AM on June 1, 2017
They're in open road testing the same way the military is testing anti-ballistic missiles.
posted by Justinian at 1:37 AM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 1:37 AM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]
By the way, the words you're looking for are "Oh, Good Grief".
posted by Molesome at 2:51 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Molesome at 2:51 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
> """accidentally"""
According to TechCrunch: "In December 2016, a supplier called Gorilla Circuits mistakenly copied Waymo on an email intended for Uber engineers that contained a drawing of a circuit board..."
Vendors in many industries have to either agree to noncompetes or provide assurance that staff working on accounts from competing clients are isolated from each other. So accidentally copying one client on email with another client's proprietary information can easily lead to the cancellation of both contracts and burn their reputation among other clients and prospects, even when the situation is not as high-profile as this. Prime real estate in Mountain View isn't as precious as key intellectual property, and the major players fire you if you are reckless with theirs.
So even if you believe there was some kind of fifth-dimensional chess game going on in which Google has industrial spies working at various contract companies to spy on their competitors' activities and that their agent at Gorilla Circuits on Google's behalf exposed Levandowsky, that industrial spy still fucked up in a massive way - exposing themselves and harming the vendor - by CC'ing that email.
posted by at by at 3:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
According to TechCrunch: "In December 2016, a supplier called Gorilla Circuits mistakenly copied Waymo on an email intended for Uber engineers that contained a drawing of a circuit board..."
Vendors in many industries have to either agree to noncompetes or provide assurance that staff working on accounts from competing clients are isolated from each other. So accidentally copying one client on email with another client's proprietary information can easily lead to the cancellation of both contracts and burn their reputation among other clients and prospects, even when the situation is not as high-profile as this. Prime real estate in Mountain View isn't as precious as key intellectual property, and the major players fire you if you are reckless with theirs.
So even if you believe there was some kind of fifth-dimensional chess game going on in which Google has industrial spies working at various contract companies to spy on their competitors' activities and that their agent at Gorilla Circuits on Google's behalf exposed Levandowsky, that industrial spy still fucked up in a massive way - exposing themselves and harming the vendor - by CC'ing that email.
posted by at by at 3:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I live in Pittsburgh, so I easily see a dozen uber cars a day driving around. They are not driving themselves the vast, vast majority of the time. The areas they can self-drive are limited to a couple pre-set routes. The rest of the time, they are being driven like any other car. I think mainly they are just exhaustively recording data as they are being driven around by a human. I've noticed that the places you see them are expanding, as if they are expanding their maps outward (I live about 2 miles from the uber depot, and saw a car on my own street for the first time a couple weeks ago--it was clearly being driven by the driver).
Anyway, carry on. Just wanted to clear up what stage this project is at right now.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Anyway, carry on. Just wanted to clear up what stage this project is at right now.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've driven behind the Google self-driving cars in Austin. I'm pretty sure I've seen them in self-driving mode. Why? They behave noticeably differently to the other cars, so they're either self-driving or Google has a knack for selecting particularly bizarre drivers. You have to increase your following distance because they don't maintain speed and brake randomly. It feels very much like they're doing a poor job of discriminating between how one drives "normally" vs in traffic, so you get the self-driving car driving down 51st Street like it's rush hour, but it's Saturday afternoon.
posted by hoyland at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by hoyland at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, the ones here act like any other car. And you can see the drivers' hands on the steering wheel. (Pittsburgh has bizarre roads, so I think we'd all notice pretty quick if robots were suddenly tasked with driving on them. Humans can't even do it most of the time.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:29 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:29 AM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Unless you are an ordinary person who is a truck driver, in which case, ha ha, you are so screwed. Have you looked into coal mining? I hear that's coming back.
A long haul truck driver perhaps. There is no chance of robots being able to replace human drivers in a city unless we are willing to rebuild all the alleys, loading docks and parking situations to accommodate them (which I suppose might happen - hell we declared huge portions of the city off limit to carless humans under penalty of death)
posted by srboisvert at 5:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
A long haul truck driver perhaps. There is no chance of robots being able to replace human drivers in a city unless we are willing to rebuild all the alleys, loading docks and parking situations to accommodate them (which I suppose might happen - hell we declared huge portions of the city off limit to carless humans under penalty of death)
posted by srboisvert at 5:44 AM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
The smaller delivery trucks will probably take longer than other segments as the driver duties include a range of unloading to actual shelf stocking and inventory. But the narrow alleys will be handled by the algorithms and high accuracy of LIDAR sensors.
Every auto manufacturer and large parts supplier are actively investing in the technology as if their very existence depends on competing in the new robotic market. Having a variety of aggressive (Uber) through conservative (google/waymo) approaches will move the adoption forward. Show me any company/industry that can resist (or survive) a change that cuts costs more than half? The robot car revolution will roll out faster than smart phones.
posted by sammyo at 6:39 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Every auto manufacturer and large parts supplier are actively investing in the technology as if their very existence depends on competing in the new robotic market. Having a variety of aggressive (Uber) through conservative (google/waymo) approaches will move the adoption forward. Show me any company/industry that can resist (or survive) a change that cuts costs more than half? The robot car revolution will roll out faster than smart phones.
posted by sammyo at 6:39 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Unless you are an ordinary person who is a truck driver, in which case, ha ha, you are so screwed
Knibbs points out that For people who work in any transit or transit-related industry, from driving to logistics to construction to policy-making, the rise of driverless cars is one of those rare Silicon Valley innovations that will actually disrupt how things are done.
Her point about the effect on individuals was specifically about the effect the lawsuit, not the effect of driverless vehicles.
posted by layceepee at 6:44 AM on June 1, 2017
Knibbs points out that For people who work in any transit or transit-related industry, from driving to logistics to construction to policy-making, the rise of driverless cars is one of those rare Silicon Valley innovations that will actually disrupt how things are done.
Her point about the effect on individuals was specifically about the effect the lawsuit, not the effect of driverless vehicles.
posted by layceepee at 6:44 AM on June 1, 2017
Worth noting that for the self driving cars I've been in, the driver keeps their hands hovering around the wheel at all times, letting it slip back and forth automatically through their fingers, ready to grab it whenever the car inevitably does something funny. So it might look like their hands are on the wheel even if it's in self driving mode.
posted by rlio at 1:43 PM on June 1, 2017
posted by rlio at 1:43 PM on June 1, 2017
You know, this is a technology that I was really skeptical when I heard about it, but it makes more and more sense. Driving is basically Newtonian physics. What have computers always been super good at? Newtonian physics. Makes even more sense for long haul trucks: No more drivers skirting rules about how many hours they are allowed to drive straight for, and heck, highway driving is probably pretty easy compared to cities, so you could have someone take over before it heads into town.
That said, I think laws are going to have to be passed to hold people working on these projects to the same standards as structural or chemical engineers, ie criminal liability and certification to the P. Eng. level. Car drives into crowd? Bad. Truck carrying say, liquid oxygen drives off a bridge? Yeah. I'd really like that code to be held to say, nuclear standards rather then what software people normally get away with.
posted by Canageek at 5:34 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
That said, I think laws are going to have to be passed to hold people working on these projects to the same standards as structural or chemical engineers, ie criminal liability and certification to the P. Eng. level. Car drives into crowd? Bad. Truck carrying say, liquid oxygen drives off a bridge? Yeah. I'd really like that code to be held to say, nuclear standards rather then what software people normally get away with.
posted by Canageek at 5:34 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've gone the other way. Super enthused and optimistic at the beginning, to "darnit, I fell for the optimistic press reports and I know the press is bad at swallowing technology and science hype." (@Canageek, I'd say driving is Newtonian physics the same way horses are spherical things that run in perfect vacuums. ;) ) I'm not following this closely anymore so I'm happy to check back in 10 or 20 years and see if my gut is correct.
Incidentally I think there will be a lot of shifting definitions of success as these massive investments hype whatever they've accomplished, and there are some levels of autonomy getting deployed (indeed, already deployed). But actual driverless cars--as in I can get my car and can nap in the back seat while it takes me to work--I don't expect even in 20 years.
posted by mark k at 9:22 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Incidentally I think there will be a lot of shifting definitions of success as these massive investments hype whatever they've accomplished, and there are some levels of autonomy getting deployed (indeed, already deployed). But actual driverless cars--as in I can get my car and can nap in the back seat while it takes me to work--I don't expect even in 20 years.
posted by mark k at 9:22 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
Driving is basically Newtonian physics
No, driving is basically the accuracy of the distinction between obstacles and scenery.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 PM on June 2, 2017
No, driving is basically the accuracy of the distinction between obstacles and scenery.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 PM on June 2, 2017
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