Waymo gets to the heart of its case

Attorneys for Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous vehicle spinout, are nearing the end of their plaintiffs presentation against Uber in a trial that is likely to have broad ramifications for the common Valley practice of acqui-hiring talent. The case hinges on whether the jury believes Uber's assertion that the technology used in its autonomous car project was developed and acquired independently, in spite of the fact that the company almost assuredly received data on the same technology from Alphabet's servers as part of Uber's acquisition of Anthony Levandowski's company Otto. The first was the scope of the due diligence that Uber conducted during its negotiations with Otto. The second was whether the documents that Levandowski brought with him from Google were sufficiently vital in the development of Uber's autonomous car project to merit damages. Arguments ranged from the banal to the bizarre with a good portion of the proceedings taken up by a fairly lengthy explanation of Google's security measures (quite extensive as one would assume).