Driverless guru goes to jail

Anthony Levandowski, the driverless car guru who left Waymo to join Uber, has been sentenced to 18 months for downloading 14,000 files from a Google computer before he left the company.

Levandowski was ordered to pay Google $756,499 in restitution, was fined $95,000 and was ordered to give a talk to 200 people when he comes out of jail entitled : “Why I Went to Federal Prison.”

In 2009, Levandowski was a founding member of Google’s “Project Chauffeur,” which eventually became Waymo. In January 2016 he left Waymo to found a driverless truck startup called Otto.

A few months later, Uber bought Otto for $680 million and put Levandowski in charge of its self-driving unit.

Waymo’s subsequent action against Uber for Levandowski’s misappropriation of its files was settled in February 2018 with Uber paying $245 million to Waymo. Uber then fired Levandowski.

Levandowski then founded self-driving truck startup, Pronto, but resigned as CEO when he was charged with criminal offences.

In March he filed for bankruptcy.

“Today marks the end of three and a half long years and the beginning of another long road ahead,” said Levandowski after being sentenced.