Uber Fires Former Google Engineer at Heart of Self-Driving Dispute -<br />By MIKE ISAACMAY 30, 2017<br />SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, a vice president of technology<br />and the star engineer leading the company’s self-driving automobile efforts, according to an internal email sent to employees on Tuesday.<br />Waymo claims that Uber is using trade secrets stolen from Google to develop Uber’s self-driving<br />vehicles, a plan aided by Mr. Levandowski, a former longtime Google employee.<br />“Over the last few months Uber has provided significant evidence to the court to demonstrate<br />that our self-driving technology has been built independently,” Angela Padilla, Uber’s associate general counsel for employment and litigation, wrote in an email to employees.<br />Mr. Levandowski’s termination, effective immediately, comes as a result of his involvement in a legal battle between Uber<br />and Waymo, the self-driving technology unit spun out of Google last year.
