Google mother company Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) once had a familial relationship with on-demand transportation titan Uber Technologies, according to the tech unicorn’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick.
In asseveration at the trade secrets trial between Uber and Google-owned Waymo, Kalanick withdrawals the initial relationship “like big brother and little brother”—that is, until Uber got into ride-sharing. Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car line, which was spun out from Google in 2016, is dueling it out in court with its Silicon Valley show this week in San Francisco. (See also: Early Ex-Employees Challenge Google, Facebook.)
In 2013, broad search giant Google led an investment in Kalanick’s then-four-year-old startup. In the trouble, which kicked off on Monday, Google’s Waymo is making its case that recent Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski stole confidential files ahead of leaving the company to found a self-driving startup that was bought by Uber in 2016. The exploration into the alledged trade-secret theft began in late 2016, when Waymo accidently let in an email from a supplier containing an attachment detailing Uber’s LiDAR round board, which it claims was built off its own model.
Soured Relationships
The authentic tension between the two “brothers” was intensifying before the email, however, according to Uber’s CEO. Right after Uber hired a team from Carnegie Mellon University to put through on self-driving cars, Kalanick suggested there was a phone call in which Google co-founder and CEO Larry Leaf accused him of taking the company’s people and IP. Kalanick, who was ousted from Uber in June after a series of black marks, quickly started to frustrate his “mentees” at Google who had been working on self-driving autos since 2009.
Waymo estimates the damages on the case at approximately $1.9 billion. A jury discretion ultimately decide whether the 14,000 documents Levandowski downloaded beforehand leaving Waymo in 2015 were trade secrets and not common instruction and whether Uber improperly acquired them, used them and furthered from them.
The decision will help define the young and blast autonomous vehicle space where competition runs rampant in the midst tech giants, traditional automakers and a wave of new niche startups. It also releases light to the personal nature of the particular lawsuit, in which Google’s $258 million bet on a slight startup turned sour, helping create one of its most powerful compare withs in a key industry. (See also: Amazon Inching Ahead in Competition With Alphabet.)