Waymo vs Uber: Kalanick is subdued amid allegations of stealing trade secrets
San Francisco — Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is expected to testify at trial for a second day on Wednesday, responding to rival Waymo’s allegations that Uber expressly hired a star Waymo engineer to gain self-driving car technology trade secrets. The normally combative Kalanick, who was pushed out of the top post at ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies in June, was subdued on the witness stand in San Francisco federal court on Tuesday in his first public comments on allegations in a lawsuit filed by Waymo a year ago. In the lawsuit Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit, said engineer Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 confidential documents in December 2015 before Kalanick hired him at Uber in 2016. Levandowski is not a defendant in the case. Waymo has estimated damages in the case to be about $1.9bn, which Uber rejects. The jury will have to decide whether the documents were, indeed, trade secrets and not common knowledge, and whether Uber improperly acquired them,...
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