The legal battle that ’ s starting between Waymo , the self - driving car spin - off of Google ’ s former “ moonshot ” unit , and ride - hailing giant Uber appears to be all about trade secrets and patents . But there is a bigger issue behind it : Silicon Valley ethics and employee loyalty . The Waymo lawsuit contends that a former employee , Anthony Levandowski , downloaded 9 . 7 gigabytes of sensitive data about the company ’ s proprietary self - driving system , in particular its main element -- the LiDAR ( Light Detection and Ranging ) system , which scans the car ’ s environment with lasers and feeds information to software that makes driving decisions . He then left Google -- after drawing his multimillion - dollar bonus -- and set up his own company , Otto . Within months , he sold it to Uber for $ 680 million , enabling Uber to catch up immediately on years of research and development . In dismissing a similar claim in court -- allegations that its Oculus Rift , the virtual reality device , was based on stolen technology -- Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said companies often “ come out of the woodwork ” to scavenge pieces of high - profile tech acquisitions . But that can ’ t be said about Waymo in the self - driving car case . Google is an Uber investor , and it would have been unlikely to sue one of its portfolio companies without thinking things through . The lawsuit appears to be based on a thorough internal investigation , and Uber says it ’ s taking the allegations seriously . But even if Google is technically right , it likely brought on its problem itself . So do other Silicon Valley giants . Talentful , the tech recruitment company , recently analyzed LinkedIn data for the employees of 15 top US tech firms , including Google , Uber , Amazon , Apple , Facebook , Twitter and Microsoft . Among them , Google emerged as the most prodigious poacher , hiring a total of 12 , 798 employees from the other firms . And that doesn ’ t even include talent acquired with the startup companies they worked for . In the Waymo lawsuit , Google describes its self - driving car project as something that was built from scratch in - house . Levandowski , however , worked on autonomous vehicles long before he came to Google and before it was even interested in the industry . In 2001 , he founded a startup called 510 systems . In 2004 , using technology he had developed , Levandowski made a self - driving motorcycle for a race sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . In 2011 , as a Google employee working on Street View -- the map feature that shows real - life views of streets and buildings -- he persuaded Google to buy 510 systems in a deal that was never publicly announced . In fact , the startup ’ s employees had signed agreements not to discuss the acquisition . The little company became the foundation of the search giant ’ s foray into mobility tech . The incentive system Google set up for employees on the autonomous car team tied their income to certain undisclosed project milestones . It ended up being so generous that , as Bloomberg recently reported , Waymo became a sizable drag on the finances of the parent company , Alphabet . Employees were getting such big payouts that they no longer need the jobs , and they began leaving : With their newfound financial independence , there was no need for them to tolerate big - company bureaucracy . The Silicon Valley ethos is not about rules and organizational structures . Outstanding engineers who generate breakthrough innovations are only guests at the big corporations , seduced into keeping still for a few years with lavish payments and nice working conditions . They don ’ t , however , develop a loyalty toward the sources of these goodies . Their primary goal is often to advance their technological ideas -- something that is hard to square with big company culture , even if the company is Google , with its deep insight into the techie psyche . So how does one keep talent from migrating away and valuable innovations leaking to competitors ? One way is to become more litigious . A 2014 paper by Martin Gango of the University of Minnesota and two collaborators shows that the more a tech employer is inclined to defend its intellectual property in court , the less likely employees working on high - value projects are to go to the competition . “ By establishing reputations for intellectual property enforcement , managers can retain key knowledge workers , ” the researchers wrote . Google appears to be doing just that with the Waymo vs . Uber case . Though such litigation is expensive and outcomes are far from assured , few engineers want to find themselves on the receiving end of big corporation fury . But there ’ s a flip side : If Google establishes a reputation for going after former employees , it will have a harder time attracting major talent and buying further promising startups . If it wants to grow more of its talent in - house , that ’ s a trade - off worth making . But if poaching continues to be the preferred mode of operation , the litigiousness may cost Google more than one future breakthrough . By Leonid BershidskyLeonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist . – Ed . ( Bloomberg ) [ 코리아 헤럴드 ] [ K - POP HERALD ] [ 페이스북 ] <ⓒ KoreaHerald ( www . koreaherald . com ) 무단 전재 및 재 배포 금지 >