So this person(Lewandowski) is fantastically wealthy then? Why was he still at Google then? I'm guessing he was on an earn out schedule?
Why would he need to steal if he had that kind of money already?
Not going to imply he stole, but rephrasing the question as why would someone really rich want to steal?
Greed.
It's why politicians who have enough money for several generations continue to take more and more bribes. (I live in Sri Lanka and witness this on a regular blatant basis).
Enough or more than enough isn't a reason for human nature to not want more. It actually seems to be a driver to get more by any means. (my assumption )
Maybe it wasn't about the money and he just wanted to continue working on autonomous vehicles on new terms for a different parent company, without losing all the previous work.
This is also stealing in my opinion, but it might be a little more nuanced than for pure greed.
Re:The Uber Bombshell About to Drop
by throwaway729 on Tuesday March 14, 2017 @12:07AM
(#13864910)
Greed
Sure. If this individual did actually steal these, it really demonstrates the poisonous nature of greed. I'm not sure how else to explain the failure to quantify the the risk of getting caught which seems to be sufficiently high.
yes he could, the team and him had a killer track record and he wouldn't admit to stealing anything from Waymo
"He joined Google in 2007 as part of its Maps team and helped to build the company’s Street View product. When Google gave the green light to begin working on a self-driving car in 2009, Mr. Thrun picked Mr. Levandowski for the original team.
Mr. Levandowski gained some notoriety within Google for selling start-ups, which he had done as side projects, to his employer. In his biography for a real estate firm, for which he is a board member, Mr. Levandowski said he sold three automation and robotics start-ups to Google, including 510 Systems and Anthony’s Robots, for nearly $500 million. After this story was published, the real estate firm updated its website erasing Mr. Levandowski’s biography and said that it had “erroneously reported certain facts incorrectly without Mr. Levandowski’s knowledge.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/technology/anthony-levand...
"And yet, one of Google’s most strategic acquisitions has mysteriously been actively blocked from public view. An investigation by IEEE Spectrum has uncovered the surprising fact that Google’s innovative self-driving car and the revolutionary Street View camera technology that preceded it were largely built by 510 Systems, a tiny start-up in Berkeley, Calif."
http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence/th...