[fstuff]

It's weird walking away from 120 million but I think I might get what he was thinking. He was probably over confident with the tech, and thought it was close to roll out. He was also probably thinking the tech was worth billions. I bet Anthony felt he built the tech himself and he owned it. He probably wanted and felt like he deserved a bigger piece of the multi billon dollar self driving pie than just 120 million.

[jaxbot]

If you read through Autonomy by Lawrence Burns, the author states that Levandowski felt the project was losing focus & getting too bloated, and wanted to disrupt it with a Team Macintosh style parallel project that he would head.

It could've just been part of the big ego'd power struggle that occurred on the project and saw the exit of many early stage employees, but I also wonder if he had a point, looking back today at the stages the project went through. It's hard not to feel like they thought they were close to launch, only to hit some roadblocks and need to rebuild major chunks of it. Speculation. But they're a huge company with a product that is at risk of getting usurped at this point.

[Ascetik]

Imagine not being satisfied with 120 million dollars. Unreal to think about, but greed is never satisfied.

[TheOtherHobbes]

You can't even buy your own wide-body private jet or ultra-yacht with 120 million dollars.

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-luxurious-private-jets-...

https://www.beautifullife.info/automotive-design/worlds-top-...

If you're aiming for the billionaire narcissist bracket - because of course it's the lifestyle you deserve - 120 million is chump change.

[rongenre]

If he thought it was close to roll-out and worth billions, he's more a lucky manager than an actual engineer. Which makes his criminality far more understandable.

[true_tuna]

I have no love for the guy, but by all accounts he invented a lot of the core tech he stole.

[SonOfKyuss]

Much of the vision may have been his, but what he is accused of stealing is the work of 100s (1000s?) of engineers who worked to make those ideas a reality.

[mrep]

I just checked my 100 person orgs code base and we have 5000 files so him stealing 14000 files was almost certainly written by hundreds of engineers.

[untog]

As the OP said... "This is the hubris part"