[cletus]

There’s an easy way to avoid this: just don’t take any documents, source code or equipment from a former employer. That’s all you have to do. Why? Because just by having them it could taint your future work.

Not only did Levandowski not to this, he:

- bulk downloaded these files near the end of his employment;

- was deleting them in the office with Uber’s due diligence team.

He may not have benefitted. Uber may not have. But he created this cloud of uncertainty by not doing the common sense thing.

My personal theory is that he wanted insurance in case he couldn’t recreate this later if he needed it and/or he felt like this stuff belonged to him because he created it. Even though it’s clearly work product belonging to your employer people get possessive about these things.

As for the criminal part, honestly I actually think that’s what this law is for: to criminalize the plundering of commercial IP by by bad actors and competitors.