Waymo and Uber lawyers squared off in a federal court on Feb. 5 on the first day of a bombshell trade-secret theft case.
The suit by Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, alleges that Uber stole technology crucial to self-driving cars. Uber denies doing so.
Each side picked a scapegoat. Waymo painted Travis Kalanick, Uber’s ousted CEO, as a cheater desperate to vanquish the competition. Uber said that Anthony Levandowski — a former star Waymo engineer whom Uber hired and later fired and who is now at the center of the case — was untrustworthy and self-serving.