Anthony Levandowski was indicted after all, and now his startup may be in trouble

Photo: ANGELO MERENDINO/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this week, the bumbling bad boy of the self-driving car industry, Anthony Levandowski, was charged with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from his former employer, Google.

Back up a second — what happened?

Here’s a timeline of how A-Lev got here. He: 

1. Developed automated vehicles at Google’s Waymo (2008-2016)
2. Left to start his own AV company, Otto (2016)
3. Joined Uber when it acquired Otto for $600m (2016) 
4. Got sued by Waymo, accused of stealing trade secrets (2017)
5. Was cleared of civil charges when Google settled with Uber (2018)
6. Launched a new AV company, Pronto.ai (2018)
7. Was arrested again on criminal charges (2019, this week)

So, now what?

Pronto.ai, which is less than 2 years old, wrote in a statement that Levandowski’s charges had to do only with lidar, and not with Pronto.ai’s technology — which, it insists, is far newer and more groundbreaking. 

But, if Levandowski is convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and $250k per charge — and without Levandowski at the wheel, the company could end its drive early.