Anthony Levandowski Net Worth 2023: Life & Career

August 27, 2023 Famous Insights

Anthony Levandowski is believed to have had a net worth ranging between $50 million and $100 million.

Who is Anthony Levandowski?

Anthony Levandowski is a former engineer and entrepreneur in the field of autonomous vehicles and self-driving technology. He gained prominence for his work at Google’s self-driving car project (now known as Waymo), where he played a significant role in developing the technology.

Due to some personal reasons left Google and founded his own self-driving truck startup called Otto, which aimed to develop autonomous technology for commercial trucks. In 2016, Uber acquired Otto, and Levandowski became a key figure in Uber’s self-driving efforts.

Early Life and Education

Anthony Levandowski was born on March 15, 1980, in Brussels, Belgium. His mother was a French diplomat, and his father was an American businessman.

On March 15, 1980, Anthony Levandowski was born in Brussels, Belgium, to a French diplomat mother and an American businessman father. During his teenage years, he accompanied his family’s move to California, where he later attended the University of California, Berkeley. It was there that Levandowski earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering and operations research.

Career Beginnings

During his time at Berkeley, Levandowski embarked on a fruitful path in the tech realm. While still a freshman, he established the intranet and IT services company La Raison, which generated $50,000 in its inaugural year. As a sophomore, he crafted the BillSortBot, a Lego robot adept at sorting Monopoly money, triumphing in the Sun Microsoft robotics competition.

Subsequently, Levandowski initiated Construction Control Systems, developed the portable blueprint reader WorkTop, and collaborated with fellow Berkeley engineers to create an autonomous motorcycle dubbed “Ghost Rider,” notably entered into the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and 2005.

Started Work at Google

In 2007, Anthony Levandowski, along with computer scientist Sebastian Thrun and a team, joined Google to create the Google Street View system. To capture an extensive 620,000 miles of road, Levandowski acquired 100 Toyota Priuses, enhanced with roof-mounted mobile mapping devices from his tech startup 510 Systems.

These innovative “Topcon” boxes enabled the cars to traverse and generate 3D maps. Following this, Google tasked Levandowski to develop the PriBot, the pioneering self-driving Toyota Prius that marked the debut of autonomous vehicles on public roads. This landmark accomplishment underscored the feasibility of pursuing self-driving car technology.

By early 2009, Anthony Levandowski and Sebastian Thrun received the green light from Google to initiate their autonomous vehicle endeavor. This led to the establishment of their project, initially named Chauffeur and later rebranded as Waymo. Under Levandowski’s guidance, 510 Systems crafted an additional five self-driving Priuses for the initiative.

Following a successful self-driving car test in 2012, Levandowski continued his role as a technical leader at Waymo until early 2016. His tenure at Google also encompassed contributions to projects like Cardboard, Telepresence, Oblique Aerial Imagery, and Tiramisu.

While at Google, Anthony Levandowski accumulated a minimum of $120 million in total earnings.

Otto and Pronto

Shortly after departing from Google, Levandowski co-founded Otto, an autonomous trucking company, alongside Lior Ron, Don Burnette, and Claire Delaunay. Their team expanded as 11 former Google employees joined to retrofit large trucks with self-driving capabilities. Uber Technologies swiftly acquired Otto within five months of its inception.

Subsequently, Levandowski assumed leadership of Uber’s self-driving car division. However, his tenure ended in 2017 following revelations of his involvement in accessing Waymo’s design server prior to his departure from Google. In the following year, Uber’s autonomous trucking program was discontinued.

In 2018, Levandowski introduced Pronto, his second driverless car venture, in which he invested over $8.5 million. Initially focusing on camera-based, self-driving retrofit systems for highway semi-trucks, the company shifted its focus by 2022. It started concentrating on creating self-driving vehicles tailored for specific settings like quarries, alongside the launch of a fresh off-road autonomous division.

Anthony Levandowski Other Projects

In 2015, Levandowski started a religious group called Way of the Future, aiming to make a God using AI. He closed it in 2021. In 2022, he began Pollen Mobile, a free wireless network giving devices to people in the Bay Area, also used by his self-driving cars from Pronto.

Conviction

In 2019, Levandowski faced 33 federal charges for stealing Waymo’s trade secrets. He pleaded guilty to one charge, receiving an 18-month prison sentence, a $756,500 restitution to Waymo, and a $95,000 fine. After nearly six months, he was pardoned by the president in early 2021.

Additionally, in 2017, Levandowski became intricately embroiled in a legal dispute, famously known as Waymo v. Uber, accused of taking 9.7 GB of Waymo’s private files before leaving.
Allegedly, Uber used these files containing designs. The case ended in early 2018, with Uber paying Waymo roughly $245 million and agreeing not to use the technology.

Bankruptcy

In 2020, Levandowski was directed to pay Google $179 million after violating his employment contract by recruiting employees for his startup, Otto, leading him to declare bankruptcy. His partner and Otto co-founder Lior Ron were also involved.

In 2022, Levandowski, Google, and Uber reached a worldwide resolution, stipulating that Levandowski would owe an amount ranging from $25 to $30 million. Yet, this agreement sparked contention with the US Department of Justice and California’s Internal Revenue Service, primarily over the tax consequences for Levandowski’s estate.

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