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Linwei “Leon” Ding is a Chinese software engineer who resided in Newark, Alameda County, California, United States. He is a former employee of Google LLC, which is based at Googleplex in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California.
While employed by Google LLC, he was allegedly secretly working to enrich himself and two companies based in China by scheming to siphon off cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology from Google while secretly trying to go into business with Chinese competitors. Here are 10 more things about him:
- In 2019, he started working as a software engineer at Google LLC.
- On May 21, 2022, he allegedly started secretly uploading trade secrets that were stored in Google’s network by copying the information into a personal Google Cloud account.
- On June 13, 2022, he received several emails from the chief executive officer of an early-stage technology company based in China, indicating he had been offered the position of chief technology officer for the company.
- From October 29, 2022 to March 25, 2023, he participated in investor meetings to raise capital for a new company while he was in China.
- By May 2, 2023, he allegedly uploaded more than 500 unique files containing confidential information from Google LLC.
- By no later than May 30, 2023, he had founded his own technology company in the AI and machine learning industry.
- On November 24, 2023, he presented his new company at an investor conference in Beijing, China.
- In December 2023, he allegedly permitted another Google employee to use his Google-issued access badge to scan into the entrance of a Google building, which made it appear he was working from his U.S. Google office while he was actually in China.
- On March 5, 2024, he was indicted.
- He was 38 years old when he was charged on March 5, 2024 with four counts of theft of trade secrets.
CONAN Daily 