Silicon Valley’s New Religion Is About As Serious As You’d Think

It’s almost decision time in the corporate comedy of errors between Uber and Google’s parent company, Alphabet. For 10 months, they’ve repeatedly embarrassed each other in a fight over self-driving car technology. Alphabet says that a key former engineer, Anthony Levandowski, took trade secrets from Alphabet to Uber as part of a $700 million acquisition. The dispute finally goes to trial next month, after a year’s worth of embarrassments that included a secret shredding session, a tour de force of “I don’t recalls” by Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Larry Page, and an entrepreneurial bromance that helped cost Uber CEO Travis Kalanick his job.

For now, the weirdness continues. Last week, Levandowski emerged from seclusion to announce he had decided to start a new religion. He’s appointed himself “dean” of a new order, Way of the Future, which is dedicated to “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence developed through computer hardware and software,” according to IRS filings discovered by Wired.