Meta’s former exec allegedly shared data center secrets with a shadowy startup.
A recently unsealed court filing has revealed that Meta has sued a former senior employee for “brazenly disloyal and dishonest conduct” while leaving Meta for an AI data startup called Omniva that The Information has described as “mysterious.”
According to Meta, its former vice president of infrastructure, Dipinder Singh Khurana (also known as T.S.), allegedly used his access to “confidential, non-public, and highly sensitive” information to steal more than 100 internal documents in a rushed scheme to poach Meta employees and borrow Meta’s business plans to speed up Omniva’s negotiations with key Meta suppliers.
Meta believes that Omniva—which Data Center Dynamics (DCD) reported recently “pivoted from crypto to AI cloud”—is “seeking to provide AI cloud computing services at scale, including by designing and constructing data centers.” But it was held back by a “lack of data center expertise at the top,” DCD reported.
The Information reported that Omniva began hiring Meta employees to fill the gaps in this expertise, including wooing Khurana away from Meta.
Last year, Khurana notified Meta that he was leaving on May 15, and that’s when Meta first observed Khurana’s allegedly “utter disregard for his contractual and legal obligations to Meta—including his confidentiality obligations to Meta set forth in the Confidential Information and Invention Assignment Agreement that Khurana signed when joining Meta.”
A Meta investigation found that during Khurana’s last two weeks at the company, he allegedly uploaded confidential Meta documents—including “information about Meta’s ‘Top Talent,’ performance information for hundreds of Meta employees, and detailed employee compensation information”—on Meta’s network to a Dropbox folder labeled with his new employer’s name.
“Khurana also uploaded several of Meta’s proprietary, highly sensitive, confidential, and non-public contracts with business partners who supply Meta with crucial components for its data centers,” Meta alleged. “And other documents followed.”Advertisement
In addition to pulling documents, Khurana also allegedly sent “urgent” requests to subordinates for confidential information on a key supplier, including Meta’s pricing agreement “for certain computing hardware.”
“Unaware of Khurana’s plans, the employee provided Khurana with, among other things, Meta’s pricing-form agreement with that supplier for the computing hardware and the supplier’s Meta-specific preliminary pricing for a particular chip,” Meta alleged.
Some of these documents were “expressly marked confidential,” Meta alleged. Those include a three-year business plan and PowerPoints regarding “Meta’s future ‘roadmap’ with a key supplier” and “Meta’s 2022 redesign of its global-supply-chain group” that Meta alleged “would directly aid Khurana in building his own efficient and effective supply-chain organization” and afford a path for Omniva to bypass “years of investment.” Khurana also allegedly “uploaded a PowerPoint discussing Meta’s use of GPUs for artificial intelligence.”
Meta was apparently tipped off to this alleged betrayal when Khurana used his Meta email and network access to complete a writing assignment for Omniva as part of his hiring process. For this writing assignment, Khurana “disclosed non-public information about Meta’s relationship with certain suppliers that it uses for its data centers” when asked to “explain how he would help his potential new employer develop the supply chain for a company building data centers using specific technologies.”
In a seeming attempt to cover up the alleged theft of Meta documents, Khurana apparently “attempted to scrub” one document “of its references to Meta,” as well as removing a label marking it “CONFIDENTIAL—FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY.” But when replacing “Meta” with “X,” Khurana allegedly missed the term “Meta” in “at least five locations.”
“Khurana took such action to try and benefit himself or his new employer, including to help ensure that Khurana would continue to work at his new employer, continue to receive significant compensation from his new employer, and/or to enable Khurana to take shortcuts in building his supply-chain team at his new employer and/or helping to build his new employer’s business,” Meta alleged.
Ars could not immediately reach Khurana for comment. Meta noted that he has repeatedly denied breaching his contract or initiating contact with Meta employees who later joined Omniva. He also allegedly refused to sign a termination agreement that reiterates his confidentiality obligations.
Under the confidentiality agreement that Khurana signed when he joined Meta 12 years ago, he agreed to never make copies of Meta documents outside of what was necessary to fulfill his duties at Meta. He also agreed to return all Meta documents upon leaving the company and to “refrain from outside activities while employed by Meta,” the complaint said.
Because Khurana allegedly breached his Meta contracts, as well as loyalty and fiduciary duties, Meta is demanding damages to be proven at a jury trial, including punitive damages. Meta also wants an injunction preventing Khurana and Omniva from referencing Meta documents.
On top of that, Meta has asked the court to order Khurana to “disgorge and return to Meta all the ill-gotten gains that he illegally and wrongfully obtained at the expense of Meta.” And if the jury finds that Khurana violated California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, he could also face a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to three years.
Omniva allegedly poaching Meta employees
Meta appears particularly concerned that Khurana and Omniva seemingly referenced Meta documents to poach employees by “offering unusually high employee salaries for the industry and large annual bonuses.”
Although Omniva has not been accused of wrongdoing, Meta complained that Omniva was allegedly using the confidential Meta documents to “compete unfairly with Meta for such employees.”Advertisement
Khurana’s paper trail made it clear that this was his intent, Meta alleged. Among the documents uncovered, Meta found a slide deck where Khurana allegedly “described the shortcuts his new employer would have to take to reach its scale goal.” One Omniva insider told DCD that Omniva strives to “rival Google and Microsoft.” Khurana’s slide deck for Omniva allegedly said:
“We do not have the luxury of learning-as-we-go. Hire talent that has a proven track record of achieving the highest standards for an @scale business comparable with where we will be in 3 years in terms of technology scope, DC scale, product complexity, global reach and dollar spend. Seed proven leaders at all levels and hire 80 percent experienced” workers “and 20 percent that need training.”
After being hired, Khurana allegedly sought to recruit “multiple Meta employees,” including successfully recruiting at least eight employees that Meta highlighted as “Top Talent.” Khurana has claimed that Omniva personnel initiated contact with these employees, but Meta believes that Khurana reached out to several employees before his employer did.
Meta has attempted to engage both Khurana and Omniva to settle these disputes but “has been unable to obtain complete facts regarding Khurana’s misuse of Meta information or actions since leaving Meta,” the complaint said.
More misconduct could be uncovered should the case proceed to trial, Meta suspects, urging the court to intervene and stop what it considers to be the “highly disloyal, egregious, and unlawful nature of Khurana’s behavior towards Meta.”
