It does have the feel of a TV show at this point. Given @sarahjeong's coverage on Twitter and in the Verge I would not be surprised if Waymo's legal team felt they were going to at least not win, and might lose.

And to my thinking Waymo had lots more to lose than Uber did. (and I think that is reflected in the settlement being not quite 13% of what they were asking, and in stock which may be completely worthless). Waymo loses and it might embolden other Google employees to go to competitors, it might embolden those competitors to try to recruit their top engineers to bring their ideas into the competitor. It might completely blunt Googles ability to get any engineer to believe what the company thinks of as trade secrets would actually be considered trade secrets in a court and so they aren't as threatening as before. And on cross examination Uber might have pulled some things into open court and the public record that Waymo would rather not have out there.

Uber on the other hand already has a reputation as being a rule breaker, and skating over the line. So what do they have to lose? I Waymo can take $1.9 billion in cash out of Uber (maybe more if they can get lawyers fees etc) they can take them off the board completely.

According to the coverage they were being berated by the judge and their case had gone from being about patents to about trade secrets to about 8 trade secrets. That is not a legal case gaining steam, that is one that is trying to stay alive.

Great analysis. I think after Waymo's lawyers screwed things up almost as bad as Samsung's did in their Apple trial that they wanted to end it ASAP.

Kalanick and Levandowski are already gone, their's and Uber's reputation has been soiled from this, and I'm pretty sure all the bad PR stopped Uber's valuation from skyrocketing even more.

Lewandowski's credibility is in the gutter after this. There is proof of him siphoning confidential documents, data, from Google's internal systems.

I'm not sure how Waymo losing would make it less threatening for people to do the same thing? They now know more than ever that anything they do to internal/confidential data is being monitored.

Lucky for him he seems to have escaped with enough money that he can live comfortably without ever being employed again. If you look at his situation objectively I find it hard not qualify him as pulling off the heist of the century. He gets a ton of bonus money from Google, he gets a bunch of buyout money from Uber, he gets Uber to indemnify him from any legal repercussions. And he has plenty of cash to make it super painful for Google to try and claw back anything as well.

So change your name, move to a different area, change your hair style and voila, playboy at large.

Why change his name and haircut? As Silicon Valley becomes more like Wall Street this behavior is not condemned but celebrated and even admired.

Please don't post unsubstantive or name-calling comments here. "Silicon Valley lawyers" may or may not deserve better, but the HN community certainly does.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Agree with your analysis -

Waymo's trade secret violation case was flimsy so they were willing to settle, and Uber from the beginning has been looking for the quickest way out.

Even if Uber could have won the case, their reputation is now such that if you see Uber in a headline, you are primed to think "scandal" or "evil" - even if you see "Uber wins Waymo case" you'll think "wow I wonder what shady stuff Uber did to pull that one off against Google".

I'm interested to see if Waymo pursues anything directly against Levandowski.

To support your point, I don't believe for a second that Uber is actually innocent of intentionally stealing trade secrets. Far more likely that they they had the foresight not to keep any documents of their foray into industrial espionage, knowing that getting caught if there simply isn't any trail is very unlikely.

(I mean, this is the company that remotely wipes machines to avoid complying with search warrants, under a CEO that appears to think that the ends justify any means...)

> against Levandowski

They can't, because they agreed to binding arbitration. The Feds can pursue him criminally.

At one point, Waymo initiated arbitration over the issue of poaching employees, but the taking of trade secrets was excluded from that case. Did they subsequently go to arbitration over the latter? And, on the other hand, does the mandatory arbitration clause in Waymo's employment contracts mean that it can not take Levandowski to court over the trade secrets?

Anything civil must go to arbitration and criminal isn't something Waymo can initiate. Alsup recommended the DOJ look at the case. They may choose to investigate Levandowski.

I am not a lawyer.

The trial was turning into a circus. (Just look at Sarah Jeong's tweet storms about it.) I'm not surprised this happened in that light: it was terrible for the image of both companies and self-driving cars in general.

I don't buy the "it was a bad image for both companies". Do either of these companies really care about their image specifically when it comes to AD, other than simply "winning the market"?

Yes, absolutely.

I am very hesitant to use Uber because of their other ethically questionable tactics. This whole suit was furthering the notion that Uber has no limits to their desire to be number 1 - regardless of who they exploit or harm on the way.

Brand image matters a ton to both companies because they are fueled on user trust. Uber asks you to get into a car with someone you’ve never met. Google asks you to trust them with your entire digital footprint. If people have an “icky” image of them it will yield severe financial damage.

Why both companies?

The judge was admonishing Waymo for showing what were essentially marketing materials to the jury in closed-door sessions. Their lawyers were showing clips from Wall Street in court. They were asking Travis Kalanick to explain video game terminology in ludicrous detail. And so on.

No company that aims to be taken seriously wants to be involved in a circus like that.

IIRC it was in the context of Kalanick/Levandowski quoting stuff and using these terms, so it's fair to present the jury with a "here's what they meant by it and what they were referencing".

For Uber I think it's obvious. For Waymo, well, to use the Words of former program manager Chris Urmson in a late 2015 letter to Sergey Brin (Which Uber's lawyers trotted out as part of their defense) "Over the past 6 months we have stopped playing to win and are now playing to minimize downside."

Waymo joins Tesla and Baidu as self driving car companies who have levied lawsuits over top engineers leaving their projects to become competition.

How was it negative for Google?

Probably both. As someone following the case it really seems like Waymo's case fell apart.

It doesn't seem like anything changes. This just looks like a large waste of time and money.

Looks like Waymo is getting $245 million worth of equity.

Considering there are no direct damages as Uber never actually got anywhere with self driving cars that seems incredibly high.

Basically, Uber is paying google 250m instead of paying AL 250m in earnouts he was supposed to get. All in all good for Uber.

Good for Uber? They lost Lewandowski and their founder. Plus have to pay $250m. Plus lots of things exposed at Uber. How is this a positive?

And Uber can't use any of the trade secrets from Waymo. Maybe I missed something, but isn't this a win for Waymo?

Waymo became a minor investor in Uber in future can vote for Uber to buy or rent it's cars. If I recall correctly Google ventures was an early investor in Uber as well. So Alphabet might own a lot more of Uber once it's Ipo

IIRC it's like 7%. Sure that gets you voting rights, but that's minuscule. I'd be more worried about SoftBank's influence as they have more at stake.

> So Alphabet might own a lot more of Uber once it's Ipo

Huh? Your position of ownership doesn't magically go up once you IPO, it normally only goes down (you get diluted or you liquidate your position).

Many public shares are diluted enough their owners don't vote.

There is no evidence Uber has any trade secrets from Waymo that they would have to stop using. That was why Google settled. If Uber did have any trade secrets they would have lost the case outright.

Uber gave up 245 million dollars. That's not based on nothing.

Really, if it was an open and shut case Uber could have gotten it dismissed. The fact they figured giving up 1/4 a billion dollars was better than continuing to fight says a lot more about their situation than any internet commentators can. The only reason for them to spend that money is because they was a significant chance aka well over 25% they would have lost significantly more by fighting.

They didn’t give up a single dollar. They gave up a tiny sliver of equity that might be worth $245M someday.

There is a secondary market for Uber stock that's moderately liquid. It's not a public company, but every shareholder takes a haircut when they hand out more stock.

It makes a lot of sense to me. Google cares much more about Uber not stealing their trade secrets, than about money. I strongly suspect that once Travis left and Dara took over, Dara was able to convince Google that Uber would behave appropriately from now on. The lawsuit served its purpose by helping to force Travis out.

After a few days of testimony it's surely related to how that's going. The stakes get really high when your fate is in 10 random people's hands...

One thing is, for tech companies, generally if you're in court you're losing. It sucks away time, money, attention, and PR from the rest of the company.

I think the case resolved nicely. Both of them get it resolved on a Friday so everyone wanted it to be swept under the rug (especially with the markets being front and center). Uber and Waymo will still compete with each other for self-driving cars but most likely will be hobbled in their efforts due to the kerfuffle.

This has to do with the IPO. Ideally the lawsuit will be done before the IPO so there is no uncertainty about future liabilities. Even if Uber won its unlikely that the appeals will be done before Uber wants to IPO.

Perhaps this quick settlement is driven (sic) by the possibility that self-driving cars don't work, and neither party wants that situation to be exposed in open court?

Seriously? You think the tech is impossible?

I do. I think it's only possible with instrumented, self-driving only, roads.

I think it's impossible for general purpose roads. Not without true AI.

ars answered perfectly for me, but indeed I believe it is not going to work. Impossible? Well that depends -- for some constrained version of the problem (no human drivers, special lanes/roads for SDVs) perhaps. In the distant future when strong AI has been built, well sure then it's easy.

I support this hot take.