Re:Uber and Waymo Reach Settlement
by TheKarateKid on Friday February 09, 2018 @06:05PM
(#16344603)
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.
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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.
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.