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Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

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Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#61

Post by diebir »

woodandsteel wrote: post #57
ziszis wrote: post #20

I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. If not, it would be the worst IP miss since Ebay acquired Skype for $2 Billion, only to find out that they didn't own Skype's IP or have access to the source code [0]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/new-lawsuit-brings-clarity.…

>I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. Uber's big problem is not the $680 million. It's that if Waymo's claims are true, then Uber's self-driving car program will likely be shut down, and they will have to start all over from scratch. And that in turn means other compani…

How did you figure that it would be "shut down" and what does this mean in practical terms?

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#62

Post by ziszis »

thetrb wrote: post #53
ziszis wrote: post #20

I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. If not, it would be the worst IP miss since Ebay acquired Skype for $2 Billion, only to find out that they didn't own Skype's IP or have access to the source code [0]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/new-lawsuit-brings-clarity.…

I tried to look up the Skype acquisition since this seemed crazy and this is what Wikipedia says: "In September 2005, eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion.[13] In September 2009,[14] Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced the acquisition of 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion from eBay, which attributed to the enterprise a market value of $2.92 billion. Microsoft bought Skyp…

The miss isn't that eBay made money on the transaction in the end.

The miss is that eBay completely failed to secure the IP rights to Skype. Zennström (CEO of Skype) was essentially able to sell his company twice and eBay made less than they would have without the mistake.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#64

Post by erikpukinskis »

diebir wrote: post #61
woodandsteel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. Uber's big problem is not the $680 million. It's that if Waymo's claims are true, then Uber's self-driving car program will likely be shut down, and they will have to start all over from scratch. And that in turn means other compani…

How did you figure that it would be "shut down" and what does this mean in practical terms?

The court orders them to stop using any code or designs that were touched by former Google employees, AKA all of their code and designs.

They would then have to hire a new team of people who never worked at Google, or with the former Googlers, and do a "clean room" reimplementation of a self driving vehicle, based on publically available materials and tools.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#65

Post by woodandsteel »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #64
diebir wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you figure that it would be "shut down" and what does this mean in practical terms?

The court orders them to stop using any code or designs that were touched by former Google employees, AKA all of their code and designs. They would then have to hire a new team of people who never worked at Google, or with the former Googlers, and do a "clean room" reimplementation of a self driving vehicle, based on publically available materials and tools.

Right. And the very first step would firing Levandowski, the head of their self-driving car program.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#66

Post by paul7986 »

woodandsteel wrote: post #57
ziszis wrote: post #20

I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. If not, it would be the worst IP miss since Ebay acquired Skype for $2 Billion, only to find out that they didn't own Skype's IP or have access to the source code [0]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/new-lawsuit-brings-clarity.…

>I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. Uber's big problem is not the $680 million. It's that if Waymo's claims are true, then Uber's self-driving car program will likely be shut down, and they will have to start all over from scratch. And that in turn means other compani…

And justice is served!

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#67

Post by paul7986 »

woodandsteel wrote: post #65
erikpukinskis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court orders them to stop using any code or designs that were touched by former Google employees, AKA all of their code and designs. They would then have to hire a new team of people who never worked at Google, or with the former Googlers, and do a "clean room" reimplementation of a self driving vehicle, based on publically available materials and tools.

Right. And the very first step would firing Levandowski, the head of their self-driving car program.

Followed by the board somehow firing Kalanick to save Uber from himself!

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#68

Post by usefulcat »

ehsankia wrote: post #46
tyingq wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't know. Levandowski's lawyer outed its existence in a hearing, trying to use it as some basis for redacting or witholding other documents. "Ramsey pointed to a joint defense agreement between Levandowski and various law firms that meant that nothing should be revealed." I assume it was dated. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/judge-accuses-ub... Perhaps a move he regrets? Edit: That arstechnica ar…

Wow, misstep after misstep. This is really turning out very poorly for Uber. All because of a bunch of accidental events.

"Accidental"? Wow, that seems a very charitable view..

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#69

Post by Animats »

Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1]

Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining them, replacing them, and doing all the hard work. All Uber does is run an app.

Running a fleet of self-driving cars is running a car rental company. The company will have to buy the cars, maintain the cars, fuel or charge the cars, and obtain parking lots for storing the cars. They also have to figure out what to do with the used cars after a few years. Car rental companies turn over their fleets in a year or two, and are big sellers of used cars.

It's more likely that car rental companies will get into self driving than that Uber will get into car rental by the trip.

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#70

Post by timewarrior »

Animats wrote: post #69

Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…

I think the biggest cost in this business is the human component. For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day.

Given a choice, Uber would love to be the first to have self driving cars. Once they do that their business model scales predictably with capital.

Whoever gets self driving technology right, will own all transportation and logistics - which is huge!

However, I doubt they can do it. The quality of engineering talent is subpar compared to Google. Given that they couldn't compete with R&D they probably resorted to other means.

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