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Of course, whatever salary he was making is far less interesting than the direct benefit of the original Otto acquisition.
Much/most of it was probably tied to his continued employment
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One result of the injunction (all of the hearings up until now) was that uber needs to use all of its power to compel levandowski to testify, the extreme limit of which is firing him. Uber followed through as was legally required How does firing him equate to pressuring him to testify?
What else would you have them do? Jail him? Torture him? The company has limited tools at its disposal the ultimate one being to fire the person.
(IANAL but if I were I would probably not counsel doing that in any case. :-P )
Interesting. The situation between Uber and Levendowski always reminded me of the prisoner dilemma. If one bails on the other, might the other starts talking about what really happened? I think that staying together would have been the best course of action for Uber. Very interesting to see how this will develop.
If you talk about what happened it doesn't magically mean all the punishment falls on the other side. If Levendowski admits to breaking the law he'll be punished, no matter if he is or isn't friends with Uber at the time.
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Although for the sake of this discussion I agree with you, I could have a lot of fun making a list entitled, "things companies have done to people that are worse than firing them."
And most of those things would also go on a list called "illegal things companies have done". Probably not a good idea to do something illegal in the middle of a lawsuit.
Legend has it that Japanese companies, rather than terminate under-performing employees, will seat them "at the window" and not assign them any tasks at all ... This is not terribly compelling short-term, but is horribly boring .
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In the USA legal system, this would be (at best) witness tampering and possibly obstruction of justice. Federal witness tampering and obstruction are things that _very_ few lawyers would knowingly participate in because you don't have to be successful to be convicted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_tampering
Uber: Hey, we're really sorry that things didn't work out but "here's some equity for the time that you worked here" oh and by the way here's the estimated value of that equity if we win the lawsuit or don't win the law suit.
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What else would you have them do? Jail him? Torture him? The company has limited tools at its disposal the ultimate one being to fire the person.
It also probably means that Levandowski loses some or all of his compensation for Uber's acquisition of Otto, right? From what I recall, that purchase was made in Uber stock, and I'd expect it to have a vesting schedule. Depending on the length of the initial cliff, it seems possible that he hasn't vested any of that stock. I am speculating though and don't know for sure.
I think no one will ever dare to hire Levandowski. His career is over. Maybe still too early to draw any conclusion, but I can't seem to have any counter potential excuse or reason to believe the self-driving programs weren't stolen. Why on earth would someone like him do that? Conceited arrogance? Now I don't understand taking the Fifth. If everyone takes the Fifth, how do you convict someone? Find evidences, and ha…
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Couldn't google offer him immunity of sorts in return for spilling the beans on Uber ? They dont need to claw back the money, it is pocket change to them. Restricting Uber from entering that market (on potentially near equal footing) is far more valuable.
In spite of what you see on TV, it's not up to a victim to decide whether or not to press criminal charges in the end. That's up to the attorney general usually.
Link to formal termination letter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2017/0... The termination letter indicates that the termination is for cause and may have implications on stock awards and other compensation: "Under the Stock Award and other agreements, you are entitled to 20 days to cure the events that give rise to this termination for Cause. This letter constitutes the “prior written notice”…
IANAL but doesn't the letter's language ("that termination shall become effective 20 days from today") imply that he has 20 days to fix things, and that the termination is not a already done deal?