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Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

techcrunch.com

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Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#111

Post by freepor »

anrmq7 wrote: post #82
xrd wrote: post #19

It's been amusing to hear his story. Starting a church/religion was my favorite part. I bet Google and a bunch of other companies are excited about the message this sends to other arrogant engineers who might be considering leaving and building new companies with ideas developed at their prior places of employment. That precedent is worth billions if not trillions.

This is harmful to innovation in the Bay Area. Big Tech eats up all the talent and now sends the signal that they can’t leave. The trial hasn’t even begun for this case - I think they’re still debating what constitutes a trade secret. This seems personal. Google got angry that one of their “own” went to a competitor. I bet this will make companies think twice about acquiring startups founded by Google employees.

You can leave any time you like, just don’t literally take files with you.

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#112

Post by saghm »

archeantus wrote: post #103
brutopia wrote: post #99

Bit unrelated, but could somebody highlight the comma splices mentioned in the comments section? As a non-native english speaker, I can’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“ However, Levandowski personally filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that the presumptive $179M debt quite exceeds his assets, which he estimates at somewhere between $50M and $100M.” I’m not an English expert, but I am a native speaker. Although the above sentence is understandable, when you look at it closer the sentence structure is a bit wonky. Anecdotally, I don’t like starting a sentence with “Howev…

The sentence you quoted is technically grammatically correct, but I agree that it reads pretty awkwardly

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#113

Post by innagadadavida »

Are ML model parameters copyrightable? Should it be? To me, it looks like that is the only claim google has - rest of the algorithms are all open sourced already.

Honestly, I don’t see much difference between this and the oracle java case. Google can’t have it both ways.

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#114

Post by dang »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #16

Google has to get the Andy Rubin money back somehow.

Low-effort, low-information flamebait is not ok to post to HN, so please don't. It leads to flamewars, which are lame, tedious, and not what we want.

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

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#115

Post by nilkn »

archeantus wrote: post #103
brutopia wrote: post #99

Bit unrelated, but could somebody highlight the comma splices mentioned in the comments section? As a non-native english speaker, I can’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“ However, Levandowski personally filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating that the presumptive $179M debt quite exceeds his assets, which he estimates at somewhere between $50M and $100M.” I’m not an English expert, but I am a native speaker. Although the above sentence is understandable, when you look at it closer the sentence structure is a bit wonky. Anecdotally, I don’t like starting a sentence with “Howev…

While that style might not be to everyone’s taste, that sentence definitely is grammatically correct and does not have any comma splices. Personally I don’t find it that awkward either.

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#116

Post by loeg »

jonathankoren wrote: post #76
ivanvanderbyl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the CGT situation is in America, but in Australia of you own an asset (shares, property, etc) for less than 12 months before sale, capital gains tax kicks up to about 50%.

Typically you have to hold assets for a year for them to be taxed as capital gains. Otherwise it's just normal income, which caps out at 37%. Capital gains maximum rate is 20%.

Pedantically, the max cap gains rate is 23.8% with NIIT. (Also, these are the federal tax brackets; states can and mostly do impose additional taxes on both income and capital gains.)

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#117

Post by pembrook »

humanlion87 wrote: post #93
tomerico wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how he doesn't have more assets after he sold his company to Uber for $680 millions

Or maybe he off-shored the rest of his money? This < $100mil are the assets that are under his name and the rest are in tax havens/under different shell companies? Not sure whether that is possible. But it seems like rich people always have multiple ways of hiding their money.

This is a mid-century Hollywood myth that just won't die. Even when it was still possible to do so, a tiny, tiny minority of Rich Americans were actually evading taxes by hiding money overseas.

Today, it's virtually impossible to hide money overseas as an American after FATCA and various other crackdowns unless you are willing to entirely give up your US citizenship. Since the $USD is the reserve currency of the world, the US government has enormous leverage in mandating foreign banks to report on the assets of every single US citizen with money abroad.

In fact, foreign banks are so scared right now, many will refuse to even deal with Americans outright. It's a huge draconian nightmare for expats--99% of whom are not rich by any means.

Ironically, if you're looking to do something nefarious, the best place to do so is actually right here in the US! Numerous states allow you to create anonymous corporations and trusts.

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#118

Post by loeg »

jgalt212 wrote: post #61
loeg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those are pre-settlement. He's now insolvent. The article touches on this at the end.

You do realize he has very strong incentives to understate his net worth now.

So what? Bankruptcy courts weren't born yesterday; I'm sure they're familiar with that problem. And Google has reasonably strong incentives to collect as much of that $180M as they can, too.

Re: Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

#119

Post by loeg »

tmh79 wrote: post #91
loeg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His company existed for a seven months in 2016 before being bought by Uber. It isn't clear (to me) if there were third party investors or what the cap table was, broadly. Purportedly 90 employees at time of sale to Uber.

his contract to sell w uber had a significant earn out, the 680m was based on hitting different tech milestones. He hit none of them before he was fired.

Ah, that's some important detail I was missing. Thanks.
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