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Anthony Levandowski ordered to pay $179M to Google

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

#141

Post by tomp »

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.

Why would you ever “sell” a company under such conditions? “We pay you $1T if you write a simple loop in the next two days.” Next day when you come to work: “Fired LOL. Do not cross Start, do not collect $1T.”

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

#142

Post by ur-whale »

tomerico wrote: post #6
zanek wrote: post #3

Levandowski just filed for bankruptcy saying he has less than $100M in assets . Does anyone know if he will only pay a percentage or is only delaying this by kicking the can down the road to another court ? I would be highly surprised if his employer (Uber) shouldered any of the this

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

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

He may have realized early that Bitcoin is unconfiscatable.

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

#143

Post by dodobirdlord »

tomp wrote: post #141
tmh79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you ever “sell” a company under such conditions? “We pay you $1T if you write a simple loop in the next two days.” Next day when you come to work: “Fired LOL. Do not cross Start, do not collect $1T.”

Usually you don't agree to contracts that let you be fired for the sorts of things that don't end up with you in court. Buyers, being reasonable, refuse to sign contracts where they can't fire you for being a criminal.

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

#144

Post by cft »

chongli wrote: post #136
jdhn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for cases like this that involve literally millions of dollars, but it really helps normal people from becoming homeless if they fall on hard times for whatever reason. Source: Family members went through bankruptcy in Florida and were able to get back on their feet much quicker because their house couldn't be seized.

And even in this case. Does Anthony Levandowski deserve to become homeless and destitute for what he did? No. This is going to hurt him far, far more than what he did could ever have hurt Google. Yeah, maybe Google would have lost more than this on paper, but definitely not in terms of marginal utility. Google remains an extremely wealthy and powerful company and now Anthony is broke.

Google's purpose was to set a ruthless precedent. It's a powerful reminder that once at Google, you're an employee and not an entrepreneur.

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

#145

Post by dodobirdlord »

cyphar wrote: post #139
wahern wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia, the daughter and husband "quickly reached an undisclosed settlement" with Uber. Uber very likely paid out a large sum.

That covers the civil side of things, but GPs point about criminal charges still applies. Yeah, they might have signed an NDA but I don't think those can restrict what can be uncovered during discovery (but I could be wrong -- IANAL).

Sure, but I'm sure some prosecutor took a look at it and decided it wasn't worthwhile. People get killed in accidents all the time, and frequently nobody gets charged with anything. A person being killed in a car accident while jaywalking at night because the driver wasn't paying attention particularly well is a story as old as cars, and usually doesn't result in jail time. Turns out, people are legally allowed to drive while being really shitty drivers, and you mostly can't prosecute people criminally just for being bad at driving. If anyone was going to face criminal charges it would be the driver, and I suppose the relevant prosecutor didn't like the odds.

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

#146

Post by dodobirdlord »

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.

> This seems personal. Google got angry that one of their “own” went to a competitor.

He literally copied gigabytes of work onto hard drives and stole them.

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

#147

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

pembrook wrote: post #117
humanlion87 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worl…

Have you ever heard of the Panama Papers?

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

#148

Post by scarejunba »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #135

It feels perverse that when Uber's stolen technology killed a pedestrian, nobody was held liable and in fact no charges were pressed and no civil lawsuits were filed. But the person who stole that technology was indicted and is getting financially destroyed.

They never actually used the stolen tech, right? It wasn't good enough. They hit the pedestrian solely on their own tech, which (clearly, in hindsight) wasn't good enough either.

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

#149

Post by scarejunba »

tomp wrote: post #141
tmh79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you ever “sell” a company under such conditions? “We pay you $1T if you write a simple loop in the next two days.” Next day when you come to work: “Fired LOL. Do not cross Start, do not collect $1T.”

Because that's a trick that only works once for the buyer so you know they're not going to pull it. It may not even work that one time because you'll tie them up in court.

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

#150

Post by glangdale »

tomp wrote: post #141
tmh79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you ever “sell” a company under such conditions? “We pay you $1T if you write a simple loop in the next two days.” Next day when you come to work: “Fired LOL. Do not cross Start, do not collect $1T.”

While this is a crazy example, I have been in very similar kind of position (not $1T for a loop, though) and been worried about the strong motivation to get rid of me on certain N+364 day timelines. It didn't happen and I was treated quite honorably. I think if you want your acquisitions to go well, you don't do cheesy stuff like firing people to save money (when the integration is otherwise going quite well) or else your future acquisitions will be harder. People talk.
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