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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

#231

Post by stephencanon »

throwaway_tech wrote: post #215
stephencanon wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obviously you can't suspend the DL of a self-driving car or a car company Why not? This (suspending permission to operate on public roads) seems like a perfectly reasonable response to a self-driving car company being negligent.

As I replied to the first comment asking the same thing, the sentence preceding the statement you quoted explains what needs to be done: >so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment Police can't just make up traffic violations that don't currently exist and Courts ca…

Vehicles are certified as safe to operate on public roads by the (federal) government; that certification can be revoked by regulators. Many states have specific laws licensing self-driving cars to operate; the regulators in those states can also revoke permission. There's no need to invent violations.

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

#232

Post by vanusa »

wahern wrote: post #138
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.

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

According to Wikipedia, the daughter and husband "quickly reached an undisclosed settlement" with Uber.

That's what's called a settlement, a.k.a. hush money.

Very, very different from criminal charges.

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

#233

Post by loeg »

daemin wrote: post #179
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%.

Australian here as well. If you own things and sell them for a capital loss you get a tax credit to use later. If you sell for a capital gain within 12 months then you will pay tax on the full amount of profit from the sale. For individuals this is just added to your income tax. If you sell for a capital gain having held the asset for over 12 months you get a 50% discount to how much profit is taxed. The tax credit f…

That sounds essentially similar to the US system except that the US long-term capital gains tax rates are not exactly 50% of income rates. They're 0% of income rates on the low end, approximately 53-68% in most of the middle tax brackets, and 64% at the high end.

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

#234

Post by throwaway_tech »

stephencanon wrote: post #231
throwaway_tech wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I replied to the first comment asking the same thing, the sentence preceding the statement you quoted explains what needs to be done: >so perhaps these states that allow self-driving cars need to think about adopting traffic laws specific to self-driving cars and figure out who those tickets should go to and the proper punishment Police can't just make up traffic violations that don't currently exist and Courts ca…

Vehicles are certified as safe to operate on public roads by the (federal) government; that certification can be revoked by regulators. Many states have specific laws licensing self-driving cars to operate; the regulators in those states can also revoke permission. There's no need to invent violations.

>There's no need to invent violations.

I think the deceased and their family would disagree.

Sure there are existing regulations, but the idea is that as this new technology evolves and is being tested in the field we will find failures and create new regulations to govern.

Consider when the horseless carriage began replacing horse and buggy, traffic laws evolved over time as we realized we needed lanes, traffic signals, speed limits, etc...

Those laws continue to evolve to this day (ex.: red light cameras, ride-for-hire, etc...), to suggest new laws are not required for driver less vehicles and the current laws are sufficient, especially where we have driver-less vehicle death, suggests a serious disconnect with how law works.

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

#235

Post by jgalt212 »

loeg wrote: post #118
jgalt212 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

everything you said is true, but it's much easier to hide assets than to hide debts.

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

#236

Post by gowld »

carapace wrote: post #228
dodobirdlord wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dr…

> A person being killed in a car accident But they weren't killed in a car accident, she was killed in a robot accident.

She was killed by an inattentive driver doing work for a corporation.

The car didn't accelerate or steer into the victim.

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

#237

Post by bogomipz »

TheCondor wrote: post #204
ewidar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your question. He is asked to pay $179M, he "only" has between $50M and $100M, hence he is technically bankrupt.

There are provisions in some places as to what can be taken by bankruptcy. Then there are laws about what debts can be wiped out by bankruptcy. I suspect it’s a more general question, will he be broke after this with a crappy reputation and no money or will he be “broke” and live in a multimillion dollar castle with a support staff and get around in last year’s S-class rather than this year’s hotness?

Yes it was more of a general question, exactly what you articulated in your last sentence. Thanks.

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

#238

Post by dang »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #187
dang wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This was not intended as flame bait, rather just to be overtly shaming towards Google, whose behavior had been unquestionably appalling.

Usually when people think they're "just overtly shaming", they're also posting flamebait. Please leave the online callout/shaming culture behind when you step in here, and follow the site guidelines regardless of how you feel about appalling behavior. You may not owe Google better, but you owe the community better if you're posting here.

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

#239

Post by bogomipz »

smackmybishop wrote: post #176
bogomipz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does an employee make tens of millions? Was he a very early employee or did Google acquire a company he founded?

Neither, and it was hundreds of millions. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...

This is what I find so baffling - he didn't need the money and it seems like the whole Otto pursuit had a significant enough downside risk for someone who was already quite wealthy that I'm surprised he was willing to take it.

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

#240

Post by nobbis »

tassl wrote: post #92
nobbis wrote: post #67

Google's SDC efforts are rooted in Anthony's work: he helped kickstart the entire industry. Mark Harris broke the story here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence/t... I don't know what IP is in question, but it seems to me that he had been working in AVs longer than almost anyone in the industry, so it's believable that Uber was valuing the Otto team's accumulated experience, rather than any st…

This is completely misleading. Even if his first company was the first self driving vehicle project ever (which was not) or the only piece in the puzzle (which it wasn't either), there were other cofounders of that startup. This is glorifying one person using other people's work.

It was the first self-driving car project to cause established companies to take notice and start investing heavily, kickstarting the industry, which was my point.

Other co-founders, yes, but Anthony was overall product lead. The article goes into detail.

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