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Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo
- Operyl 9y agoAnd the plot thickens. If Waymo is correct, and such a contract was signed, they seem to be as good as toast.
- tyingq 9y agoTwo documents in play... The "Uber agrees to defend Levandowski" document and the Uber-Otto due diligence documentation. Levandowski asked for the former to be redacted, was denied. The article says it was signed just a few days after quitting his job at Google.
- Operyl 9y agoYeah, sorry should've been a bit more specific I guess. I was referring to the "agree to defend Levandowski" document.
- esturk 9y agoWhose 'they' in this context? Uber/Otto?
- Operyl 9y agoYeah, it'd be pretty incriminating it seems.
- yawaworht12 9y agoIt thickens more. Supposedly Larry Page talked to Levandowski before he left Google: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/uber-wants-to-depose-larry-page-over-anthony-levandowski-2017-4 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/uber-wa...
- rodionos 9y agoIt's high time for mods to launch ubernews, they are in the spotlight every single day. 71 submissions last week [0]. 0: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=uber&sort=byDate&dateRange=pastWeek&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=uber&sort=byDate&dateRange=pas...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ethbro 9y agoWere you on Slashdot when SCO was ongoing? If not, this is what a corporate titan proxy war looks like in the news cycle. And it's objectively defensible. The outcome of this lawsuit will shape what an incredibly important future technology looks like and who controls it.
- stupidhn 9y agoYeah, I get that reading most of the stories feels like rehashed gossip rags. But it's the meta that's cool to me; this is a real life battle of technology behemoths with hefty repercussions, and the media is part of the game. It's cool to watch it play out.
- macrael 9y agoSCO?
- rory096 9y agoYou're in for a treat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO/Linux_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO/Linux_controversies
- davidw 9y agoI remember showing up to their local meeting with some other Linux guys in the area and politely calling bullshit on their lawsuit. It was kind of fun, although I'm not normally one to court controversy.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoPerhaps this is standard practice, in the valley, to make the company that acquired your company defend you in the event that the acquisition resulted in a lawsuit, but this revelation just adds another red flag to the already long list of red flags that Uber ignored when acquiring Otto. IMO, Uber clearly knew what he did, either through disclosure or due diligence, and disregarded it. Considering their company culture of playing fast and loose with the rules until you get caught this is not surprising. >"Waymo has claimed that Levandowski signed an agreement with Uber’s lawyers just a few days after quitting his job at Google, requiring Uber to defend him if the company’s acquisition of Otto resulted in a lawsuit." >"Mr. Levandowski argues that he is entitled to relief under the Fifth Amendment because production of the unredacted privilege log could potentially incriminate him. We are not persuaded that the district court erred in its ruling requiring defendants to produce an unredacted privilege log,” the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled." >"The order also opens the door for Waymo to request a copy of the due diligence report that Uber commissioned while it was in the process of acquiring Otto. Waymo has claimed that the due diligence report could contain evidence that Uber knew Otto was using stolen technology"
- azernik 9y agoNot just in the Valley, and not just in the case of M&A events; generally companies sign agreements with their executives to defend them in the case of lawsuits for actions they take in their professional roles. Often, to avoid conflicts of interests between corporate counsel and individual counsel, this works out as the company paying either directly for lawyers for the company officer, or paying for individual liability insurance.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 9y agoThe article seems to indicate the document was signed days after his departure from Google, presumably before Otto was a paper entity. That seems a little unusual.
- 9y ago
- dzhiurgis 9y agoFinally scrappy guileless startup Google can stick it to the bloated megacorp Uber /s
- GhiliaWeld 9y agoI think you got the roles mixed up... Google is the megacorp in this and Uber is scrappy startup.
- stale2002 9y agoUber is worth 60 billion dollars. It is 2megacorps fighting each other.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 9y agoHonest question, I have little VC expertise. Are these valuations relatively legit? Do the people with money at stake have undue influence on the number?
- stale2002 9y agoDepends on what you mean by legit. The 60 billion valuation means that there was an investor who was willing to put their money where their mouth is and trade X billion dollars for Y number of shares under certain terms. But the specifics of that term sheet matter a lot. For example, if that investor has "ratchets" or preferred shares in their term sheet, it means that they get their money before anyone else does. Kind of like if a bank gave you a loan, but put a 100% interest rate on it.
- inlined 9y agoI'm really curious how Alphabet even suspects that Levandowski signed this doc days after he quit. Anonymous/confidential tip?
- tyingq 9y agoThey 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-uber-and-levandowski-of-obfuscation-in-waymo-case/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/judge-accuses-ub... Perhaps a move he regrets? Edit: That arstechnica article has much more info on how this played out than the main linked article for this thread.
- ehsankia 9y agoWow, misstep after misstep. This is really turning out very poorly for Uber. All because of a bunch of accidental events.
- ziszis 9y agoI 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.. https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/new-lawsuit-brings-clarity....
- will_brown 9y agoIt's basically a boilerplate provision in asset purchases, Merger/aquisition, assignments, licensing agreements, etc... However, Uber's behavior is so open and notorious in terms of disregarding policy/rules/regulations/laws that it really wouldn't surprise me that if there is bad behavior here, then evidence exist showing Uber knew or should have known; therefore, if that is the case then even with indemnification, warranties and guarantees in any and all Agreements concerning IP, Uber could be liable. Still unless that smoking gun evidence is found or some evidence of spoilation to shift the burden, it is a high legal standard to use past bad behaviors as evidence of bad behavior here, unless there is a clear pattern. As easy as it is to demonstrate past bad behavior can it be demonstrated that have knowingly/intentionally/negligently violated IP of its competitors?
- thetrb 9y agoI 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 Skype in May 2011 for $8.5 billion." Looks like Ebay paid 2.6B for Skype, then got 1.9B for 65% of it and presumably another 2.8B for the remaining 35% once Microsoft acquired it. Doesn't sound like such a bad acquisition.
- ziszis 9y agoThe 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.
- guelo 9y agoWhere's the district attorney? If someone is claiming the 5th because he might be incriminated that seems like pretty strong probable cause for a criminal investigation.
- woodandsteel 9y agoThis is a civil suit, the district attorney is for felony trials. Levandowski definitely seems to have committed a felony. What usually happens in these sorts of cases, from what I have read, is that the civil suit takes place first and establishes the facts, and then the felony trial takes place based on them.
- JabavuAdams 9y agoThere's nothing wrong or shady about claiming the 5th. It's an important legal protection. Why would you seek to diminish or undermine something that might one day protect you?
- hiddencost 9y agoIn civil cases you're allowed to draw adverse inferences. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/28/what-happens-if-you-take-the-fifth-in-a-civil-case/?utm_term=.684fe112bb3d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference
- mikeyouse 9y agoThere's a pretty big difference between your fifth amendment rights in civil cases vs. criminal cases. California extends more protections than many states in civil cases, but in many places it can absolutely be used against you in adverse inferences.. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/30/what-happens-if-you-take-the-fifth-in-a-civil-case-an-important-california-law-correction/?tid=a_inl https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- nikanj 9y agoOn TV, claiming any of your legal rights means you're guilty - and trying to get away with it. Many people assume this also applies to the real world.
- kolbe 9y agoFor all the relative good that Facebook and Google have done for the image of how contemporary business gets done in Silicon Valley, Uber is doing its best to make sure we realize that y'all are just as big a shitheads as the rest of corporate America.
- Neliquat 9y agoFacebook and google are doing that fine by themselves.
- rdiddly 9y agoAaaaaand, the #1 slot again. This is going to be HN's Brad and Angelina, I can tell already! Edit - or maybe the OJ trial.
- wil421 9y agoThis season of Silicon Valley is getting good.
- Animats 9y agoUber'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 https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds
- timewarrior 9y agoI 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.
- bduerst 9y agoI think Matt Levine succinctly said it best: >Eventually there will be self-driving cars, and there's no special reason to think that Uber will be the best at building them, or that its dominant position in the ride-hailing-app space will protect it from better self-driving-car businesses.
- timewarrior 9y ago
- asafira 9y agoQuestion: how public are these hearings? Is there a place we could get transcripts of them? (I remember previous days had snippets of transcripts (at the very least))
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- alain94040 9y agoA lot of the motions are posted here: https://www.courttrax.com/trending-cases/#317cv00939 https://www.courttrax.com/trending-cases/#317cv00939
- matt4077 9y agoThey are public by default. There was a really entertaining transcript where the judge argued vehemently against attempts by the lawyers to restrict public access (which is possible to protect privacy or trade secrets, for example). That said, when I last tried to find transcript, I couldn't find a comprehensive archive. They are available from PACER and from the court, but they charge transcription fees in the 3-digit range. But individual transcripts are published by media organisations, presumably after they pay for them.
- home_boi 9y agoI don't get Levandowski's 5th amendment claim on the privilege log. Doesn't the 5th amendment only stop the individual from incriminating himself? How can he argue that other people (or an entire company in this case) are not allowed to incriminate him? Has anyone successfully claimed 5th amendment and forced other people/entities not to incriminate him/her?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hiddencost 9y ago'The statement at issue need not directly implicate the witness as long as it "furnish[es] a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a...crime." Hoffman v. United States , 341 U.S. 479, 486-87 (1951).' http://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/taking-the-fifth-amendment-in-front-of-the-federal-grand-jury-in.html http://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/taking-the-fifth-am...
- matt4077 9y agoHere's a link to the actual order, from ars, which is where the cool old school journalists work that still link to sources: https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CAFC.Waymo_.Uber_.order_.pdf https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CAFC.Waym...