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Larry Page Deposition in Uber vs. Waymo
- roguskinta 9y agoMR. GONZALEZ: Are you generally aware of the policies of Google? MR. PAGE: I mean, there's a lot of policies.
- br-g 9y ago"beginning 12:06 a.m., and commencing at 4:54 p.m." Wow..
- computerphage 9y agoThey meant 12:06 PM, actually, but still
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Jabbles 9y agoThey also meant concluding.
- CalChris 9y agoI had an EE20N HW set due at 12am when I was at Berkeley. I was the only person to get that wrong. The prof laughed and let it slide.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y agoThis is why the 12-hour clock system, with its inherent ambiguities mustn't be used when noting the time actually matters. If someone's going to use the 12-hour notation they should use the verbose "noon" and "midnight" terms instead of "12".
- paulmd 9y agoEven worse, this is ambiguous as well. When is "midnight" on a given day, is that the earlier or the later time? Best-practice is to specify a non-midnight time, i.e. "must be turned in by 23:59 Friday evening"
- kissickas 9y agoI get your point, but your example should have been "must be turned in by 23:59" or "must be turned in by 11:59 Friday evening". If you're going to use both, I might as well say "midnight Friday evening," or even the worse "12:00 Friday evening" as both of those are still straightforward.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoIt was conducted in an aircraft traveling west to east near the arctic.
- ivanbakel 9y agoI'm sure there's something of value in this, but I have no interest in reading a long legal document to find out what exactly it is. What would compel you to post this on an aggregator?
- MengerSponge 9y agoWhile we wait for someone with legal training to parse this out for us, here's my favorite deposition related thing on the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gk1 9y agoHere's another good one, featuring Bill Gates: https://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI https://youtu.be/HhdDZk45HDI
- Viper007Bond 9y agoHere's another transcript reading, done in the voices of Rick and Morty and animated by fans: https://youtu.be/WTWdP5DMdsM https://youtu.be/WTWdP5DMdsM
- stock_toaster 9y agoThat was amazing. Thanks for linking it!
- Zhenya 9y agoYou cannot forget the lil wayne deposition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5wi07X4AM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5wi07X4AM probably NSFW
- urs2102 9y agoLarry Page did not want to answer anything. I guess this is why they're seeking a 'round 2'. > Uber: Google invested in Uber; correct? > Page: Yes. > Uber: Do you recall when? > Page: My answer is yes. I'm definitely interested in some folks from Google chiming with respect to Larry's comments regarded starting side businesses at Google. Does anyone have any experience doing that? Is that allowed? I would imagine not, but I'm interested.
- harryh 9y agoIt's likely that Larry didn't want to be there but I wouldn't infer that from answers like this. This is exactly what you are taught to do before giving a deposition. You can't win in a deposition, you can only lose. The more information you give the other party the more you lose. So when they ask a question you are taught to answer precisely what they asked and no more. This is pretty unlike regular life. As an engineer if someone asked me "Hey, in order to get the widget-spinner to go clockwise do I call function X?" I might answer "No, what you need to do is set variable X to true." (or whatever). In a deposition the correct answer would just be "no." I was in a patent troll deposition once and the opposing attorney kept dancing around moderately close to the interesting stuff but never really got there due to the fact that he didn't really know what he was doing. It was kind of fun just saying "no" over and over again without giving him any additional context or help. Weird though. It's not how humans normally communicate.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> This is pretty unlike regular life. As an engineer if someone asked me "Hey, in order to get the widget-spinner to go clockwise do I call function X?" I might answer "No, what you need to do is set variable X to true." (or whatever). In a deposition the correct answer would just be "no." Or, even, possibly, “You might” (given the question phrasing ”...do I...”), if it is technically possible to get the fidget spinner to go clockwise with a call to function X, even though it's not the right way.
- harryh 9y ago
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoThe amount of information which must live in the blocked out text is insane. Questions like "Why was it (Waymo) created as a separate company under the umbrella of Alphabet?" have had their answers blocked out. I'm sure beyond the PR, a lot of people would love to see candid answers like that. The Otto lawyer suggests "Otto" and "Otto Trucking" are two separate entities, but if anyone explains to Larry the difference, it's not visible in this version. I hadn't heard anything about that before and am curious.
- cdolan 9y agoYou assume there are candid answers in there, though - in a deposition you answer as little as humanly possible. Your side of lawyers will ask a few key questions, any everything else is from your opposition trying to trip you up.
- georgemcbay 9y agoWell, candid means "truthful and straightforward", doesn't necessarily mean exhaustive. Sure, they are going to give away as little as possible, but considering it is a legal deposition and perjury is a thing, they aren't going to lie or actively dissemble like they might otherwise.
- stephengillie 9y agoIs it possible Waymo was created this way to address this specific outcome? The title of this article could have been "Larry Page Deposition Uber vs. Google Cars."
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoPossible, sure. But very few interested people are unaware that Waymo = Google = Alphabet in every sense except a technical legalistic one. I don't really think hiding the Google brand's involvement is of the sort of significance of value to justify the whole Alphabet move. A theory of my own based on this read: A lot of questions Larry Page was asked were below "his level". Compensation, policy, etc. But presumably, as the CEO of the company when this issue started, he is deposed on it. Maybe with a higher level of vertical structure, Google and 'other bets' legal concerns will go up to the level of that subsidiary's CEO and no further. Or to say otherwise, just that creating the additional level of obfuscation moves Larry and Sergey further from being involved in day-to-day operations, which at Google's size is considerable and presumably take up a significant amount of time to be involved with.
- tarr11 9y agoWell, I guess that I've learned that Larry Page has a ranch where they test self driving automobiles.
- brianpgordon 9y agoAnd the whereabouts of the ranch depend on the time of day... does Larry Page have a secret lair in space?
- colinbartlett 9y agoI found this part snarky and humorous, though I imagine truthful: > Questioner: Do you recall that a year or so before Mr. Levandowski left, he announced that he was going to leave? > Page: I mean, I wish I had a penny for every time employees do that and don't go. It happens pretty often.
- schoen 9y agoIt's entertaining to see Larry Page wishing he had a penny for every time something happened!
- jaggederest 9y ago"Mr Page, you do, in fact, have several pennies for each time that could possibly have happened."
- jtmarmon 9y agoIn multiple universes
- SilasX 9y ago"Man, if only I had a penny every time someone placed a web ad that got seen by 1000 people!" 'But you ... do ...?'
- jboggan 9y agoQuite truthful. When I left Google at the end of March to start my own thing a lot of folks came out of the woodwork telling me about their plans, how they've saved up $xxx,xxx to start their app and leave the company, etc. I visit friends back there for lunch every month or so and I still see the same faces at the same desks. When I ask them about pulling the trigger it's always "you know . . ." It's really a testament to the HR and REWS departments that they've constructed a workspace and a compensation package that keeps so many people there despite their own intentions! Masterful really.
- 9y ago
- IncRnd 9y agoThat was ---------- when reading through the ----------, because ---- the -----. So, the real reason was yes.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoLawyer: So, in December of 2015, before he left Google's employment, did you believe at that time that he had made significant contributions to Project Chauffeur? Larry: I mean, I think he's definitely been a significant person in the history of the project. Lawyer: And tell me why you believe that. If you can elaborate. What is it that he did that, in your mind, makes his contribution significant? Larry: Well, I didn't say that. I said he's been a significant person. I think it has yet to be determined whether it's a positive or negative.
- Qwertious 9y agoTranslation: I know he was on the project, but I didn't pay attention to the contributions of specific developers so I don't know whether he was the lodestone of the project or useless.
- brooklyntribe 9y agoJust a life tip. If doing a deposition, take a 1/2 a Xanax. Stare at the opposing lawyer, long and hard. And answer in a very slow tone. Like slooooowwwwwwww. Bonus points, spell out the names, VERY SLOW, of everyone involved. Watch lawyer meltdown. Enjoy. :-)
- redm 9y agoI couldn't make it through the whole thing. I understand Larry wanted to be specific but he seemed to be purposely obtuse on straight forward questions. Is this the way all depositions go?
- fspacef 9y agoFrom what I understand, depositions by design are a place for opposition lawyers to try and trip you up. LP is being cautious with his words and trying to be as vague as he can because of that.
- staticautomatic 9y agoNo one is trying to trip you up. Quite the contrary. They're trying to figure out what you know, a so-called "fishing expedition."
- fspacef 9y agoOf course in a perfect world that's what its supposed to be but as some other comments in the thread have pointed out, opp. lawyers are hoping to press on issues and hope you say something that can be misinterpreted as malicious or incompetent later in front of a jury.
- staticautomatic 9y agoSure, but looking for or even trying to force an admission which may be useful down the line is different than actively trying to trip someone up.
- IncRnd 9y agoI've been deposed, and prior to the deposition my attorney said not to volunteer anything and to answer as short as possible to the exact questions that were asked. The point for a deposition is to make the deposed say something incriminating, spill the secret sauce, or somehow get tripped up. The point for someone being deposed is to finish the deposition after having said as little as possible.
- amasad 9y agoTIL Google gives upwards of $100 million bonuses and Larry Page calls it "start-up-like compensation"! > Q: You would not have approved of a bonus of over $100 million if he hadn't made a significant. Can we agree on that? > A: I guess I'm questioning -- what is the purpose of that question? No one decided to pay me billions of dollars. [...] >Q: Did you ever express concern to anyone that the bonus was too high that was being paid to Mr. Levandowski? >A: Well, as I kind of just stated, I think that's -- I've stated we were focused on getting a start-up-like compensation system. And start-ups pay people a lot of money if they do something significant -- if the start-up does something significant.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoNot sure why you found that so noteworthy (or scandalous?). I know that there is a lot of general waffling on Larry's part there (for obv reasons) but the reasoning he offered sounds reasonable—Google is trying to run mini-startups within its orgs, and to attract talent, is offering those people 'bonuses' (or whatever you want to call it) of the order of magnitude that the co-founders of a successful startup would get. That provides them incentive to work within Google instead of on their own.
- wavefunction 9y agoI guess it's strange because the founders of successful startups have generally founded a successful startup. Paying $100,000,000 up-front to someone who hasn't yet delivered the same success seems to be putting the cart before the horse.
- blackguardx 9y agoSuccess is defined by Google. Clearly Google thought he delivered or they wouldn't have paid him. I'm guessing it was tied to shipping that autonomous car with no steering wheel that they made awhile back.
- huac 9y ago
- gk1 9y agoI found some of the answers humorous because they sound like "billionaire problems," like hardly remembering a $100M bonus, and this: > Q Do you also have a ranch property? > A Yes. > Q What is it called? > A I'm not sure which one you mean... Edit: Also, this gem: > Q I -- I appreciate that. And again, this can be designated attorneys' eyes only. It's not going to be released publicly... Oops.
- audeyisaacs 9y ago>> Q I -- I appreciate that. And again, this can be designated attorneys' eyes only. It's not going to be released publicly... >Oops. The paragraphs surrounding that are all blacked out, so I'm not sure that this is an oops.
- jeffdavis 9y agoWhat does that have to do with the case? Are they just asking him personal questions to invade his privacy?
- gk1 9y agoApparently some tests of the autonomous vehicles took place at one of Larry's ranches, along with possible meetings with Levandowski. I'm not sure why they start with such basic questions, though.
- obmelvin 9y agoIt's always a good idea to start with the basics
- Powerofmene 9y agoTo get it on record who you are for evidentiary reasoned also to lull the exponent into a false sense of ease or comfort. The attorney's try to be friendly, even chatty, so you will expound on your answers, correct them if they ask something wrong, etc. They will also ask quite frequently if you are on any medication that impairs your ability to participate in the deposition or that could affect your ability to recall events, etc. This prevents you from being able to later say, "oh well I did not say that correctly. I had taken a pain pill for my back that morning, etc. ". The point is to avoid future surprises if the case goes to court.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoThat sounded pretty painful for Larry. It sounded to me like Levandowski's lawyers were trying to get on the record that everything he got compensation wise was in exchange for past accomplishments. I don't know if anyone is seeking to claw that back or not.
- CalChris 9y agoThis is not Larry's first encounter with the witness stand and it won't be his last. He sounded the same as during the Oracle trial. He's a bright guy and is well coached. To a certain degree, you wonder why he was called.
- imh 9y ago>Q: You're saying it's not unusual to pay somebody a bonus of over $100 million? >A: I don't -- I don't think characterizing it as a bonus is correct. I think it's more like a start-up compensation, which would be more like equity. We have executives that are well compensated and certainly make a lot of money and so on. > So anyway, I don't think that it's so far outside of the norm for Silicon Valley compensation. (emphasis mine) Even in context, this seems crazy! Is $100M+ really not far from the norm for non C-level non unicorn execs here? Am I unknowingly on a forum of 8-9 digit zillionaires?
- jgh 9y agoHaha you see some of the salary conversations around here and you begin to wonder where you went wrong in life...
- ryandrake 9y agoIf you believe them, then I'd say "gullibility" is where you went wrong in life. Everyone on HN drives a ferrari and has a supermodel partner too, you know!
- jgh 9y agoMy wife is pretty hot, but unfortunately I only drive an A4 :(
- empath75 9y agoJust didn't meet the right people at the right time.
- pavlov 9y agoAm I unknowingly on a forum of 8-9 digit zillionaires? Yes, but most of us are temporarily embarrassed.
- lotu 9y agoI believe Larry Page is saying that you get compensation like being a C-level exec, but instead of having your own company you work at Google.
- acdx 9y agoDo you have a PDF link?
- imh 9y ago"I don't recall" seems to be an unusual statement here. It seems like he's using it more like, "I don't recall it outside of certain things I don't have to/won't answer." Am I reading that right?
- staticautomatic 9y agoYou're only supposed to testify as to things about which you have first hand knowledge, and you aren't supposed to speculate. So if you don't remember something clearly you should not say it.
- imh 9y agoHow does that relate to the privileged communication stuff? It seems like there's a lot he recalls, but not outside privileged communication, so he says "I don't recall?"
- staticautomatic 9y agoI take it to mean he doesn't recall learning anything about the topic aside from what his lawyers told him.
- imh 9y agoCool thanks for confirming/clarifying :)
- dbot 9y agoPlease take a moment to notice how horribly unfriendly a deposition transcript is. Thousands of these documents are produced every day, in a proprietary format that is antiquated and near impossible to work with. The PDF is unusable given the line numbers, headers, footers, etc. The simple act of copying and pasting - for example, writing a brief, a blog, etc. - is painful. I know developers could create an amazing solution, but the legal community hasn't asked yet, unfortunately.
- sanderjd 9y agoWhat would the business model be? Or to ask the same thing a different way: who is wasting money with the status quo?
- staticautomatic 9y agoLitigants are wasting money with the status quo. Not because of the format, per se, but because of a lack of reasonably good NLP-based search and summary tools. Much money is spent paying people to review transcripts by hand, when the bulk of the heavy lifting could be done with software. I know the market well enough to manage the product development and sell it but lack the NLP skills to build it. Anyone interested in talking about it feel free to hit me up.
- dsl 9y agoYou don't understand how large court cases work. You're obligated to provide everything to the other side, doing so in a format that requires them to have a small army of people to read every line instead of being able to do a simple text search is exactly the point. There are even companies that specialize in taking large amounts of electronic data (email is a good example) and printing every single page so that opposing council ends up with enough paper to fill a room. Edit: I also have no idea how you'd sell a product that considerably reduces billable hours.
- rayiner 9y agoYou could sell it to plaintiffs lawyers and the increasing universe of firms that do fixed fee or capped arrangements. Plaintiffs lawyers have huge incentives to minimize per-case investment, but they don't use much legal tech. Which is pretty great evidence of how well it works. Also you can obviously search PDFs. People read every line of deposition transcripts because they're looking for admissions (places where the deponent slips up and reveals useful information).
- joeblau 9y agoI wonder if someone could write an RNN to fill in the black boxes?
- unityByFreedom 9y agohah I thought the same thing. I think that's possible in the future but doubt anyone's attacking it now. Plus, who would fund it, a rogue state? Not so interested in being treasonous myself. Interesting problem though. Getting any level of accuracy above repeating "the" would be impressive.
- bquinlan 9y agoThe disposition makes it look like Levandowski was very difficult to work with: Q. "Anthony threatens to leave the team if he isn't the single leader." Do you see that. A. Yeah ... Q. Sebastian says: "If he is the single leader, a good number of team members will leave." Do you see that? ... There is more but copying and pasting from the source is really hard.
- ronack 9y agoI would not have expected Larry Page to have such a severe "I mean" verbal crutch.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoI mean, he was a software engineer to start off. Facetiousness aside, the deposition went on for 5 hours. It's quite a stressful endeavor that makes it more difficult to control any linguistic idiosyncrasies one might have.
- cookiecaper 9y agoFrom what I can gather, Brin and Page have never been polished image-centric executives like their peers who lead other public companies. There's a reason they don't come out much.
- keyanp 9y agoDoes anyone have insight into what the opposing lawyers are trying to get at by asking about the $120M bonus? It feels like they are establishing Levandowski's importance to Waymo maybe? But it isn't clear to me how/if this helps their case. > I'd like to start by asking you some questions about the bonus that was paid to Anthony Levandowski. He received a bonus that was in excess of $120 million; is that right? > was there any other occasion where any employee received more than $100 million for what you described as "start-up-like compensation"? > Sitting here today, can you recall of any other employee who received more than $100 million in what you've described as start-up compensation at Google?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoMy guess is that if they viewed him as important they can try to establish that they should have known he was doing what he was doing, instead of going behind Google's back and doing this without their knowledge. If he was that important to the company (by virtue of his pay), then it's easier to try to establish that Google was somewhat negligently not paying attention to a "top employee"
- unityByFreedom 9y agoor show that the employee was more prized than any stolen documents, thus downplaying the significance of the documents
- Qwertious 9y agoAn obvious response to that is "we also gave him lots of autonomy, because not having to deal with bureaucracy is a perk".
- novia 9y agoDoes anyone have insight into what the opposing lawyers are trying to get at by asking about the $120M bonus? It feels like they are establishing Levandowski's importance to Waymo maybe? But it isn't clear to me how/if this helps their case. Reminds me of the Silicon Valley subplot where Hooli gives Big Head outrageous compensation so they can use him in a legal proceeding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0owqfskr_jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0owqfskr_jQ My guess is that Uber's lawyers are trying to gather evidence for the argument that nothing was stolen from Waymo: Levandowski was (supposedly) so crucial to the success of Waymo that when he went to work for Uber, he was just bringing over his own IP.
- kainolophobia 9y ago> Page: I think they had a really hard time getting along [Levandowski and another employee], and yet they worked together for a long time. And it was a constant -- yeah, constant management headache to help them get through that. > Questioner: Do you recall that Anthony Levandowski was put on a personal improvement plan before he left? > Page: I don't recall that. > Questioner: Do you recall that Mr. Levandowski wanted to be head of the Project Chauffeur team? > Page: I mean, that does not surprise me. > Questioner: Do you recall having conversations with him, where he said to you that he wanted to be head of the team? > Page: I don't recall, but it wouldn't be surprising, you know. I think he clearly felt things could be done better.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- KKKKkkkk1 9y ago-The CEO of Alphabet did not take part in approving a $120m bonus to an employee. -He does not remember how Project Chauffeur was started. -He does not know whether due diligence was done when Google made its investment in Uber. -He does not know whether Waymo is allowed to file a lawsuit against Uber without notifying him. What is he responsible for in Alphabet then?
- dmix 9y agoDelegating responsibility for countless tasks like any good CEO and focusing his energy on things he is good at? Does he really need to be the guy approving bonuses to employees and coordinating details of investments in 3rd party companies?
- deanCommie 9y agoYet he approved every Google hire until 2011: https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-when-Larry-Page-signs-off-on-every-hire https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-when-Larry-Page-sign... It seems far more likely that Page is being evasive and doesn't want to give evidence supporting a narrative that Lewandowski was a superstar, Google was desperate to keep him, failed, and this lawsuit is just a malicious and anti-competitive. (Which I don't believe, but I'm guessing that's the narrative Uber would want to create)
- icebraining 9y agoHe's responsible for not answering questions if he might misremember and contradict the record.
- btian 9y agoHe runs a $100B a year business. You think he has time for every little detail? If you read page 24, he said it's not unusual for people to be paid $100M. Do you expect him to remember all the people and amounts paid?
- achamayou 9y agoYou have to wonder if that's really true though. Even the CEOs of the best performing investment banks don't make more than a fraction of that.
- Animats 9y agoThis is a bit strange. Remember, Waymo is the plaintiff, and Uber's lawyer is asking the questions. There's a long series of questions about Levandowski's $120 million bonus. Uber is establishing that Levandowski's contribution was valuable, which is the opposite of what they want to prove. There's a big censored section which may have to do with Levandowski's compensation agreement. There's a censored discussion of Sebastian Thrun ("He was CEO of Udacity"). Uber's lawyer asks Page how much Google invested in Uber. Page evades. There's discussion of conflict between Levandowski and Chris Urmson. Levandowski wanted to be in charge. Page says Levandowski's contribution may have been negative. There's more, but if there's anything exciting in there, it's in the censored sections.
- unityByFreedom 9y agomaybe Uber wants to show that Levandowski is the prized asset -- not any documents he might have taken with him if the documents are known to have been taken, all they can do is downplay their significance
- TheSageMage 9y agoIANAL, and I'm reading between the (redacted) lines. Did anyone get the sense that Uber's lawyers line of questioning was leading towards the possibility that Alphabet let this theft of their IP happen to catch Uber with their pants down? There are questions about how Larry felt about Mr. Levandowski real contribution to Waymo/Chauffeur(p21 Line 15). They are asking about David Drummond's position on Uber's Board(p40 line 13). This leads to questions about when Larry knew Mr Levandowski was leaving the company(p45 Line 14). These lead to questions about Mr. Levandowski's attempt to spin off a team from Google/Alphabet (p64 Line 2). ... Setting up the dates on a redacted email, they to be talking about Larry's knowledge of IP and people taken by Uber for autonomous cars (p181 line 10). Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but what are the implications of Google getting sloppy with protecting itself at the risk of catching a competitor steal your work?
- dlgeek 9y agoI love the part where the lawyer for one of the defendants gets his questioning off to such a start: > BY MR. CHATTERJEE: > > Q Hi, Mr. Brin. We haven't met before. My name is Neel Chatterjee. I represent an entity called Otto Trucking. > MR. VAN NEST: Mr. Page. > MR. CHATTERJEE: Mr. Page. It's -- the names are used so interchangeably in the market. Mr. Page.
- mcemilg 9y agoIt tagged as 'HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL' and published on HN. It was really secret(!) meh.
- stillhere 9y ago>If you're going to buy a company or something, you would do more thorough diligence. >When you say "more thorough diligence" what do you mean by that? >I don't know.