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Comment by aetherson | Hacker News Reader

It seems like this is a pretty positive scenario for Uber: Levandowski will refuse to drop his privilege, they'll fire him, and there appears to be no sign in the rest of the discovery of Google's stolen files.

At that point, what can Google really hope to get? Alsup won't give them a preliminary injunction without more evidence, and they'll have largely run out of levers to pull. I'm sure they won't just give up immediately, but I think that all they'll really do is ratchet up legal bills a bit higher.

They'll basically have to hope that losing Levandowski is a big blow for Uber.

I am not a lawyer.

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>It seems like this is a pretty positive scenario for Uber

Is it though? Google's claim is that Levandowski was meeting with Uber execs long before he left Waymo to form Otto. Now they're throwing Levandowski under the bus.

What happens if tomorrow, Levandowski turns around and says "Yes, I did everything that Google claims- and Uber told me to do it". What if he provides evidence of those meetings, all those things. This stuff has been referred to criminal courts now, and Levandowski is at risk of possible jail time.

He's no fool, and now he knows he has no one protecting him. Why not screw over Uber if they're willing to do the same to him?

Well, the "why not" of that scenario is that Levandowski would have to abandon his 5th Amendment protection in order to do so, and almost guarantee criminal prosecution.

I don't really agree with the characterization of Uber throwing Levandowski under the bus: they've been very scrupulous with him, and basically they're only threatening firing because Alsup twisted their arm. But let's say that Levandowski feels betrayed.

First: Note that Levandowski is super rich (Google paid him north of $100M). It's not like losing his job is going to prevent him from living a life of luxury forever.

Second: If he maintains his 5th Amendment protections, even if he does get prosecuted, what's going to happen? It seems like there's pretty good evidence that he stole the files, but without something more, how much in the way of damages will the prosecution be able to prove? Is this something that the US Attorney even wants to bother with?

So he strikes a deal with the Justice Department. Minimal sentence (or maybe immunity?) and he hands them the execs of a company that has continually pissed off governments world-wide by skirting around laws.

There are no federal or criminal charges at all. This is all civil.

Yet. But I agree that this talk of a deal sounds rather baseless. Sounds more like hollywood than real life.

Judge Alsup did tell federal prosecutors that they should take a look at the case, though.

I mean... maybe. Assuming that he actually has damning evidence against Kalanick, and that, even presuming that Uber did know about the theft, they weren't circumspect about admitting it.

That seems like a pretty narrow scenario. You have to believe that:

a. Levandowski feels betrayed by Uber (I don't think he has cause to)

b. Uber did in fact know about the theft when they hired Levandowski.

c. Kalanick straightforwardly said something about the theft that was so damning that it makes for a good case a year later, or provided some kind of documentary evidence to Levandowski, rather than wink-wink nudge-nudging.

d. A US Attorney is interested in offering this kind of deal (that is, giving one white-collar criminal a good deal in order to go after... a somewhat richer and more famous white-collar criminal).

I wouldn't underestimate the prosecution's leverage here: 14,000 counts of even a relatively minor crime like "theft of company resources" could add up to a lot of time.

This is a fairly uninformed opinion, but I believe Google could sue Levandowski directly, perhaps for the $680M his company got, and most likely the purchase agreement for Otto included a clause that said they would defend him against lawsuits that arose from the sale whether he was employed or not.

Which would put them right back where they are now.

Also, there are probably a whole bunch of legal maneuvers they could use to unseal the laptop and get it separated from the 5th amendment protection.

At this corporate scale and future market size, their legal bills are approximately free.

I'd say that the bad press they'd generate through a protracted legal process in an attempt to drive Uber into the ground may be strategically wise.

Also the ill will they'd amplify would lighten the competition for talent between the two companies.

They likely wouldn't get a total injunction even if Levandowski turns over the files. Google still has to show that the trade secrets are being used and where, if they want a judge to issue an injunction that stop Uber from operating.

Google is going to have to look at Uber tech and see how similar it is to the documents Levandowski allegedly stole. They will have to depose Uber engineers, read Levandowski's emails at Uber, etc.

Doesn't Google own a portion of Uber? Can't they use that for access?

Being a shareholder doesn't usually give you access to non-public materials.

They'll be able to get emails, technical docs, and deposition testimony via the court system.

I'm totally uneducated about things like this. Can someone explain if this could ever happen? What really stops activist investors from demanding logs from a web company, for instance?

Maybe the fact that they are not operating the company. They maybe have a board seat. They can use that vote to get rid of the CEO and hire a new one. That CEO can then decide to give them access to files.

CEOs of delaware corps have to do whats in the best interest of the company. It is probably not in the best interest of the company to reveal documents to a shareholder for the purpose of being successfully sued by that shareholder.

Its probably entirely impossible for a random investor to demand shit.

It's not as bad as it could be for Uber, but I don't think it's positive. They bought Otto for a reason - either because the talent (mainly Levandowski) was so good, or else because of the stolen documents. Either way, Uber doesn't get what they paid for. Not good when they paid $680 million.

I'd argue that they bought Otto mainly for the narrative. But they got Levandowski for the better part of a year -- how long exactly does it take to knowledge-transfer information about stolen LIDAR? They also get all the other Otto engineers.

I think that the worst scenario for Uber is actually if they really do think that Levandowski himself (not his stolen files) are uniquely amazingly valuable. Which may be true.

Well, even if they bought Otto mainly for the narrative, they probably aren't liking the narrative that they're getting...

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