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Comment by laluser | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone comment on how Waymo might come up with such a figure? Especially in the context of something that hasn't materialized yet (no revenue)? I assume this is towards the high-end of what they expect to get. Also, why would Uber want to push for making this figure public? Seems like it would be against their interests at this point.

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The estimated figure will be calculated similar to how a startup's value is calculated. There is some assumption made based on current market size, say the total car sales, and potential market growth. They then work backwards to calculate the estimated value of such technology at present date.

As for making the figure public and it is pure speculation. It might be an attempt to reflect this on Waymo being greedy - as you might have noticed the by line "just for starters". Most people tend to read headlines and not content. Secondly it might give them an edge during jury selection for the trial.

Maybe they want to have the figure public because they see it as very high and want to bias the public about the absurdity (from their perspective) of such a high number? People may see the number and conclude that Waymo is just being vindictive/aggresive/jerks and believe the suit has no merit.

I have absolutely no insider knowledge and am just speculating.

Since we don't have full disclosure of what tread secrets uber is being accused of but it is a general knowledge that it revolves around Grizzle bear 3 circuit board design. There had been two recent stories which tried to portray that the whole thing was of low-value to Waymo.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/alarm-bel...

and this ridiculous story of previous version of this circuit board was gifted to departing employee in the form of earrings:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sel...

Both of these stories points to waymo not being diligent in hiding their tread secret or simply did not value this information much. That's why Uber is probably trying to make this figure public to make them sound greedy.

What I'm also interested in is how much money do lawsuits like these cost. Both companies have large amounts of cash, so this isn't one of those cases where the one with the most money wins, but I do expect both of them to spend a lot.

Being pre-revenue doesn't mean something has no value. They are calculating it based on what value they deem it to have. If the stolen tech is of vital importance to producing a product that could be worth a nearly 3 billion dollars, then that's what they'll sue for. Actually they'll sue for a bit more, but that's roughly how it works. Like anything, it's better to ask for $10 when someone is only willing to pay $8, than to ask for $5 when someone is willing to pay $8.

The figure is estimated based on the investement google has made.

Didn't we just read Google has invested $1.1B into self driving and a significant portion of that was paid to Levandowski?

It'd be based on a more comprehensive view of total damages. The investment already made, the present estimated value (they'd probably argue it's a multiple of the original investment), and some amount of future potential value that Waymo may be deprived of due to Uber's actions (not sure how well that would hold up here, it's a very unclear extrapolation, unlike say a business with consistent earnings over many years).

The amusing thing is that Levandowski comes out of this just fine. As a Google employee, he was required to sign an arbitration agreement. That cuts both ways - Google can't sue him. Google did take him to arbitration, and there was some settlement, but apparently not a huge one. That's over, and Google can't reopen that matter.

The arbitration didn't involve trade secret claims, which the lawsuit against Uber does. Instead, the arbitration involved poaching employees.[0] Poaching employees is child's play compared to stealing the LIDAR design.

Second, Judge Alsup referred the case the US attorney's office for criminal investigation. If convicted of intellectual property theft (and there's a lot of evidence about this), Anthony Levandowski could be end up in prison for a very long time.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/29/waymo-pursued-arbitration-...

[1] https://www.wired.com/2017/05/googles-fight-uber-takes-turn-...

>"If convicted of intellectual property theft (and there's a lot of evidence about this), Anthony Levandowski could be end up in prison for a very long time."

That's just barbaric. Yes, IP laws serve a public good when they're able to balance the needs of incentivizing creative endeavors with ensuring those endeavors eventually end up in the public domain. But it's not even remotely morally defensible to put a human being in a fucking cage for years because they shared some secrets related to making self-driving cars.

The US already has way too non-violent people in prison.

The amusing thing is that Levandowski comes out of this just fine

I'm pretty sure he regrets what he has done. About half of his money has gone to taxes and the rest has a way of going pretty fast when you have a Google and DOJ on your back. So, I doubt that he will be fine.

He can surely manage... even with half of his 120 million dollar bonus going to taxes.

That's 60 million, assuming that anything prior to that is relatively pocket change. Lawyers cost $1000+ an hour and you need several, for years. Not to mention any possible claw-back, lawsuits for fraud, theft etc etc. There was an article yesterday here; Lance Armstrong has spent some $15 million on his lawyers alone so far.

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