Larry Page Deposition in Uber vs. Waymo

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.

harryh2• 9 years ago

It'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• 9 years 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.

schoen2• 9 years ago

This cautious question-answering might feel unusual because it potentially violates Gricean norms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicature

(In typical conversation, speakers often guess why a question was asked and try to respond to the inferred motivation.)

the_stc• 9 years ago

Do not go overboard or it will backfire:

Take a 2 hour disposition transcript to the judge.

All answers are ~I cannot recall~.

Profit.

sokoloff3• 9 years ago

I was deposed in a case; after referencing one-way hashing in an answer, opposing counsel attempted to get me to ramble by saying, "I don't think I understand." I replied, "I agree."

ronilan• 9 years ago

So when they ask a question you are taught to answer precisely what they asked and no more.

I find this interesting conceptually.

Can you elaborate where this is being taught? or, if not of general knowledge, who, when, where taught you that?

Not a deposition, just an internet question.

prostoalex3• 9 years ago

I had a similar experience with the deposition (instructed by my attorney to keep things simple and single-syllable if I wanted to get out of it quickly), and the switch from on-record to off-record was pretty weird, as the opposing side knew my attorney pretty well, which inspired a lively exchange about weekend plans, common acquaintances, etc. In a few minutes we're back on record with just dry "Yes"es, "No"es and "Do not recall"s flying around.

bitmapbrother2• 9 years ago

Not Google, but side business related. I once worked with a person that built and sold computers on the side. He fielded customer support calls from his desk. He was let go shortly thereafter. The new guy did have to answer his customer support calls, though.

objclxt• 9 years ago

Larry Page did not want to answer anything.

That's how you do a deposition. I don't know how many depositions Page has had to do over the years, but it's not his first rodeo. Depositions aren't just used as fact-finding (and in a case like this most of the facts are already known) - they're used to force the deposed party into either lying or omitting something they later rely on in order to discredit their eventual testimony.

For example, the question "do you recall when" seems simple enough, but let's say I mistakenly mix up the year in my deposition. "How can he be trusted", the defense will say, "if he can't remember basic facts like when the company was bought?".

cdolan2• 9 years ago

Why is this downvoted? He's not incorrect, Page wanted to provide the bare minimum answers, as he has the right to.

tehwebguy2• 9 years ago

Probably because the example used was not an instance of that

tehwebguy2• 9 years ago

There are some good examples of him not wanting to answer anything, but this isn't one of them. Read the next 2 lines!

Q: Do you recall when? [asked again]
A: No, I don't remember when we did that.

They were probably talking over each other or something.

ocdtrekkie2• 9 years ago

The 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.

cdolan2• 9 years ago

You 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• 9 years ago

Well, 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• 9 years ago

Is 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."

ocdtrekkie2• 9 years ago

Possible, 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.

hidenotslide• 9 years ago

That whole "Otto Trucking" portion was embarrassing, and not for Larry.

rorykoehler• 9 years ago

Otto and Otto Trucking could indeed be 2 difference companies. There was even a lawsuit as they both operate in the self-driving tech space... more here: https://www.ottomotors.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/o...

tarr11• 9 years ago

Well, I guess that I've learned that Larry Page has a ranch where they test self driving automobiles.

brianpgordon2• 9 years ago

And the whereabouts of the ranch depend on the time of day... does Larry Page have a secret lair in space?

colinbartlett• 9 years ago

I 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.

schoen2• 9 years ago

It's entertaining to see Larry Page wishing he had a penny for every time something happened!

jaggederest• 9 years ago

"Mr Page, you do, in fact, have several pennies for each time that could possibly have happened."

SilasX• 9 years 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• 9 years ago

Quite 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.

dsfyu404ed2• 9 years ago

Or maybe they just don't hire people they can't trap there...

madeofpalk• 9 years ago

This is not unique at all to Google, or even tech. People complain and whinge about leaving, but never actually do (or don't for a while).

tj-teej• 9 years ago

You're also taking them at their word that they do intend to start their own companies, I think to a lot of folks in the Valley this sentiment is the same as the "I'm going to quit and write my novel" cliche from the 20th century.

What's the line from the first episode of Silicon Valley "I don't want to become a Hooli-lifer"?

drewg123• 9 years ago

Do you think REWS is actually useful for retention?

I've always thought that REWS was much more beneficial for recruiting, in the phase when they walk you around campus and show you all the impressive public spaces, and talk about all the nice services they offer. The one thing they don't show you is the huge, loud, windowless open office space where the team you'll be joining actually works. And by constantly shrinking that space, removing cube walls, and making workplaces more and more miserable, I think they actually hurt retention.

When I left Google in June of 2015, my team was just about to be transitioned from an older building on the main campus where we had actual cubes with walls (nevermind that there were already 6 people per cube) and a few shared offices, into a modern design in Sunnvale, with just a giant room with tables and little/no dividers. Between loosing access to all the cool things on the main campus (cafe choice, gyms, events like TGIF) and the new, crappy workspace, it just seemed like a gigantic downgrade.

I now work from home in the middle of nowhere, where I have an office with a door I can close, and a window for natural light. (and working remotely was something else that was not possible at Google)

notatoad2• 9 years ago

"i wish i had a penny for every time" really takes on a different meaning when it's in the same deposition as "i can't be expected to keep track of every hundred million dollar payout"

taneq• 9 years ago

Interesting comparison given that the hundred-million-dollar payout came from 10 billion pennies' worth of ad clicks.

IncRnd2• 9 years ago

That was ---------- when reading through the ----------, because ---- the -----. So, the real reason was yes.

bitmapbrother2• 9 years ago

Lawyer: 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.

Qwertious2• 9 years ago

Translation: 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• 9 years ago

Just 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• 9 years ago

I 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?

fspacef2• 9 years ago

From 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.

staticautomatic6• 9 years ago

No one is trying to trip you up. Quite the contrary. They're trying to figure out what you know, a so-called "fishing expedition."

IncRnd2• 9 years ago

I'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• 9 years ago

TIL 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.

kinkrtyavimoodh5• 9 years ago

Not 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• 9 years ago

I 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.

gk13• 9 years ago

I 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• 9 years 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• 9 years ago

What does that have to do with the case? Are they just asking him personal questions to invade his privacy?

gk13• 9 years ago

Apparently 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.

Powerofmene4• 9 years ago

No, in a deposition you are open to having to answer questions about pretty much anything. Your attorney can't do much to object or stop a line of questioning without a court order limiting scope.

Some attorney's will ask about totally irrelevant things just to annoy you or hoping to catch you off guard when they come back to the topic later. Or in some cases, they simply want to get you frustrated so that they get under your skin when they are asking their important questions. Depositions are just another part of discovery.

All the attorney has to do is catch you in one lie or to get you to make a misstatement that conflicts with some document they know they have and they will pound it into the ground in court. This is where the ammunition for the "were you lying then or are you lying now?" crap comes from.

ChuckMcM• 9 years ago

That 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.

CalChris2• 9 years ago

This 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.

imh4• 9 years 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?

jgh2• 9 years ago

Haha you see some of the salary conversations around here and you begin to wonder where you went wrong in life...

ryandrake3• 9 years ago

If 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!

empath75• 9 years ago

Just didn't meet the right people at the right time.

pavlov• 9 years ago

Am I unknowingly on a forum of 8-9 digit zillionaires?

Yes, but most of us are temporarily embarrassed.

lotu• 9 years ago

I 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• 9 years ago

Do you have a PDF link?

imh4• 9 years 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?

staticautomatic6• 9 years ago

You'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.

imh4• 9 years ago

How 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?"

dbot• 9 years ago

Please 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.

sanderjd2• 9 years ago

What would the business model be? Or to ask the same thing a different way: who is wasting money with the status quo?

staticautomatic6• 9 years ago

Litigants 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.

drtillberg• 9 years ago

But it would be an act of faith and patience to redact and docket-file high-tech versions-- that is seamless for the low-tech PDF, which was pen-signed and docket-friendly. The PDF was even pulled from the docket and re-posted on scribd, with searchable text intact.

There also would be a time-synchronized video and an e-transcript, yes, in proprietary non-open standards.

noloblo2• 9 years ago

is there a link to the video?

bonyt• 9 years ago

A lot of the time they're also provided in other formats, including plain text. It's still got pages and line numbers (they're essential for citing to), and it uses an ASCII form feed for new page, but it's better to work with. You can actually pipe it to port 9100 on a common network printer and it'll come out about right. There is also software to work with these transcripts.

noloblo2• 9 years ago

why is so many pages completely redacted? how do you read the unreadcted original

Tomte• 9 years ago

Being on the legal teams for plaintiff or defendant would be a start.

jccooper• 9 years ago

Unless they do something stupid like just draw block boxes over the real text, you don't. That's the purpose of redaction.

rodgerd• 9 years ago

Given developers are responsible for CSV, PDF (a complex programming language that renders documents as a side effect), XML, and JSON, I see no particular reason to share your optimism.

model_m_warrior• 9 years ago

For all the good press PDF is still a bitch to work with when trying make end to end workflows (particularly if you want to avoid opening acrobat or something).

rjeli• 9 years ago

There are a number of legal tech companies fighting to break into legal document management (ediscovery). I worked for Everlaw (a16z) and there's also Disco and Logikcull, among others

wglb4• 9 years ago

Let's not forget Relativity :)

rayiner4• 9 years ago

There is nothing antiquated about PDF. It's an incredibly widely supported standardized format that can cleanly handle everything from a Word document to a scan of a prisoner's hand written pro se brief to a printed document that someone has scribbled on. It preserves formatting information, which is incredibly important because court filings are regularly printed on paper. Not because there is no electronic workflow (the entire workflow is electronic at least in federal court), but because it's a pain in the ass to read and annotate things on a computer versus putting tabs in a binder.

As to the line/page format, it's used because sentences or even words within depositions are quoted in briefs with citations to exactly where they appear. And frankly, if your software can't even grok a simple 2D format it's probably not intelligent enough to do any useful processing of the document.

I'm always on the lookout for good legal technology. But legal technology purveyors are like those people who think programming IDEs should all be visual environments where you program by dragging and dropping connectors between blocks. It's like, no.

ericd• 9 years ago

It's the structure of the document that's the problem, not the file format. Copying and pasting out of it is painful.

Angostura2• 9 years ago

I think you misunderstand the original comment. It isn't criticising the PDF format. It is crticising the format of the PDF

diN0bot• 9 years ago

not specific to depositions, but a piece that might help: api for pdf's https://www.pdfotter.com/

justonepost• 9 years ago

No freaking kidding. It's 2017, where's the json..

vintageseltzer• 9 years ago

The goal of law firms is to maximize billable hours and make it difficult for non-lawyers to conduct legal work. Working efficiently is not the goal at all.

wglb4• 9 years ago

This is a particular file format used for legal transcripts rendered as a PDF. The underlying format is not all that difficult to work with. Good legal software needs to be able to deal with hundreds of different file formats, from Lotus Notes to the oldest MS Word format or early forms of PowerPoint. The transcript format is a piece of cake relative to others.

joeblau• 9 years ago

I wonder if someone could write an RNN to fill in the black boxes?

unityByFreedom4• 9 years ago

hah 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• 9 years ago

The 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• 9 years ago

I would not have expected Larry Page to have such a severe "I mean" verbal crutch.

SOLAR_FIELDS2• 9 years ago

I 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• 9 years ago

From 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• 9 years ago

Does 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_FIELDS2• 9 years ago

My 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"

unityByFreedom4• 9 years ago

or show that the employee was more prized than any stolen documents, thus downplaying the significance of the documents

Qwertious2• 9 years ago

An obvious response to that is "we also gave him lots of autonomy, because not having to deal with bureaucracy is a perk".

novia• 9 years ago

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

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• 9 years 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.

roguskinta• 9 years ago

  MR. GONZALEZ: Are you generally aware of the policies of Google?
  MR. PAGE: I mean, there's a lot of policies.

KKKKkkkk1• 9 years 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• 9 years ago

Delegating 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• 9 years ago

Yet he approved every Google hire until 2011: 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• 9 years ago

He's responsible for not answering questions if he might misremember and contradict the record.

btian2• 9 years ago

He 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• 9 years ago

You 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.

mrkrabo• 9 years ago

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?

That's a lie. Do you really think Google would be paying someone $100M or something close to that and the CEO wouldn't hear of it?

ryandrake3• 9 years ago

I call bullshit. I don't care how big your company is. If some employee is getting $100M, the CEO is going to know about it. There couldn't be more than a handful of people at that company making that much.

magicalist• 9 years ago

Eh, there's definitely a limit, but if the maintainer of a major piece of software didn't remember how a particular feature first started or if they were in the OWNERS file of a particular directory, I would consider them to be a completely representative member of our species.

notatoad2• 9 years ago

He's the CEO of alphabet, not the CEO of waymo. He manages Alphabet's investment in waymo, he doesn't manage waymo.

Eridrus2• 9 years ago

Waymo is a relatively recent invention though; Project Chauffeur started in Google.

Animats• 9 years ago

This 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.

unityByFreedom4• 9 years ago

maybe 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• 9 years ago

IANAL, 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• 9 years ago

I 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.

frandroid• 9 years ago

Possibly a tactic to make himself look dumb so Page underestimates him.

Zhenya2• 9 years ago

Wow - that is interesting.

Looked him up - well accomplished and seemingly in the know.

PavleMiha2• 9 years ago

Or maybe just trying to get under his skin.

mcemilg• 9 years ago

It tagged as 'HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL' and published on HN. It was really secret(!) meh.

stillhere• 9 years 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.

Larry Page Deposition in Uber vs. Waymo

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