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by hackunomatter 3308 days ago
I think, basically, Uber will pay some $$$ to make the lawsuit go away and "license" Waymo's tech (which they already had, courtesy Mr. Lewandowski, but now will legally have it).
1 comments

You don't think Google's out for blood? Didn't they announce a Waymo partnership with Lyft a couple of weeks ago?
I agree. Google doesn't want a license agreement. As pointed out below, yes, there is investment, but I think Google/Alphabet is out for blood and the investment dollars will be recouped in the civil settlement if not the arbitration with Levandowski.

Either way, I don't think Google cares. They want to be first on the market. And based on how badly Uber has been flouting the law, I suspect Google gets there first no matter what. This just slows Uber down.

It won't matter though. Money will change hands. And that's about it. Google/Alphabet/Waymo/Lyft will be first to market in a pretty shitty way, followed by Uber. The tech world and early adopters will go nuts and in this case probably die in a fire. Then Apple and Tesla will come in with a far superior safety/user experience and take over.

None of this really matters at this point. It's a waiting game. This is what Apple always does and what Tesla has started doing: wait for the early entries in the market to do their thing, learn from their mistakes, and pwn the market later with better UX and marketing.

I don't think that's the whole story.

If Google would let it be known that you can take a bunch of IP and walk out the front door to a competitor that would be a very expensive signal.

So for them this is as much about this concrete case as it is about how Google will deal with situation where their IP grows legs.

> Early adopters will [...] probably die in a fire. Then [...] Tesla will come in with a far superior safety [...] and take over.

Well, for the moment, the record is exactly the opposite of that prediction.

Google owns a chunk of Uber, so I'm not sure they'd want to wipe out their investment?
Yeah, doesn't Google have something like a 6.7% stake in Uber? Even with share diluation by half, at a $60bn valuation that's still $2bn. Do we really think Google can win much more than $2bn in this Waymo lawsuit?
That valuation is predicated on Uber still being worth that much, if they end up guilty in criminal proceedings (for example).