[6gvONxR4sf7o]

This is an interesting claim. It basically says that Uber knew about Levandowski's crimes when they agreed to indemnify him against claims brought by Google. Given the way Uber seems to work, this wouldn't surprise me at all. There seems to be a lot of bullshit in this claim, but that specific piece wouldn't surprise me.

Mostly unrelatedly, this part seems particularly shitty:

> In fact, Uber had considered acquiring Tyto in 2015 but declined to do so at that time. Tyto was ultimately acquired by Otto with Uber’s consent and at Uber’s request prior to Uber closing on its acquisition of Otto to secure a lower price for Tyto than what Tyto would have requested had it known that Uber was the acquirer.

[AnimalMuppet]

The kind of people who will work with you to rip off others are also the kind of people who will rip you off. Who knew?

[gimmeThaBeet]

That is related, and the Tyto thing is arguably not shitty in the context of this case, given Leandowski's improper affiliation with Tyto while he was at Google was one of the pieces of the case. It's hard to say they got cheated or something when he basically controlled both companies.

> Specifically, Uber was aware that Mr. Levandowski had facilitated the relationship between Tyto’s founder and its investor, a holding company managed by Mr. Stojanovski that invested funds provided by two irrevocable trusts formed for the benefit of Mr. Levandowski’s children, and would visit Tyto and his friends at that company to talk about technical and business matters from time to time. Uber was also aware of Pierre Droz’ (a Google employee) allegations that Mr. Levandowski was involved with Tyto and even deposed him extensively on that very topic during the Waymo litigation.

Part of Google's claims (rightly, imo, though ianal) was that Levandowski had a stake or outright controlled Tyto while he was at Google and before he had even formed Otto.

Just before your quoted section shows how shady the whole thing was.

>Uber’s claims were false. Uber accepted Mr. Levandowski’s tender of indemnity only after Google’s commencement of the arbitration proceeding alleging claims relating to Tyto and only after Mr. Levandowski had been interviewed by Uber extensively about Google’s allegations relating to Tyto. In addition, Mr. Levandowski’s devices given to Stroz had extensive information about Tyto on them. And Stroz had specifically identified other materials on Mr. Levandowski’s devices that he had not disclosed during interviews.

This is basically Uber saying (among other things) "yeah, we didn't know you were connected to Odin Wave/Tyto that Google is making claims about, that's outside the indemnity agreement."

And his response is "Oh no, you totally knew"

[tyingq]

Hah...I remember guessing this might happen a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22633584

[guytv]

Levandowski & Ron behaved like common crooks.

[ponker]

I don’t think so. When you sell a company you are relinquishing control of it. The acquirer wants to turn around and sell to Uber that’s none of your business. You aren’t entitled to know the ultimate acquirer to set your price any more than CVS is entitled to know my income to set my price for a bottle of Coke on a hot day.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

I'd consider it more like accepting a new job. Your new employer is totally entitled to reorg and transfer you to a new team you wouldn't have wanted to join on week 3. But if they planned on transferring you out of the position all along, while they were simultaneously convincing you to leave your old job for this cool new position that you'll totally get to have (for two weeks), then they're being shitty.

If I found out that my new employer/acquirer was dishonest to get me on board with the terms we ended up on, sure they "won" the negotiation in a way they're entitled to, but it's going to sour the relationship for good reason and I'd say it's bad behavior that makes the ecosystem worse for all of us.

[unreal37]

I don't think Uber did anything wrong by asking Otto to buy the company that they wanted to buy. I would do the same.

But Levandowski screwed over his friend by getting him a lower price than he would have gotten.

This isn't CVS and Coke, this is one friend buying from another, only to turn around and flip it for more immediately.