A surprise settlement brought an early end to the high-profile court battle between Uber and Waymo on Friday.
And Quartz’s Alison Griswold says that, after all the drama, there was one person who came out as the winner: Uber’s new chief exec Dara Khosrowshahi.
“He wrote this letter [after the agreement] saying that his job is to set the course for the future of the company,” she said. “He gets to come out looking like the adult in the room and the one who’s cleaning up the mistakes of his predecessor, which is only good for his image of turning Uber around.”
Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, sued Uber a year ago, alleging trade secret theft. At trial this week, lawyers painted a picture of a vast conspiracy by former CEO Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo engineer whose start-up Otto was acquired by Uber in 2016, to steal technology and get ahead in the autonomous vehicle race.
But before the start of the fourth day of testimony, the companies said they reached a deal. Uber agreed not to use any Waymo technology or components in its cars. The company also handed over a 0.34 percent stake, valued at about $245 million.
In his letter, Khosrowshahi said he regretted the actions that led to the trial and that he agrees “Uber’s acquisition of Otto could and should have been handled differently.”
A new version of the federal student aid application known as the FAFSA is available for the 2024-2025 school year, but only on a limited basis as the U.S. Department of Education works on a redesign meant to make it easier to apply.
A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be in focus Monday as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature return for a new session at the state Capitol.
The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years is on its way to the moon. The private lander from Astrobotic Technology blasted off Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, catching a ride on United Launch Alliance's brand new rocket Vulcan.
Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oil fell last year from record highs in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors helped worsen hunger worldwide, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.
Wall Street is drifting higher after reports showed the job market remains solid, but key parts of the economy still don’t look like they’re overheating.
The Biden administration is docking more than $2 million in payments to student loan servicers that failed to send billing statements on time after the end of a pandemic payment freeze.
The nation’s employers added a robust 216,000 jobs last month, the latest sign that the American job market remains resilient even in the face of sharply higher interest rates.
A U.S. labor agency has accused SpaceX of unlawfully firing employees who penned an open letter critical of CEO Elon Musk and creating an impression that worker activities were under surveillance by the rocket ship company.
