Author here. Thanks for all the comments, I've been hesitant to post this to the court of public opinion, yet curiosity about what the HN community would think caused me to push the button. My lawyers - who were really excellent - represented me (on contingency!) because it seemed the chance of a judge not accepting a motion to dismiss (for a variety of reasons I don't want to detail here) was non-zero. And the process of discovery would be very costly for NVIDIA with depositions from many executives who have better things to do.
Thanks for sharing your story in straightforward detail. Do you believe, in an ethical sense (independent of the legal sense), that you are owed roughly a billion dollars?
It sounds like you were rather negligent as well. You didn't care to have any inkling of memory of the vesting schedule in 1996, or just to double check and "wrap up" the financial details of that agreement after the work was done?
It does seem somewhat suspect to elide mention of what became of the shares that you did own, and that you only re-noticed Nvidia in 2024. Every 14 year old PC nerd/gamer knew that name in 2001. It is quite a feat of negligence to wait that long to dig this up.
You seem like a decent person, and I do believe that you are justly owed something, but I must admit that I find this to be a depressing tale of rich people spinning wheels for naught. A modest inflation-adjusted multiple of the original value of the options seems reasonable.
Before anyone accuses me of shilling or white-knighting for a major corporation, I don't have any broader sympathy for them and I would generally take the side of David over Goliath, which I think some commenters are making this out to be, but it seems more like Mini-Goliath and Mega-Goliath are bikeshedding and David has no stake in the matter.
While not a letter of the law argument, there's a spirit of the law argument here that comes from the ideas like adverse posession and the statute of limitations. The OP didn't use or even worry about the options/shares for 30 some years: the time to speak up and assert ownership was literal decades ago.
If someone has built a house on a remote lot you claim to own, while making property improvements and paying taxes, but you've never visited for 30 years; are you really entitled to swoop in and seize their house now?
Physical land is quite different. And if squatting is legal, it makes a kind of tax of ownership and also means that any registry is invalid.
If you are saying the physical house only and not the land that is different yes. Someone who can move the house obviously should still own the house. Trespassing usually doesn't invalidate ownership of all your belongings.
More important is the meta concept of like we write confusing contracts and then execute them and we agree on an end date (all transactions done) and then informally and implicitly we agree that if anything was wrong you only have z years after close date to fix it.
This is kind of thing where big people can do it themselves and other people perhaps need a regulated entity to review their docs ... Like mortgages and what not.
The interesting thing here would be if the IRS decides to have an opinion ...
Eric_Gullichsen · · focus · HN ↗
jrowen · · focus · HN ↗
It sounds like you were rather negligent as well. You didn't care to have any inkling of memory of the vesting schedule in 1996, or just to double check and "wrap up" the financial details of that agreement after the work was done?
It does seem somewhat suspect to elide mention of what became of the shares that you did own, and that you only re-noticed Nvidia in 2024. Every 14 year old PC nerd/gamer knew that name in 2001. It is quite a feat of negligence to wait that long to dig this up.
You seem like a decent person, and I do believe that you are justly owed something, but I must admit that I find this to be a depressing tale of rich people spinning wheels for naught. A modest inflation-adjusted multiple of the original value of the options seems reasonable.
Before anyone accuses me of shilling or white-knighting for a major corporation, I don't have any broader sympathy for them and I would generally take the side of David over Goliath, which I think some commenters are making this out to be, but it seems more like Mini-Goliath and Mega-Goliath are bikeshedding and David has no stake in the matter.
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
But why? The OP (apparently) owns some of Nvidia. It seems reasonable to get that ownership recognised.
alex43578 · · focus · HN ↗
If someone has built a house on a remote lot you claim to own, while making property improvements and paying taxes, but you've never visited for 30 years; are you really entitled to swoop in and seize their house now?
nobodywillobsrv · · focus · HN ↗
If you are saying the physical house only and not the land that is different yes. Someone who can move the house obviously should still own the house. Trespassing usually doesn't invalidate ownership of all your belongings.
More important is the meta concept of like we write confusing contracts and then execute them and we agree on an end date (all transactions done) and then informally and implicitly we agree that if anything was wrong you only have z years after close date to fix it.
This is kind of thing where big people can do it themselves and other people perhaps need a regulated entity to review their docs ... Like mortgages and what not.
The interesting thing here would be if the IRS decides to have an opinion ...