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.
The simple reason is that if we allow litigating over ownership based on 30-year-old facts, nothing is ever settled. Maybe your house, with its 30 year mortgage paid off, actually belongs to someone else. Maybe that kid you shoved in 3rd grade comes back 40 years later and asserts their lifelong earnings were reduced by $100m because of the trauma.
The statute of limitations regime exists to provide stability. If you are harmed, you have some amount of time to make a claim.
Doing away with the statute of limitations would result in more injustice, not less.
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.
brookst · · focus · HN ↗
The statute of limitations regime exists to provide stability. If you are harmed, you have some amount of time to make a claim.
Doing away with the statute of limitations would result in more injustice, not less.