You know all about Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who have paved the way for Sundar Pichai to take over as CEO of both Google and its parent company Alphabet.
There was a third, almost forgotten co-founder of Google -- Scott Hassan -- who is also making headlines but for all the wrong reasons.
Hassan's wife has taken him to court, alleging that her husband has purposely sold his robotic startup in a "fire sale" amid their ongoing divorce proceedings.
In a complaint filed in Delaware, Allison Huynh said that her husband, who is the CEO of Suitable Technologies has sold key assets of the company to Denmark-based Blue Ocean at the "indefensible" price of $400,000, reports Forbes.
The complaint says that Suitable's patent portfolio, hard assets, and licensing potential should instead "obtain a value in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars".
The Delaware judge, however, denied a preliminary injunction last week to block Hassan from selling his robotics startup but the fight is still on.
Suitable makesAa telepresence robot called 'Beam' which is being used by some top multinational companies for video-conferencing purposes.
It is a screen on the wheels that can be moved in the conference room, as if the person speaking via the screen is himself moving.
According to the report, the couple who married in 2001 began divorce proceedings in California in 2015, which are still not resolved.
Huynh co-owns at least 600,000 shares of Suitable common stock as "community property" with Hassan, making her eligible to sue as a shareholder, said the report.
Hassan met Google cofounders Page and Brin at Stanford University. He programmed much of the original search engine that finally became Google.
Later, he founded an email list-service startup called eGroups.com that Yahoo bought for about $432 million in stock in 2002.
He then started a new venture called robotics incubator Willow Garage and invested around $80 million into it, only to shut it down in 2013.
In Suitable, Hassan has invested nearly $93 million.
According to the lawsuit, the company is worth more than Hassan has agreed to sell it for in an alleged "tainted, self-dealing transaction,a said the report.
Google sacks 28 employees involved in protests over Israel govt contract
Tech giant Google has laid off 28 employees who were involved in sit-in protests at its offices over a Google contract with the Israeli government.
'Made in India' tech like DPI can be transformative for the world: Bill Gates
Microsoft Co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Saturday said that technologies like digital public infrastructure (DPI) that are created in India can be transformative for the world.
India is the next big playground for AI: Samsung VC, CEO JH Han
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division Jaong-Hee (JH) Han, who visited Samsung BKC at Jio World Plaza, Mumbai for the first time since the store's opening, said on Friday that India is the next big playground for artificial intelligence (AI).
ISRO's step towards realising Indian space shuttle 'Pushpak'
India progressed further in its attempt to realise a reusable launch vehicle (RLV)/ rocket named 'Pushpak' by successfully test landing RLV LEX-2 on Friday at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) in Karnataka's Chitradurga.
AI will be smarter than any single human by next year: Musk
Elon Musk who is currently locked in a battle with ChatGPT maker OpenAI said on Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) will probably be smarter than any single human by next year.
NASA’s Crew 7 targets March 12 to return to Earth
NASA’s Crew 7 astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) are preparing to return to Earth, after a six-month stay in the orbiting lab, the US space agency has said.
Meta suffers mega outage as FB, Instagram, Messenger stop working for millions
In one of the worst outages for Meta in years, its entire family of apps -- Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads -- went down for millions across the globe, including in India, as users were thrown out from their accounts.
Narendra Modi first PM to visit ISRO’s VSSC in 4 decades, meets Gaganyaan astronauts
Narendra Modi on Tuesday became the first Prime Minister to visit the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in four decades, where he met the four astronaut-designates of India's Gaganyaan Mission