He (most likely) forfeited his as of yet unvested $250 million in Uber stock he received as part of the acquisition. I suppose some innocent people would walk from $250 million on the advice of their lawyer, but not many.
Depending on how much he currently has wealth-wise, his reputation and credibility here might be worth much more than that in the long run.
He's still a bright engineer who could go on to do things in the self-driving car space. His expertise and exposure to the most cutting-edge IP is worth quite a bit. The less damage he gets out of this legally and the less dirt thrown on his name the more he will be able to turn that into real long term monetary value.
Not to mention the social costs.
If I was him I'd also being doing as much as possible to minimize the negative outcome of these legal proceedings for all who were involved with him.
I'd rather have, say, $20M plus a reasonable shot at making a lot of money in the future with a marginal reputation than risk my name being run through the dirt for a chance at $250M. Many smart people who had a shaky past have gone on to be successful. Talent/having the right skillset at the right time seems to trump (no pun intended) bad press ... in America especially.
If he is looking to protect his reputation, AND he is actually innocent, even at the expense of the money he should be wanting to tell his side of the story despite a lawyer telling him not to talk.
My, admittedly cynical, take is much simpler, his lawyer sat him down and said something along the lines of: "screw the 250 million, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay out of prison".
Sure, people get railroaded by the justice system all to often. But more often than not those are usually unfortunate souls with little ability to defend themselves accused of crimes far more heinous than stealing trade secrets.
For what Levandowski is accused of and how he is accused of doing it, there should be plenty of either incriminating or exculpatory evidence, if the parties involved want to divulge it. Google isn't some district attorney trying to look tough on crime for the voters, nobody outside of Google and Uber really care all that much about the case really care or which way it goes. Levandowski, by pleading the 5th has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion (yes, yes, shame on all of us) so he can't be clinging to whatever shreds of his reputation are left for future jobs.
It's not impossible that he is innocent and his lawyer thinks the best strategy is to plead the 5th anyway, I just don't happen to buy it myself.
There's nothing shameful about making inferences from his behavior in this case. It's reasonable and proper to assume someone taking the 5th in a civil case has something to hide.
