A couple are heading to court to decide who is entitled to a fortune, started in the earliest days of Google, that includes valuable California real estate and stock holdings.


一对夫妇正在向法院起诉，以决定谁有权获得谷歌初创时期的财富，这包括价值可观的加州房产和股票。




Allison Huynh, at home in Palo Alto, Calif., is entangled in a divorce battle with Scott Hassan, an early Google investor.Credit...Cayce Clifford for The New York Times


艾莉森.胡恩在加州帕洛阿托的家中。她正与谷歌早期的投资者斯科特.哈桑陷入一场离婚大战中。
图片来自《纽约时报》特约摄影师凯斯-克利夫德



By Daisuke Wakabayashi 作者：若林史江



Aug. 20, 2021 2021年8月20日


PALO ALTO, Calif. — In 2014, Scott Hassan, known by some as the third Google founder, sent Allison Huynh, his wife of 13 years, a text message that their marriage was over and that he was moving out of their home.


帕洛阿托，加州--2014年，被一些人称为谷歌第三位创始人的斯科特.哈桑给已婚13年的妻子艾莉森.胡安发了一条短信，说他们的婚姻已经结束，他要搬出家。


Nearly seven years later, the pair are still locked in litigation over how to divide an estate with tech investments and prime California properties estimated to be worth billions of dollars.


近七年后，两人仍在就如何分割一处价值数十亿美元的高科技投资房产和加州优质房产提起诉讼。


A trial expected to start Monday will offer an unusual, public peek into the details of a big-money Silicon Valley divorce. They include Mr. Hassan’s failed attempt to persuade Ms. Huynh to sign a so-called postnuptial agreement and his admission that he started a website in her name to publicize embarrassing information from her past.


预计周一开始的一场审判将让公众窥见硅谷一桩巨额离婚案的不寻常的细节。 其中包括哈桑试图说服胡恩签署一份所谓的婚后协议失败，以及承认他以她的名义建立一个网站，宣传她过去的尴尬信息。


Technology billionaires have typically divorced quietly behind closed doors. Some of them more than a few times. While the sometimes unpleasant details of the ends of their marriages have often found their ways into the news, it is rare that they are willing to trade blows in a public courtroom and expose the complex web of their personal finances.


科技界的亿万富翁们通常都是关起门来悄悄地离婚。 有些人离婚还不止一次。 虽然有时他们婚姻结局中不愉快的细节经常出现在新闻中，但很少有人愿意在公共法庭上互相抨击，并揭露各自复杂的财务网络。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



When the Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, who started the genetic testing company 23andMe, split after eight years of marriage in 2015, they hired a private judge to hash out the details. The recent divorces of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos were also handled in private.


2015年，谷歌联合创始人谢尔盖·布林（Sergey Brin）和创办基因检测公司23andMe的安妮·沃伊西基（Anne Wojcicki）在结婚八年后离婚，他们聘请了一位私人法官来解决细节问题。比尔·盖茨和杰夫·贝佐斯最近的离婚也是私下处理的。


But Ms. Huynh and Mr. Hassan are headed to court in Santa Clara County, Calif., bereft of the secrecy that money can buy. Exactly why that has happened is a matter of dispute. She said Mr. Hassan had refused to take their case to private judging. He said a private judge wouldn’t necessarily keep proceedings private and would require them to pay for a retired judge or neutral attorney.


但胡恩女士和哈桑先生将前往加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉县的法庭，他们失去了金钱可以买到的私密性。究竟为什么会发生这种情况是一个有争议的问题。她说，哈桑先生拒绝将他们的案件私下审理。他说，私人法官不一定会将诉讼程序保密，而会要求他们支付退休法官或中立律师的费用。


Ms. Huynh has accused Mr. Hassan of engaging in “divorce terrorism,” using legal tactics to drag out the proceedings. In an interview, Ms. Huynh, 46, said Mr. Hassan had told her that he planned to “bury her” and make sure that she “gets nothing.”


胡恩女士指控哈桑先生参与“离婚恐怖主义”，利用法律手段拖延诉讼。46岁的胡恩女士在一次采访中说，哈桑告诉她，他计划“埋葬她”，确保她“什么都得不到”。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



Mr. Hassan, 51, denied saying that in written answers to questions from The New York Times. “At the end of a relationship and through a divorce this lengthy, things are never easy, and no one is at their best,” he wrote.


51岁的哈桑先生在给《纽约时报》的书面回答中否认了这一说法。他写道，”当一段关系结束时，在如此漫长的离婚过程中，事情从来都不容易，没有人处于最佳状态”。


Mr. Hassan is not a household name, certainly not like Mr. Brin or Larry Page, the men credited with starting Google. But without Mr. Hassan’s contribution, Google may have been nothing more than a computer science project at Stanford University.


必定不像布林先生或拉里·佩奇被认为是谷歌的创始人，哈桑先生并不是一个家喻户晓的名字。但如果没有哈桑的贡献，谷歌仅可能是斯坦福大学的一个计算机科学项目。


He was a research assistant at Stanford’s computer science department, which made him the resident programmer for many doctorate students, when he met Mr. Page, a Ph.D. candidate. He rewrote the code for a slow web crawler that Mr. Page had created to understand the relationship between lixs on different websites. He also worked with Mr. Brin to build a search engine, which eventually became Google.


他是斯坦福大学计算机科学系的研究助理，这使他成为许多博士生的常驻程序员，当时他遇到了博士候选人佩奇先生。他重写了佩奇创建的一个慢速网络爬虫的代码，以了解不同网站链接之间的关系。他还与布林合作建立了一个搜索引擎，最终成为了谷歌。


When Mr. Page and Mr. Brin founded Google in 1998, Mr. Hassan bought 160,000 shares for $800. When Google went public in 2004, the shares were worth more than $200 million. The shares, now in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, would be valued at more than $13 billion today.


1998年佩奇和布林创立谷歌时，哈桑以800美元购买了16万股。2004年谷歌上市时，这些股票价值超过2亿美元。这些股票，现在谷歌母公司字母表(Alphabet)的名下交易，价值超过130亿美元。


While Mr. Hassan never worked for Google, he was one of the founders of a company called eGroups, which was sold to Yahoo in 2000 for $432 million in stock. He also started two robotics firms.


虽然哈桑先生从未为谷歌工作过，但他是一家名为eGroups的公司的创始人之一，该公司在2000年以4.32亿美元的股票出售给了雅虎。他还创办了两家机器人公司。


Mr. Hassan met Ms. Huynh through mutual friends at Stanford in 2000. She had emigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war and attended Stanford on scholarship. Ms. Huynh said she had dropped out a few years before meeting Mr. Hassan to pursue opportunities during the dot-com boom. She was working as a consultant and web developer, building websites for clients such as Wells Fargo.


2000年，哈桑先生通过斯坦福大学的共同朋友认识了胡恩女士。她于战后从越南移民到美国，并获得了斯坦福大学的奖学金。胡恩女士说，在遇到哈桑先生的几年前，她就已经退学，以便在互联网热潮时期寻求机会。她当时是一名顾问和网络开发人员，为富国银行等客户建立网站。


In 2001, five days before Christmas, they got married at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. There was no discussion of a prenuptial agreement, and they barely discussed finances, both of them said.


2001年，圣诞节之前的五天，他们在拉斯维加斯的小白教堂结婚。他们两人都说，没有讨论婚前协议，也几乎没有讨论财务问题。


Ms. Huynh said she had supported the family financially in the early years. She said Mr. Hassan had $60,000 in debt, so she often paid for food, travel and entertainment — including their engagement party, which Mr. Page and Mr. Brin attended.


胡恩女士说，她早年为家庭提供经济支持。她说，哈桑欠了6万美元的债，所以她经常支付食物、旅行和娱乐费用，包括佩奇和布林都参加过的他们的订婚聚会。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



Mr. Hassan said that was not true, and that by the time they were married, he was financially secure and debt free. In addition to the Google stock, which was still a speculative investment at the time, he owned a house in San Francisco as well as $8 million in stock of Yahoo — which had lost much of its value after the sale of his company — and Amazon, he said.


哈桑先生说，这不是真的，在他们结婚时，他已经有了经济保障，没有债务。他说，除了当时仍属于投机性投资的谷歌股票外，他还在旧金山有一套房子，以及800万美元的雅虎和亚马逊的股票。他的公司出售后失去了大量的雅虎股票价值。


Ms. Huynh said she had put her career on hold to raise their children and assist Mr. Hassan with the business. The issue of money came up four years into their marriage, around the time of their oldest daughter’s second birthday.


胡恩女士说，为了抚养他们的孩子并帮助哈桑做生意，她暂停了自己的职业生涯。钱的问题在他们结婚四年后，大约在大女儿两岁的时候出现。


Less than a year after Google went public, Mr. Hassan proposed a deal in exchange for waiving any future claims to marital assets. Mr. Hassan offered Ms. Huynh $20 million in Google stock — less than 10 percent of his shares — and half of three Bay Area real estate properties: houses in Palo Alto and San Francisco, and a commercial building in Menlo Park. She felt blindsided and hurt. She refused.


谷歌上市不到一年，哈桑提出了一项交易，交换条件是对方放弃未来对婚姻财产的要求权。哈桑先生为胡恩女士提供了2000万美元的谷歌股票——不到10%的股份——和湾区三处房产的一半 ：帕洛阿托和旧金山的房子，还有门洛帕克的商业大厦。她感受措手不及，很受伤，然后她拒绝了。


Mr. Hassan said he had proposed the agreement to share some of his newfound wealth.


哈桑先生说，他提出这项协议是为了分享他新发现的一些财富。


Later that year, they moved into a bigger Palo Alto home in one of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods. Ms. Huynh lives in the 7,500-square-foot home, valued at $20 million on Redfin, with the children.


那年晚些时候，他们搬进了帕洛阿托市最富裕社区之一的一个更大的房子里。胡恩女士和孩子们住在一个7500平尺价值，瑞德丰(Redfin,著名的房产经纪公司)估值2000万美元的房子里。


Still, Ms. Huynh said there was little indication that Mr. Hassan was unhappy. But in 2014, while she was on a business trip for MyDream, a virtual reality company she started in 2011, she received a text message from Mr. Hassan informing her that the marriage was over and that he was moving out, she said.


不过，胡恩女士说，几乎没有迹象表明哈桑不开心。但她说，2014年，她收到了哈桑的短信，告知她婚姻已经结束，他要搬走了。收到短信的时候她作为虚拟现实公司我的梦(MyDream)的创始人正在出差。这家公司是她2011年创办的。


“I was shocked,” she said. “I kept saying to him, you must be kidding.”


"我很震惊，"她说。"我一直对他说，你一定是在开玩笑。"




Mr. Hassan in 2016, two years after he informed Ms. Huynh that their marriage was over.Credit...J. Countess/Getty Images


哈桑先生在2016年，在他通知胡恩女士他们的婚姻结束后的两年后。图片来自于J. 康特斯/Getty Images


Mr. Hassan said it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her. He said they had a big fight a few days earlier, when she falsely accused him of infidelity in front of their children. She said she had never accused him of cheating, but questioned his whereabouts during long absences from the house.


哈桑先生说这不应该让她感到意外。他说几天前他们大吵了一架，她在孩子面前诬告他不忠。她说，她从未指控过他出轨，但在他长期离家期间，她询问了他的下落。


After a few attempts at counseling, they separated in January 2015.


在尝试了几次婚姻咨询后，他们于2015年1月分居。


Since then, they have tangled in the courts. Mr. Hassan’s ownership of his Alphabet shares is not in question in the divorce. They are fighting over a smaller, hard-to-define slice of their estate.


自那时起，他们就在法庭上纠缠不清。哈桑先生在字母表公司的股票所有权不在离婚案中涉及。他们正争夺一小块难以界定的地产。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



Ms. Huynh sued in 2019 to halt the sale of one of Mr. Hassan’s businesses, a robotics firm called Suitable Technologies, to a Danish company for $400,000. As a shareholder, she accused Mr. Hassan of selling Suitable for below market value to gain a personal tax benefit. The sale did not go through, and Suitable filed for bankruptcy.


胡恩女士于2019年提出起诉，要求哈桑先生停止将机器人公司适配科技出售给一家丹麦公司的行为。作为股东，她指控哈桑以低于市场价出售适配科技，以获得个人税收优惠。这桩买卖没有成功，因此申请破产。


Mr. Hassan said that despite lending Suitable $90 million of his money, the company was still losing more than $1 million a month. He tried to solicit offers from Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, but none of them were interested. He said he had accepted the only offer he received.


哈桑说，尽管他将9000万美元的资金借给了公司，但公司每月仍亏损100多万美元。他试图向谷歌、脸书、苹果和微软征求收购报价，但他们都不感兴趣。他说已经接受了他收到的唯一一份报价。


The couple officially dissolved their marriage in May 2020 and agreed to joint custody of their three teenage children.


这对夫妇在2020年5月正式解除了婚姻关系，并同意共同监护他们的三个十几岁的孩子。


Next week’s trial is part of a drawn-out legal process to divide the estate and resolve other financial matters including spousal and child support. California is one of nine states where assets acquired during marriage are divided evenly in a divorce.


下周的审判是一个漫长的法律程序的一部分，该程序旨在分割遗产并解决包括配偶和子女抚养在内的其他财务问题。加利福尼亚州是九个离婚时平均分配婚内财产的州之一。


In 2006, Mr. Hassan formed a limited liability company called Greenheart Investments. In a pretrial filing, lawyers for Ms. Huynh said Greenheart had invested in more than 15 technology businesses and more than 30 real estate properties, including a 195-unit apartment complex in Menlo Park, less than a mile from Facebook’s offices. Greenheart was valued at more than $1 billion in 2015, the filing said.


2006年，哈桑成立了一家名为绿心投资(Greenheart Investments)的有限责任公司。胡恩女士的律师在一份预审文件中说，绿心已经投资了15多家科技企业和30多处房地产，其中包括距离脸书办公室不到一英里的门洛帕克的195套公寓。该文件称，2015年绿心投资的估值超过10亿美元。


Ms. Huynh said Mr. Hassan owns more than 50 limited liability companies to hold his tech investments and real estate properties. Mr. Hassan said there were more like 20 for his real estate holdings as well as two “umbrella” L.L.C.s for his other investments.


胡恩女士说，哈桑先生拥有50多家有限责任公司，用于持有他的科技投资和房地产物业。哈桑先生说，他有20多家房地产公司以及用于其他投资的两家 "伞形 "有限责任公司。


Ms. Huynh said Greenheart should be considered community property because Mr. Hassan repeatedly muddied the line between his assets and their shared property. But Mr. Hassan’s lawyers said in a legal brief that they would argue that the company should be considered his separate property because it had been started with his premarital assets.


胡恩女士说，绿心资本 应该被视为社区财产，因为哈桑先生一再混淆他的资产和他们共享的财产之间的界限。但哈桑的律师在一份法律简报中表示，他们将辩称，该公司应被视为他的独立财产，因为该公司是以他的婚前资产创立的。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



As the trial has approached, the feud has taken a harsh turn. This month, Ms. Huynh found a website — allisonhuynh.com — with her photo, lixs to her social media accounts and news reports about her. It also included a legal filing about her from 20 years ago, which was no longer available online and included salacious details about a past relationship.


随着审判的临近，争斗发生了急剧的转变。本月，胡恩女士发现了一个网站allisonhuynh.com，上面有她的照片、社交媒体账户的链接以及关于她的新闻报道。还有一份20年前关于她的法律文件，这份文件在网上已无法找到，以及她过去的一段关系的淫秽细节。


The website concealed the identity of the person behind it. But Ms. Huynh eventually discovered that someone named Scott Wendell had uploaded the legal filings. Wendell is Mr. Hassan’s middle name.


该网站隐瞒了幕后建站人员的身份。但是胡恩女士最终发现有一个叫斯科特.温德尔的人上传了法律文件。温德尔是哈桑先生的中间名。


Mr. Hassan admitted that he had made the site in “a moment of frustration” because Ms. Huynh and her lawyers were telling “one-sided stories” to the press. “I realize that this was not the right way to go about this, and it only ended up making our dispute more public and tense,” he wrote in an email to The Times. Mr. Hassan said he had taken down the site.


哈桑先生承认，他是这个叫 "沮丧的时候 "的网站的建立者，他建站的动机是因为胡恩女士和她的律师向媒体讲述了 "片面的故事"。他在给《纽约时报》的一封电子邮件中写道："我意识到这不是正确的做法，它最终只会使我们的争端更加公开和紧张。”哈桑先生说他已经关闭了该网站。


Ms. Huynh, who finished her degree at Stanford last year, said the website could have hurt her reputation at a time when she was trying to launch new businesses, including a mobile game, the Adoraboos, which aims to teach children about blockchains and cryptocurrencies.


去年在斯坦福大学完成学业的胡恩女士说，在她试图开展新业务的时候，这个网站可能会损害她的声誉，包括一款名为Adoraboos的手机游戏业务，该游戏旨在教孩子们了解区块链和加密货币。


Mr. Hassan said that while they didn’t agree on what was fair, he did not believe that his ex-wife should get nothing.


哈桑先生说，虽然他们对如何公平处理未达成一致，但他认为他的前妻不应该什么都得不到。


“I have no doubt we will land on a resolution that makes her a woman with generational wealth,” Mr. Hassan wrote.


"我毫不怀疑我们将达成一个决议，这将使她成为一个拥有世代财富的女人，"哈桑先生写道。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处