Tech startup execs squabble over GM's acquisition loot

DETROIT -- The battle over who gets how much of the reported 1-billion General Motors is paying to acquire a San Francisco self-driving car startup escalated late Thursday as Cruise Automation's previously silent partner filed a countersuit to get his share of the proceeds. Jeremy Guillory says he was indeed a 50% owner of Cruise with co-founder and current CEO Kyle Vogt, based on an October, 2013, application for funding from Y Combinator, a Mountain View, Calif., seed capital investment fund. He wants a jury trial to determine his share based on an accounting of Cruise's financial records and documents related to the GM deal. GM declines to say how much it paid, but several media outlets have said it is more than 1 billion, based on sources in the Silicon Valley venture capital community. Last week, Vogt and Cruise sued Guillory, alleging he left the company shortly after it was incorporated and he didn't hold shares or invent or patent any technologies or hardware in the system that attracted GM's interest.