Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

https://www.ft.com/content/1b8c9d52-88a9-426b-ba47-f1811f859166

by merksittich • 5 days ago

410 381 5 days ago

ft.com

DivingForGold• 5 days ago

Nag screen, as usual

scrlk• 5 days ago

https://archive.ph/3J3iw

josefritzishere• 5 days ago

Wait until it comes out that OpenAI stole trade data through their deal with Atlassian. Seems inevitable. The company is fundamentally criminal in nature.

hmmm3• 5 days ago

https://archive.ph/zoUde

JKCalhoun7• 5 days ago

How can I say this…? Some companies come across like a neon sign flashing "EVIL!".

It's been nothing but warning signs from this company for at least a year now. I'm so happy to have nothing to do with them (having deleted my account a year or so ago).

Their marketing dept is going to have to really dig to get them out of this hole they've made for themselves.

The idea that I would trust any device they might roll out that is as personal as a personal AI assistant… It's no better than Meta and their creepy glasses.

Yeah, no thanks.

EDIT: I don't mind the downvotes—it means I touched a nerve—whether I am on the right or wrong side of the issue is not as interesting.

Apple, for its flaws, has not lost my trust with regard to my personal data—Meta and others are likely to never gain that back. OpenAI continues to do things to signal that they will not have that trust with me as well.

khalic2• 5 days ago

… so… you’re talking about OpenAI or Apple?

plufz• 5 days ago

From what we know this far it’s quite easy to be on Apples side in this particular question, right?

JKCalhoun7• 5 days ago

Ha ha. Worked at Apple for over two decades—would not have stayed at a company I thought was evil for that long.

A bully at times? I wouldn't argue with that.

groundzeros20152• 5 days ago

Some companies come across like a neon sign flashing "EVIL!".

This is a perception created by your choice of media.

JKCalhoun7• 5 days ago

Probably.

(HackerNews, FWIW.)

Danox12• 5 days ago

In Samsung’s case, they are evil buy something from them, and you are dead to them after the sale mind you, that probably would be the case with many Korean and Chinese companies too.

Would never buy anything from Samsung.

gsibble2• 5 days ago

Agreed. Very wary of OpenAI these days.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

don't mind the downvotes—it means I touched a nerve

Nope. You wrote an ambiguous blurb that then breaks guidelines by commenting “about the voting on comments” [1].

Try taking out the edit and change “this company” in the second paragraph to OpenAI.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

JKCalhoun7• 5 days ago

…and too late to edit my edit…

(Weird thing about HN.)

oceansweep• 5 days ago

apple tracks every binary you execute and run on macos and sends the hash of it to their systems. Do you consider that to be respecting your privacy?

JKCalhoun7• 5 days ago

It depends on how it is done.

No, seriously.

I worked at Apple on Schoolwork for the last few years of my career and saw firsthand how Apple handles data it gathers. As an example, every device was given a unique identifier that in no way identified the user of the device (I mean it was simply a UUID). Additionally, it was tossed and a new one recreated every 11 months.

Because I am inclined to give Apple the benefit of the doubt (your mileage may vary), I am assuming the binary hash they send is intended to protect users from malicious binaries (once their hash is identified of course). And if Apple in this case also rotates the UUID every 11 months, I don't have to worry about them targeting me and my habits specifically (well, not beyond 11 months windows in any event).

Additionally, when at Apple, we had privacy teams walk through things like error logs that our app and framework wrote—making sure there was no PID (personally identifiable information) in the logs. A naive engineer might, in a URL-fetch timeout, for example, log something like, "Timeout for URL request: 'myblog.blogsite.com'". Privacy would ask, "Is it important we log the full URL? Might we instead just log the domain?"

deepwoods• 5 days ago

FT frames this as some aggressive escalation tactic, but document retention letters are extremely standard practice. At this point they're basically a formality, as any former Apple employee at OpenAI really ought to know by now that they could get dragged into this. Hold letters can be aggressive if you send them before you've even filed a complaint, but if anything, Apple is late to the party with these.

elicash3• 5 days ago

I'm not a lawyer, but I would also guess they need to "flip" these folks against OpenAI and get them to cooperate in the lawsuit against the actual folks with big pockets. I think they're essentially alleging a conspiracy by OpenAI and they need as many examples as possible to make the case that this was a pattern and standard practice, not just one or two idiots acting on their own.

So if I'm a former Apple employee and I get one of these scary letters, I'm asking my attorney if I could get out of a lawsuit by sharing any information I have about any potential OpenAI shady practices.

fisf• 5 days ago

That's overly dramatic.

At this point, the assumption would be that they are a non-party witness.

So, beyond not destroying any potential evidence, you might as well tell them to shove it.

wildzzz• 5 days ago

You shouldn't ever willingly give up information to a plaintiff if it could implicate you. If the information exists, it's going to come out in discovery. Admitting to theft of trade secrets is probably not going to help you, it's not like the cops offering you immunity for turning state's witness.

You talk to a lawyer and do what they say, not what Apple demands of you. No one but a judge can demand anything of you.

LatencyKills2• 5 days ago

Something similar happened to me when I left Microsoft for Apple (I moved from the Visual Studio team to the Xcode team). MS spent six months trying to prove I'd taken "industry secrets" with me. I hadn't. The entire thing felt like a personal attack and was extremely stressful.

It sounds like, in this case, Apple has hard proof that documents were stolen.

marklar423• 5 days ago

Did Apple help defend you against those claims during the six months?

bayindirh• 5 days ago

It sounds like, in this case, Apple has hard proof that documents were stolen.

I believe some articles mentioned about employees bragging to their former colleagues about accessing documents. Also I believe they lied to Apple about being employed elsewhere so they can continue using their access and hardware, etc.

If these are correct, the whole OpenAI playbook is very dirty, and I won't pity them a bit.

ajju• 5 days ago

This seems like an important post. It looks like these letters are occasionally used to as a tactic, and i can see how such a tactic can really scare employees in a country where legal bills can climb really fast.

nxobject2• 5 days ago

It sounds like, in this case, Apple has hard proof that documents were stolen.

Honestly, the proof is the least surprising part -- Apple's been paranoid about leaks for decades, even when the stakes have been lower.

trashface• 4 days ago

I would think that is almost routine when big companies trade ICs at above a certain level. They pay for armies of lawyers which is a waste if not used. So its not about you, its about them throwing rocks at each other.

Though in this case, OpenAI may have leveled up the game a bit too much.

Danox12• 5 days ago

They’re not late to the IPO party, which was postponed by OpenAI, It may turn out that that was a mistake. OpenAI probably should’ve gone ahead, particularly in light of the pending court case.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

They’re not late to the IPO party, which was postponed by OpenAI, It may turn out that that was a mistake

Isn’t that precisely what being late to the party means? You should have showed earlier?

staticman23• 5 days ago

Would they have had to disclose a known Apple lawsuit threat in the IPO disclosures? If so that might explain the delay...

Also Apple could have filed the litigation right before the IPO and after a IPO announcement. OpenAI doesn't get to decide when Apple sues them.

tiahura2• 5 days ago

I routinely send them in whiplash and slip fall cases re surveillance video, phone records, etc.

reenorap• 5 days ago

Apple must have hard evidence on this. I can’t believe they would take it this far without already knowing they are going to win. If they have to fire a huge chunk of their hardware employees it’s going to throw their IPO plans into chaos.

jstummbillig2• 5 days ago

What do you mean "this far"? How far is this?

Corps lose law suits all the time. They always have to go whatever "this far" is before it happens, surely?

cj• 5 days ago

Filing lawsuits against ex-employees is going pretty far. Not good PR for Apple if their claims are wrong.

Companies often file frivolous lawsuits against other companies. It’s much rarer to throw frivolous lawsuits at individuals.

Forgeties793• 5 days ago

The accusations are incredibly clear/defined (and serious!) and have a very simple burden of proof. These things either happened or they didn’t, and they have material evidence or they don’t. It’s incredibly unlikely that they filed such big, concrete accusations without concrete proof to back them up.

And while I am far from an Apple fan boy, yes a lot of big corporations file frivolous lawsuits but Apple typically does not engage in that behavior against other companies. Also bear in mind that open AI is a huge name so there is a public/political element that goes along with this for Apple. There are going to be a lot of people who do not want Apple to win this regardless of how true their claims are and will figut like hell to protect openAI

s3p• 5 days ago

How far is this?

If I am understanding your question, they went so far as to sue their employees.

deaton• 5 days ago

Apple lawyers have a reputation for doing their homework

teeray• 5 days ago

Makes you wonder if they’ll settle for bargain-basement token prices for Apple Intelligence.

dofm2• 5 days ago

I think it is clear that if Apple were going to deal with OpenAI on that level, they already would have. What they wanted for their AI products is a measure of control over their destiny that OpenAI clearly did not want to give them that badly. It's also pretty clear that Apple is willing to work with arch-rivals to supply components of their products, both software and hardware, but values consistency alongside trustworthiness.

moduspol• 5 days ago

This stuff happened years ago, right? Something tells me that discussion has already happened, and they went with Google.

Besides: Apple is a "real" company that will definitely still be around in five years. They've already fumbled Siri multiple times. IMO Google was certainly the right choice for actually executing well on Apple's own terms for the foreseeable future.

testfrequency2• 5 days ago

You’re underestimating how much Apple Legal goes after anyone and everyone they feel a slight wrong sniff about.

I know some insane stories that will never be publicly disclosed for one reason or another, and…it’s not a legal team I’d ever want to cross paths with.

It’s also not the first time Apple has cried wolf at employees leaving the company to do bigger and better things, while trying to take responsibility for their successes.

Forgeties793• 5 days ago

Then share some of those insane stories with sources I guess. Because this seems to directly contradict my understanding of Apple (post-Jobs in particular).

I do not love Apple, as I said another comment I am so far from an apple fanboy, but frivolous lawsuits against other companies is not really typical for them. Also, these accusations are far from frivolous and they either have proof or they don’t. It would be very strange for them to file this thinking they would win with some sort of gray area argument

jubilanti• 5 days ago

Oh, in that case, I just happen to have some insane stories that will never be publicly disclosed, and every one of my stories rebuts every one of your stories.

seviu4• 5 days ago

This is John Ternus having a beef with Tang Tan. It’s widely known they both competed for the role of CEO. Tim Cook would never have started this.

It shows a level of pettiness and arrogance which I never expected to see from Apple.

I can’t put myself in the mind of John, but he clearly hated Tang.

From outside and with a parent’s perspective this looks like my kids throwing a tantrum.

John must be thinking he is the new Steve Jobs (Steve would definitely do this)

MattDamonSpace2• 5 days ago

Agreed Steve would do this

But the iPhone is the most valuable consumer hardware product on the planet, and the accusations here is “conspiracy to steal” essentially.

Is it really that petty? Apple should be okay with theft of valuable secrets?

jonlucc• 5 days ago

It's interesting that you say they must have hated each other, but assume only Ternus is acting on that. What makes you think Tan's hatred of Ternus or animosity toward Apple for picking Ternus over him didn't lead Tan to do the alleged behavior?

gota• 5 days ago

Maybe a naive take, but if there's one team in a large corporation that does not bend to "the CEO(-to-be) wants it", that is the Legal team. Particularly when the ask is a lawsuit of this scope and relevance, and potential costs (of all kinds). The head of Legal can just hint to the board how expensive (in all senses) the vendetta would be and the CEO is likely "not to be" anymore, or "to be temporary".

appplication2• 5 days ago

This comment is really strange and reads like disinformation

axus• 5 days ago

The alleged crime sounded childish. Appeal to rule of law, enforced by the court system is necessary for a fair business enviornment.

Sending the notification letters is probably petty though.

jasonlotito2• 5 days ago

Tim Cook is the current CEO. Tim Cook is doing this. Any assertion otherwise is 100% wrong.

John Ternus doesn't become CEO until September 1st. If you think that this is still John Ternus' play, Tim Cook is still the one in charge and signed off to start this, meaning "Tim Cook would never have started this" is still 100% wrong.

xp843• 5 days ago

Weird take. With as much evidence as they have (unless they're just wildly fabricating everything in their lawsuit complaint, which... really? All Apple's lawyers are just making up claims in court documents? Sounds very career-ending, why would the lawyers do that?) they would be complete idiots not to sue.

rjrjrjrj3• 5 days ago

Widely known where?

Tang was never mentioned as a candidate in anything I read over the past few years. He wasn't an SVP.

martinky24• 5 days ago

They literally do have hard evidence. They have records of an employee (Chang Liu) who left for OpenAI copying dozens and dozens of files off of their server after he left.

aprilthird202111• 5 days ago

That's not enough though. He could have been acting rogue or for some other reason. That alone won't win in court

hn_throwaway_992• 5 days ago

Not to mention text messages to existing Apple employees saying he could still access Apple servers after being term'ed and bragging about it "lol"!

bix6• 5 days ago

Predictions on who wins? Does Apple actually have a winnable case or are they just throwing a wrench in things?

moralestapia• 5 days ago

Apple is not the company that makes this sort of thing just for fun.

Also, they don't have a directly competing business with OpenAI, so slander doesn't make sense.

I think this is genuine.

rancar2• 5 days ago

Oh the irony if Apple can get a larger OpenAI stake than Microsoft.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

I don’t think Cupertino will settle for stock. I think they’ll demand cash and an agreement that OpenAI abandon or reboot their hardware project. In the meantime, Apple gets an open kimono into everything OpenAI has planned.

This could actually be the fuckup that kills OpenAI as an independent company. The threat of a cash judgement gums up not only an IPO, but also debt-based fundraising. (We equity guys are idiots, so we’ll probably keep writing cheques until the market turns.)

nojito• 5 days ago

Both parties will just settle.

Apple already caught former employees accessing the Apple internal network with unreturned laptops after termination that’s pretty much game over.

smith7018• 5 days ago

Why would Apple settle? They probably want the same outcomes of the Waymo v Uber trial that forced Uber out of the market. Apple's accusations imply that every part of OpenAI's hardware effort has been tainted with Apple's trade secrets and is therefore illegitimate. They also have more money than God so they can keep the suit going as long as they want.

runako• 5 days ago

People are forgetting that the kind of conduct alleged is also likely illegal.

In the not-so-distant past, Uber's head of self-driving was indicted and sentenced to jail time for similar conduct. The criminal case didn't start until ~2.5 years after the civil case was filed.

MichaelZuo• 5 days ago

It would be very strange for Apple’s legal department to send out formal letters filled with claims on a lark.

nba456_2• 5 days ago

Not really, just slowing down a potential competitor could still be worth it.

ksec• 5 days ago

Generally speaking, I think Apple tends to win on anything related to ex-employees. I am not sure if this is normal across Big-Tech. But surely is for Apple.

Depending on what is at stake. Example the one with Nuvia and Qualcomm I believe they just settled.

jasode• 5 days ago

Does Apple actually have a winnable case

Based on the previous thread, Apple seems to have damning evidence of wrongdoing by the (ex)employees before-and-after they left their positions at Apple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019

Seems very similar to Google/Waymo winning its case against Uber (ex-Googler Anthony Levandowski) stealing corporate data.

Apple has the employees' emails history, the server access logs, etc. Really don't see Apple pursuing this unless they had a mountain of evidence against them.

pembrook2• 5 days ago

I’m a huge fan of Apple but this kind of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Regardless of whether OpenAI poached some of their talent or is the one in the wrong, Apple has such a massively dominant hardware business (some might say monopoly level in some areas) that for them to be publicly acknowledging how scared they are of OpenAI…it’s just…pathetic.

They’re a $5T company and can’t muster up the motivation to get in the game and compete in the next computing frontier.

Apple fanboys will invent some narrative about them swooping in with the best product as a laggard and claim it’s always their strategy, but I see zero evidence they have the capacity to do that anymore.

The Siri situation is just absolutely pathetic and no amount of bad press about OpenAI is going to change the fact that Apple neglecting Siri for a decade now has been a big F-U to their customers.

presbyterian• 5 days ago

This isn't just them being scared of a competitor because they're able to outperform Apple, according to Apple they have proof of an active plan not just to poach talent, but to get that talent to syphon out information as they leave, as well as former employees keeping Apple hardware and using it to access confidential information. If what Apple claims is true, this is straightforwardly illegal. Could Apple be lying? Maybe, but that's a very risky move.

pembrook2• 5 days ago

It totally could be illegal, and I don’t care. Those laws exist to entrench dominant incumbents, and make our economy less dynamic.

The history of Silicon Valley and most of its innovation come from this kind of thing, and we eliminated non-competes in California for exactly this reason.

Apple having a serious competitor in hardware would be a good thing for consumers all over the world.

Apple’s overzealous secrecy culture starts to become insidious once you become such a dominant force in the marketplace.

At what point do we allow their innovations to bleed into the rest of humanity and lower their margins so humanity doesn’t pay out a 60% tax to them anymore. I think they’ve made enough profits for investors at this point. Id be happy if my Apple stock went nowhere if it meant 20 other companies could grow and innovate new products off the back of it.

lowmagnet• 5 days ago

In what case is apple a monopoly?

trollbridge• 5 days ago

Some people think that being the exclusive supplier of iOS based devices is a “monopoly”.

8note3• 5 days ago

app store

NBJack• 5 days ago

You may want to read the related articles first. I'm personally quite anti-Apple on several fronts, but the evidence so far seems damning if it holds up in court.

jmull• 5 days ago

You can’t poach talent, because companies don’t own their employees.

You can steal trade secrets, which is what this case is about.

(If you’re going to suggest a full rewrite of IP and anti-trust law, you should at least have an understanding of the current situation.)

thewebguyd6• 5 days ago

You can steal trade secrets

Which goes beyond a civil lawsuit as well, if true, these employees are going to face real, serious criminal charges and possibly jail time. Up to 10 years in federal prison, and Apple has a history of pressing criminal charges.

If Liu actually did exploit a vulnerability to bypass Apple's network security, they may also see federal charges for CFAA as well.

speak_plainly• 5 days ago

I wonder what Jony Ive is thinking about his partnership at the moment.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

I wonder if he knew.

symfoniq• 5 days ago

OpenAI only exists due to the theft of content created by others.

If Apple’s accusations prove to be true, it just means that OpenAI is consistent.

Saline9515• 5 days ago

I think that it's quite clear in the digital era that you can't steal bits that are free to copy.

b40d-48b2-979e• 5 days ago

I think it's quite clear that only applies to corporations. Workers will still go to prison.

zarzavat• 5 days ago

It's insane to cross Apple. In the worst case Apple could take the ChatGPT app down like they did to Fortnite. They are probably waiting for discovery to find out how high this goes.

amelius2• 5 days ago

Well, the EU won't allow it.

jimbokun• 5 days ago

Maybe.

Depends if they hate Apple or OpenAI more.

Normal_gaussian• 5 days ago

IIRC Apple have been allowed to remove Fornite from the Apple Store, they just fall foul of the EU Digital Markets Act / DMA (?) when also blocking the Epic Games Store as a route to add/sideload it.

Removing ChatGPT due to ToS violations seems like it would be ok.

w10-1• 5 days ago

Apple could take the ChatGPT app down

No. If Apple did that without a basis in their own App Store policies, they'd spawn antitrust cases. OpenAI damages are a droplet compared to the App Store revenues.

It's insane to cross Apple

... on the question of employee confidentiality. Because the IP landscape is so muddled, they try hard to keep employees happy (most don't leave), and they're very, very good at writing, securing, and enforcing confidentiality agreements.

quux• 5 days ago

https://archive.is/3J3iw

Zigurd3• 5 days ago

Everybody wants a platform but nobody wants to spend what it takes to make a platform. That includes things like Windows Phone, Fire Phone, all the glasses, Humane, etc.

As much as everybody hates on OpenAI for chaotic management, they did buy Jony Ive and are presumably giving him everything he wants to build a platform for them. Even though it probably only buys them a 20% chance of success, they haven't doomed the project by underestimating what it takes budget-wise.

And they blew it. Maybe they blew it by not realizing that even long time Apple employees could get arrogant about security. Or maybe it was a loose ethical environment in general. Whatever is it the root or the problem, they set billions of dollars on fire maybe tens of billions, by being unnecessarily cute about Apple proprietary information when they could've been above reproach. They had the resources to hire all the right people with the right knowledge and probably already had them on board.

Apocryphon• 5 days ago

A decade ago Uber seemed poised to be the big tech powerhouse. Maybe not a platform per se (certainly not an ecosystem as other companies had it) but a major provider of software for all kinds of verticals beyond their core business. What happened to that?

therealdrag0• 5 days ago

Many of them left and turned into startups around that tech, like Temporal.

mprovost• 5 days ago

Most of Uber's "platform" seemed like pet projects that engineers used to justify promotions, and then were quietly abandoned.

nicce• 5 days ago

Uber managed to make the business by lobbying so hard. In some countries they broke the regulation of tax drivers and made the environment like wild jungle. Now, people don't feel "safe" anymore for random Taxis and prefer Uber in many places.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

And they blew it

This could be a blessing in disguise for OpenAI. This mess was conducted under Altman’s watch—it could be an opportunity to Kalanick him.

The Board could elevate Altman to Chairman emeritus or something, choose a new CEO and settle with Apple. That will probably involve shutting down the hardware project and clawing back comp from its employees who helped make this mess.

dymk• 5 days ago

Maybe, but remember what happened last time The Board tried to demote sama?

aprilthird202111• 5 days ago

Your comment assumes they have stolen some propietary info or trade secrets but it hasn't been determined yet that they have, no?

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

it hasn't been determined yet that they have

Legally, no. Reasonably, for purposes of discussion, I think it has. The “LOL” dumbfuck who airlifted files into OpenAI isn’t particularly ambiguous [1].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-11/openai-en...

bellowsgulch3• 5 days ago

Yes, but how do we know specific manufacturing processes weren’t in employee contracts like, “If you leave Apple you can’t utilize the invisible weld process invented here for the iMac.”

I mean regardless of whether it’s a trade secret, you’re going to know how to do specific things that can’t be protected against copying.

There are no practical laws against understanding the laws of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy when it comes to anodizing.

JumpCrisscross18• 5 days ago

There are no practical laws against understanding the laws of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy

Except there are. It’s why clean-room design [1] is a thing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

freejazz6• 5 days ago

There are no practical laws against understanding the laws of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy when it comes to anodizing

And unsurprisingly, that's not what the lawsuit is over!

delusional2• 5 days ago

Everybody wants a platform but nobody wants to spend what it takes to make a platform.

Ahistoric jibber jabber. Microsoft gave it their very best shot with Windows Phone. Facebook renamed the entire company to make VR happen. These companies have shoved everything they got into making these platforms, and their fate would not have been different if they had been given another billion.

Platforms are hard to make, and wanting it bad enough is not enough to make one.

Stealing from the one company that has managed to court success makes a lot of sense. They are the only company with any successful experience.

Zigurd3• 5 days ago

Fair enough, but I'd point out that, unlike Second Life, Meta didn't buy pants. If you want a chronicle of wasted spending regarding Microsoft and mobile devices, Google "Tomi Ahonen."

fauigerzigerk• 5 days ago

I don't know. Some of it did seem like short attention spans and not enough perseverence. But what do I know being far from an insider.

saghm2• 5 days ago

Stealing from the one company that has managed to court success makes a lot of sense.

It makes a lot of sense to get into a massive legal battle with one of the most deep-pocketed companies on the planet?

Danox12• 5 days ago

The last vertical computer company left from the 1980s when they were several American companies that designed the operating system and the hardware to go with it.

devin• 5 days ago

Forgive me, but what does Jony Ive know about building platforms?

grouchomarx• 5 days ago

being an exec at apple for decades you probably pick up on a few things, even if they're beyond your department

ricardobayes• 5 days ago

AI model providers have zero "moat", clients change them as they see fit. This week ChatGPT, next week Claude. The real value is and going to be in hardware - as long as China doesn't enter the GPU/RAM race.

I increasingly see AI investment, generally speaking, as a lost cause. It has very little chance to pay off.

petterroea• 5 days ago

I'm just happy we get to reap the rewards "for free" (i.e open models are slowly becoming usable, and the winner of the arms race will definitely stand on the shoulders of their competitors that didn't make it)

joelthelion• 5 days ago

The real value is and going to be in hardware

Unless someone comes up with a brilliant optimization strategy or new hardware that renders all that inefficient Nvidia crap overnight.

nxobject2• 5 days ago

AI model providers have zero "moat", clients change them as they see fit.

That might be true in tech-savvy industries -- but in non-tech industries where the biggest software purchase might be the office suite or the ERP, inertia means the GSuite shops stick with Gemini, and the Exchange/Office 365 shops stick with Copilot.

glaslong• 5 days ago

Yup. Model capabilities seem to keep converging quickly, not leaders breaking away for long.

Frontier labs are racing towards SaaS commoditization at incredible speed. And while there might possibly be $Trillions in productivity gained from their use, there's no reason to think those gains get captured by the model makers or inference providers at this point.

Maybe the Claude or ChatGPT desktop apps will dominate as the new MS Excel, but that's hard to do without already having locked the whole market into Windows.

There's virtually no platform play available to them.

thomasahle• 5 days ago

as long as China doesn't enter the GPU/RAM race

China is obviously in the GPU/RAM race. Heard of Huawei, Moore Threads, Lisuan Tech, CXMT?

tedggh3• 5 days ago

Not to mention with each iteration of every model you get lower cost per token. It’s really a race to the bottom for hyperscalers and neoclouds at this point, with technically only two paying customers.

ulfw3• 5 days ago

Idiotic US policy has led to China entering the GPU/RAM race.

You ban access, other countries aren't just going to give up. They'll start innovating and at some point likely outinnovating you

duped• 5 days ago

What does that have to do with employees stealing documents?

isodev• 5 days ago

Why are we taking Apple’s side here? They made accusations, nothing had been proven yet.

Who is to say Apple employees (at Apple) haven’t been vibe coding or asking gpt for technical topics? Also, funny timing from Apple - there is a lot of PR and optics riding on this lawsuit.

dofm2• 5 days ago

I don't think Jony Ive has this skillset either. They might make a very nice device (I'd expect it to be polarising).

dzonga• 5 days ago

the rot starts from the top.

sama plays loose with the truth. so likely the employees are gonna follow their boss in cutting corners.

you see it everywhere in gvt/large organizations - if you come from a poor country - if the president is corrupt - the whole gvt gets corrupted.

a_victorp• 5 days ago

You don't need to "come from a poor country" to have seen this

amelius2• 5 days ago

Everybody wants a platform but nobody wants to spend what it takes to make a platform.

That's why Apple used open-source software to build a kernel.

And why they used third party developers to develop the ecosystem of applications.

rjrjrjrj3• 5 days ago

And why they used third party developers to develop the ecosystem of applications.

Isn't that the very definition of a platform?

Danox12• 5 days ago

Apple originally was gonna use the Internet for apps on the iPhone, but the third party developers convinced Apple otherwise?

joshstrange2• 5 days ago

Small nit.

they did buy Jony Ive and are presumably giving him everything he wants to build a platform for them

If they hired Jony Ive to build a "platform" they will be very disappointed. He has no experience in doing that. They hired him to design a device, probably comment on the UI (if there is any, though I don't think he is qualified to direct either UI personally).

Aside from that, yeah, they royally screwed up here. Either by hiring unsavory people who think this acceptable behavior and/or by not managing/supervising them.

I've said it before on this topic: this goes _way_ past non-competes and the like. If you learn a novel method for doing something you are free (in my book) to recreate it at another company. You are not free to steal code/designs/etc verbatim and you are absolutely not ok to encourage people you are poaching (poaching is fine itself) to steal secrets/ideas on their way out. Also the whole "lying to a manufacturer to say Apple gave OpenAI permission to use the same proprietary technique" is really gross.

watwut2• 5 days ago

Either by hiring unsavory people who think this acceptable behavior and/or by not managing/supervising them.

Is there any reason to think this is roque employees doing something? We know Altman is ethically challenged. It is equally or even more likely that management welcommed employees to doing this.

proee• 5 days ago

At this point in his career, Jony Ive is best suited for doing deep dive studies on the corner-radius of new products. And even then, you might as well just default it to that of an ipad, because that seems to be his preference for all things, including $650k Ferraris.

jazzpush2• 5 days ago

He has no taste anymore. He was right once, made too much money, and lost touch with everything. Now he's a tasteless boomer.

beAbU2• 5 days ago

Imagine what he'll be able to charge if he does one of those pepsi logo analyses things for a large corp...

UltraSane• 5 days ago

I don't think the new Ferrari looks bad, just not like a Ferrari.

MattDamonSpace2• 5 days ago

I maintain that if Humane wasn’t arrogant as hell and had just put a screen on their device, theyd have been PERFECTLY placed to become the open-platform AI Phone

Hell they might’ve been bought by OpenAI for billions instead of… HP lol

duxup2• 5 days ago

As far as I can tell Ive's expertise isn't "build a platform".

All they seem to have gotten out of it is some creepy blogpost:

https://openai.com/sam-and-jony/

hn_throwaway_992• 5 days ago

I think the other thing folks underestimate is how important Jobs was as an editor for Ive's designs. Ive always leaned more to form over function IMO, and Jobs (or the Apple environment in general as it existed under Jobs) helped temper that. I don't think the butterfly keyboard would have seen the light of day under Jobs, and the released Ferrari interior doesn't seem like a stroke of genius to me. Easy to say from the peanut gallery I know, but I still think Jobs was best able to harness Ive's greatness.

LarsDu883• 5 days ago

I don't get this "build a platform" nonsense. He's a designer. A good one. Who ripped off much of his aethetics from vintage Braun products.

freejazz6• 5 days ago

Unnecessarily cute? It's a documented campaign of industrial-scale theft...

dylan6042• 5 days ago

they could've been above reproach.

This is hilarious. The company run by sama? The company that started as the largest copyright violation ever? How can you be above reproach when you start with such disregard like that?

tedggh3• 5 days ago

“ Or maybe it was a loose ethical environment in general”

Altman doesn’t appear to be a beacon of corporate ethics.

There has to be a reason why almost every single important partnership OpenAI had, abruptly ended, except for maybe Nvidia.

Just recently Satya Nadella publicly implied that OpenAI should not be trusted.

They are slowly becoming the STD of the AI industry, it’s like they think they are too big and awesome to need friends.

Maybe pissing Apple off will teach them a lesson?

groby_b• 5 days ago

"Altman doesn’t appear to be a beacon of corporate ethics."

Do those exist? I'm usually happy to see a mild candle flicker in the ethics window.

vessenes• 5 days ago

[Citation Needed]. Demand letters are one thing. Proof is another. And California laws are, to my understanding, pretty employee friendly as a matter of policy. We'll see where this ends, but I wouldn't assume right now this is anything but typical corporate engagement.

senordevnyc7• 5 days ago

This is the logical take. I would bet that this doesn’t doom anything, they’ll just quietly settle it, likely for a relatively small amount.

People here are way too invested in hating Sam to be remotely rational on this topic.

valleyer• 5 days ago

This lawsuit alleges violation of federal, not state, law.

kmeisthax• 5 days ago

While I agree that OpenAI is run by thieves, you can't tell me that Apple wouldn't have tried the same shit on a more scrupulous attempt at building a platform competitor?

Like, this is the same Apple that tried to tell a judge "a touch is a zero-length swipe" when suing the shit out of Android vendors, right? In their eyes, all the competition was supposed to stick with styluses and Windows Mobile 6.x.

greedo• 5 days ago

Gotta come back with more than "whataboutism."

gmerc2• 5 days ago

One got caught, one got away, but Sam when came the judgement day, did break the law and sent the blokes, to jail cells four, with fruity locks.

SpaceNoodled• 5 days ago

The Fire Phone did exactly what it was designed to do. It contained technologies that Apple fans were crowing about a decade later! Its major problems were the braindead carrier lock-in and the moronic pricing.

gmerc2• 5 days ago

At which point do we stop blaming individual employees for corporate governance failures. Has Meta not taught us anything.

Danox12• 5 days ago

Among 40 greedy humans would several of them get too happy/carried away and copy sensitive information and take it somewhere else probably…

small_model• 5 days ago

So the ex-employee has to pay up or something, whats this got to do with OpenAI the company, seems like desperate attempt to slow down the company that will likely take Apple market share for dropping the ball on AI, they should look inwards rather than lashing out litigiously.

Danox12• 5 days ago

OpenAI the company really is as scummy as they come and that is probably why Apple gave them nothing unlike Microsoft, the Chinese model makers are currently proving that ultimately there is no moat around AI. Every day the cost of entry, software and hardware wise keeps getting smaller.

Note: The only thing Google got out of Apple was a one billion dollar refund on an existing search engine agreement, AI real value in the future is as a new addition, to the existing programming stack or toolkit used by programmers. That value does not add up to spending $1 trillion dollars on capex.

If Apple spends any big money in the next 2 to 4 years, they had better spend it on bringing the design and engineering of memory in-house to the Apple Silicon Group and TSMC.

zuzululu2• 5 days ago

Looks like a bunch of OpenAI employees involved in the theft are going to see prison time and nobody is going to hire them other than shady startup founders who will probably ask "is this guy going to steal from me "

I think this is a good reminder that no company is going to put their neck out for you. IF you go above and beyond whether, whatever the carrot is on the end of the stick you chase, you are only good as what you give back.

Never stay loyal or go all out for your employers, I think the new gen z are far more wiser. It's simply not worth it and I don't feel guilty for working three different employers via remote. Would they get mad and fire me if they found out? Sure. But then I'd just replace them with the next one.

YOU are the only person you should be loyal to. Don't steal for companies, don't lie for companies, don't work extreme hours for some "startup equity" that won't mount to shit (note those are extremely rare)

Collect your pay check, do the minimum, if possible find more pay checks.

thewebguyd6• 5 days ago

Looks like a bunch of OpenAI employees involved in the theft are going to see prison time

Very likely, and I don't see this brought up often. The discussions are always focused on Apple v. OpenAI, but there are very real, serious criminal charges here potentially. This goes well beyond just a civil lawsuit.

Would not be surprised at all to see criminal charges soon.

senordevnyc7• 5 days ago

Right, just like you think that Apple is somehow going to magically get an injunction that freezes ALL software deployments at OpenAI and drives them out of business.

People’s inability to reason in the face of their hatred for Sama is wild.

AlanAzarkin• 5 days ago

1. Maybe OpenAI is preparing a lawsuit against Apple to secure an antitrust ruling that would select OpenAI models for Siri. 2. Maybe Apple is preparing a lawsuit against OpenAI to force them to disclose their developments during the discovery process.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 5 days ago

Alternative to archive.ph

Text-only, no Javascript

(Seeking Alpha)

   curl https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA2880s6 \
   |sed '
    s/.*\"body\":\"/<meta charset=utf-8>/;
    s/\",\"readTime.*//;
    s/?utm_source.\{53\}//g;
    s/&source=more_on//g;
   ' \
   |tr -d '\134' > 1.htm
   firefox ./1.htm

teravor• 5 days ago

either openai carelessly stole stuff from apple or apple is trying to slow/hobble a competitive threat. why are people taking sides in the comments? either is equally likely at the moment. discovery could be interesting.

whh• 5 days ago

Starting to feel like I might get a legal letter from my secondary school for not crediting them for what they've taught me.

iJohnDoe• 5 days ago

Apple is known for hiring the best and the brightest. These employees are clearly trash. Apple obviously missed the mark on these hires or they have a systemic problem in their hiring process.

What a shame when there are amazing people out there that would love to work at Apple and would follow the rules and do a great job.

lapelusa• 4 days ago

"OpenAI said it had “no interest” in other companies’ trade secrets."

Of course they say that. As if their product can't just go anywhere it wants just through any user. Who's to say that they are not routing their info 'grabbing' through some executives at Apple that use ChatGPT?

Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

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