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Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

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Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI also has infinite money, and the graph for money/lawyering gets clamped well below what OpenAI can afford. It's going to end most other corporate courtroom tangles: with an undisclosed settlement and a well-publicized partnership.

OpenAI really doesn’t have infinite money. They have a lot of money, sure, but it is being burned like crazy, we know this. It is widely known that they are deeply unprofitable. Compare that with Apple, a company that throws off billions of cash every quarter. This isn’t a legit comparison.

A billion dollars would buy a hell of a legal team. You think they couldn't scrape that up from investors who stand to lose substantially more if OpenAI gets blasted?

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this will settle before it gets to discovery I bet

Depends on the objective of Apple. It’s hard to imagine they’re after a quick payout. They may wish to keep this in the news cycle as long as possible. I could see them both harming open ai and sending a message to employees thinking of leaving that if they even consider breaking their confidentiality agreements, it will absolutely ruin their careers.

doubt it - in the uber/waymo thing the guy got pardoned by trump after lobbying from thiel/luckey, probably a similar outcome for this guy since altman has trump's ear rn.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#613
post #31

Apple kindly wanted to make OpenAI add in some legal liabilities to their IPO filling. Discovery is going to be great fun (for Apple).

this will settle before it gets to discovery I bet

Hard to believe when they could use this opportunity to hurt a competitor.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#614
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was still working at Apple who was also feeding him information: > Liu allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop after departing the company and exploited a vulnerability to download dozens of confidential Apple documents while he was working at OpenAI. He also maint…

"Whenever I leave a company I make sure..." But its also that companies responsibility to ensure that the employer doesn't take anything. Apple know how to use MDM on Apple laptops, why wasn't the device locked and located.

It is NEVER any other persons responsibility to prevent you from commiting crimes. Never.

They MAY make it harder for themselves, but at no point are is anyone required to make sure you're not a criminal.

That's a difference between living in a society that robs you on every step and one where you can leave a laptop on a table in a cafe and it stays there.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#615
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will lose this because they didn't do the due diligence to do basic protection against this.

Apple doesn't have a history of losing lawsuits.

Let's look at their history with EU, shall we? :D

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was still working at Apple who was also feeding him information: > Liu allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop after departing the company and exploited a vulnerability to download dozens of confidential Apple documents while he was working at OpenAI. He also maint…

> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them […] At $WORK we have the option of getting a work smartphone or having the company pay for (at portion of) our monthly mobile bill. I chose a work device because I do not want any cross-contamination. (Others chose payment because they did not want the 'hassle' of carrying a second device (and to save some cash).)

Doesn't your phone support creating an isolated profile which deliberately keeps data separate?

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#617
The employees doing the stealing are serious offenders here and I hope they lose all the job security they just had. There’s no way they wouldn’t know they’d be fired if Apple found out what they were doing, but the money was too irresistible to them and they thought they’d get away with it.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#618
post #454

OpenAI is a company built on copyright violation. That means it’s in the corporate DNA to treat laws as things for little people. Apple have deep enough pockets that they can actually sue OpenAI but I bet OpenAI are surprised they got caught. Now ask yourself, would the Codex agents on your machine ever over step legal boundaries? Would OpenAI ever make use of data you, voluntarily, send to their servers? If they did…

That was a wild read.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#619

Interesting how Tang Yew Tan worked at Apple for 25 years (!!) and then threw it all out for this.

“Don’t over plan your life. Be open to the wonders and opportunities that present themselves,” Tan said.

[sharing reflections on his journey from MIT graduate to Apple executive to OpenAI Chief Hardware Officer as part of the Distinguished Speaker series hosted by the School of Engineering]

[https://thetech.com/2025/10/30/tang-tan-openai]

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#620
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be a common trait of the AI people to just brazenly violate the law. It’s like a requirement for working at openAI is to think rules don’t apply to you because you’re so smart.

No it's because they think they're saving the world.

Although they are doing pretty much the precise opposite of that. As it tends to be, I suppose.
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