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Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

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Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#31

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.

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

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#32
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Especially since Apple has no history of doing this—suggests this is on another level of theft. (I worked at Apple and am aware of little "theft" incidents that came and went. Obviously those little incidents never made the news cycle.)

How could you have worked at Apple during the entire Samsung lawsuit and say Apple has no history of suing competitors over IP theft?

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#33
post #12

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

>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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#34

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.

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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#35

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 ge…

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…

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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#37
post #21
post #12

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

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.

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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#38

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 ou…

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

This is a perception created by your choice of media.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search: APP STORE, COMPETITION, AND MARKET CONTROL - U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit Accuses Apple of monopolizing smartphone markets and anticompetitive behavior. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets - EU Commission DMA breach The European Commission found Apple in breach of the Digital Markets Act regarding steering rules. https://digital-…

None of this seems like it could reasonably be described as evil.

How about these?

Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties (yahoo.com)

52 points by notRobot on Jan 1, 2021 | un‑favorite | 5 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25607386

Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments (jessesquires.com)

468 points by ig0r0 on March 31, 2021 | un‑favorite | 291 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216

Apple removes nearly 100 VPNs used by Russians to bypass censorship (elpais.com)

31 points by speckx on Oct 1, 2024 | un‑favorite | 3 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712728

Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA (open-web-advocacy.org)

514 points by yashghelani on July 14, 2025 | un‑favorite | 383 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348

Apple defined ICE as a "protected class" in blocking anti-ICE apps (boingboing.net)

146 points by baobun 9 months ago 69 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45520407

https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/29/iphone-workers-forced-labor/

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#40
post #31

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.

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

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.
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