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Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

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191–200 of 414 posts

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#191
post #100

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…

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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#192
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Not really, hubris is a real thing and not just a plot point.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#193
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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#194
post #100

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…

> 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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#195
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

Typo for ‘now late to the party’ prob.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#196
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>How far is this? If I am understanding your question, they went so far as to sue their employees.

Is this uncommon when it comes to corporations? Sue the people who (allegedly) did the thing?

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#197
post #100

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…

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.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#198
post #105
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

It is not overly dramatic to suggest getting a letter like this is INCREDIBLY scary.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#199
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> in a country where legal bills can climb really fast

Honest question: Are there countries where this is not the case? I'd be interested to read more about how that manage that. If it's some sort of "protecting the little guy"-type thing or a general suppression of legal costs. Or maybe I'm reading too much into your comment.

Re: Apple targets dozens of OpenAI employees with legal letters

#200

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…

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?
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