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Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

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Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#191

Post by saulpw »

bilekas wrote: post #134
jdross wrote: post #69

Apple is cutthroat in business too. Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone, and later Nest founder, commented this in Stratechery about the lawsuit when filed: "This is Apple’s typical tactic to scare Apple employees — either former or current. I heard this lawsuit was driven by the Apple board. Steve threatened to file a lawsuit against Nest for poaching 80-100 Apple employees. He called…

Jobs had something to prove though. He was kicked out, brought back, he definitely wanted to ensure his legacy. But while I don't agree with it, I think it's harder to be an ethical company that makes it to a billion than a non ethical one. When shareholders are involved you don't have a choice really.. You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

This is not true. Fiduciary responsibility does not mean "maximize earnings". This one fiction has done more damage in the name of unfettered capitalism than anything else.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#192

Post by beambot »

sandeepkd wrote: post #186
paxys wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple was the ringleader in the illegal anti-poaching agreements between SV companies a couple decades ago.

> anti-poaching The term make it sounds like a good thing, however I do not know if this was really a net positive. It might have helped the companies but isn't this anti-competitive at the employee level?

yes, which is why Apple got massively fined for doing it -- nowhere near enough to compensate all the depressed engineering salaries though.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#193

Post by thewebguyd »

saghm wrote: post #149
wildzzz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cops being lazy because they now don't need to write a report for your car insurance to replace the non-broken window. However, your homeowners or renters insurance may cover the stolen items. In general, there's probably nothing to do about stolen items from a car because literally anyone could have done it and it's not like your car was a sterile environment to begin with (millions of fingerprints and pieces…

Yeah, what this anecdote actually proves is that there's no legal protection against the cops just deciding not to do their jobs.

The supreme court doubly proved that again recently ruling that the police have no specific duty to protect individuals or even respond for that matter.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#194

Post by freediddy »

jdross wrote: post #69

Apple is cutthroat in business too. Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone, and later Nest founder, commented this in Stratechery about the lawsuit when filed: "This is Apple’s typical tactic to scare Apple employees — either former or current. I heard this lawsuit was driven by the Apple board. Steve threatened to file a lawsuit against Nest for poaching 80-100 Apple employees. He called…

[flagged]

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#195

Post by skeeter2020 »

sandeepkd wrote: post #186
paxys wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple was the ringleader in the illegal anti-poaching agreements between SV companies a couple decades ago.

> anti-poaching The term make it sounds like a good thing, however I do not know if this was really a net positive. It might have helped the companies but isn't this anti-competitive at the employee level?

It was mass-collusion between big companies to prevent people from exercising labour mobility. Poaching is illegal, i.e. theft from an individual or the crown; we shouldn't encourage treating people like company property.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#197

Post by skeeter2020 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #190
bilekas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs had something to prove though. He was kicked out, brought back, he definitely wanted to ensure his legacy. But while I don't agree with it, I think it's harder to be an ethical company that makes it to a billion than a non ethical one. When shareholders are involved you don't have a choice really.. You're obliged to maximize their earnings.

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings. You're not though, legally anyway. Courts will generally not second-guess a board's business decisions so long as the board acted in "good faith" even if that decision results in loss for shareholders, or does something that does not maximize their returns. Board just has to link the decision and the long term health of the company. But it's just that, health of the compan…

Maybe a court won't, but there are lots of examples where activist investors have forced the CEO or board members out with a campaign focused on short(er) term results. And Wallstreet is notorious for only giving a public company 2 quarters to get anything done.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#198

Post by skeeter2020 »

thewebguyd wrote: post #189
pixelatedindex wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're obliged to maximize their earnings. Sometimes I think it’s time to give shareholder supremacy a rest. If they don’t like what they own, they can sell it. But this is probably also why I’m not on a board of directors.

Interestingly enough, Apple at one point had that attitude even under Cook. > “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI,” Cook said. “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.” That was back in 2014. But I do agree, it's time to normalize telling shareholders where they can shove it. If they don't like it, they can sell.

Ironically (and perversely) it's much easier to do this with exotic cap tables that keep voting rights and ownership effectively split. You needed a very valuable company to make this work and the most obvious example (Meta) is not exactly a beacon of corporate governance.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#199

Post by elianaive »

paxys wrote: post #123

This entire OpenAI hardware thing is a vanity project by Sam Altman wanting really bad to be Steve Jobs. Just look at this comical announcment photo and letter from last year https://openai.com/sam-and-jony/ . If this lawsuit results in the whole thing getting canned it might actually be good for OpenAI because it'll save them from pouring further billions down the drain over what will eventually be the Humane Pin 2.…

Becoming more vertically integrated would also just be profitable.

Re: Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

#200

Post by podgietaru »

ktallett wrote: post #196
walrus01 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why do you focus on the dead and not on the living who have done as bad?

You can, and should, do both.

The mythologising of some really bad people got us here.

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