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Apple Sues Nuvia’s CEO, a Former Employee

284 points by JoachimS 7y ago

lioeters 7y ago
Summary: The lawsuit alleges that he started a new company (while employed with Apple) with technology that he was working on (iPhone and iPad processors), and luring away other Apple engineers. Nuvia, the company of which he's the CEO, has attracted $53 million in venture funding.
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >Nuvia, the company of which he's the CEO, has attracted $53 million in venture funding. Do VCs do any due diligence anymore? Or do they simply not care, deal with it later? "Silicon Valley" is going to be the next generation's "Wall Street".
  - nraynaud 7y ago
    how exactly do you ask Apple on what people were working on before leaving?
  - geofft 7y ago
    It's possible that they did due diligence and determined that Nuvia would likely prevail in court, no?
    - Traster 7y ago
      That seems incredibly unlikely, since the cost of litigation for a small company against a company like Apple is huge. It's going to distract engineers, it's going to damage the company's reputation, it's going to slow progress as they try to meticulously explain where their IP came from and it's going to cost millions in legal fees most likely if it actually gets to court. And all that's before we even consider whether they're likely win - which they're not, because Apple has much more resources at their disposal.
  - zopppo 7y ago
    The VC likely has information regarding this matter that we do not.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- ryandrake 7y ago
  This is why you don’t work on that side project while still working at your main job. Every large company I’ve worked at has been very clear during orientation: they will assert ownership of anything you do while employed, on or off the clock, using your own equipment or theirs. It’s not worth the risk to moonlight bootstrapping your startup. Not saying it’s right but saying that it is. These companies have a lot of lawyers.
  - WhompingWindows 7y ago
    How do they have the right to own what you make off the clock on your own equipment?? Do they own you outside of your contractually agreed-upon hours?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - kthartic 7y ago
      You're in a contract with them that specifies this as a clause. So yes, they kinda do (unfortunately).
      - echelon 7y ago
        And that's wholly unethical. Companies that do this are happy for employees to remain wage slaves and nothing more. They don't truly admire success unless it feeds the bottom line. Unless Apple can prove this person stole something (cf. Waymo), fuck them. I hope every engineer they have that is working on their own side hustle leaves and that anyone considering the company for employment looks elsewhere.
        zxienin 7y ago
        Are these unethical contracts made (or at min. shielded/supported) by same folks who once had mini / side hustle of own and now gone big? Or is it a different populace altogether? (edit: might just turn out to be a rhetoric)
rayiner 7y ago
The complaint is here: https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pd... Paragraph 24 is interesting. Apple’s breach of contract claim is based on Williams’ alleged creation of a competing business in violation of his Intellectual Property Agreement with Apple. Apple appears to concede that Nuvia is targeted to servers and Apple doesn’t make servers. So they have a hook in there that they’ve considered developing or customizing servers. (As a factual matter, I’m not sure anybody would consider customizing servers for internal use to be in competition with selling chips for commercial servers, but that seems to be Apple’s story.) It’s not clear what Apple’s beef is. Nuvia’s founder clearly did some organizational work while he was at Apple. Maybe that’s enough to technically breach the agreement. (Or maybe not. Without purporting to know anything about California employment law,[1] Nuvia’s motion to dismiss seems pretty robust in its reliance on California law and public policy against non-competes and restraints on employment, as well as preemption of the contract action by trade secrets law.) But what I’m curious about is what Apple thinks the damages are from Nuvia starting a business in a sector (servers) Apple hasn’t competed in for more than a decade? It’s also curious Apple didn’t bring a trade secrets claim. The architecture of Cyclone, etc., is famously under wraps compared to AMD and Intel’s designs. Apple has gotten amazing performance out of these chips, but nobody is entirely sure how they’re doing it. [1] Obligatory disclaimer: Not barred in California, not an employment lawyer, etc. For entertainment purposes only.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  I'm not sure I'd read too much into the "for servers" part. Everyone expects Apple to switch to ARM chips sooner or later for their laptops and desktops. Their A CPUs would probably already be fast enough for entry level Macbooks, but they still need some higher wattage versions for big Macbooks and desktops. I'm also not sure how good Apples chips are with regard to virtualisation features. These are all things that would be useful for servers, but Apple needs them for their high end desktops as well. (And Apple won't announce in a court filing that they are working on ARM CPUs for the Mac)
  - saagarjha 7y ago
poopoo2 7y ago
Poopoo peepee
toyg 7y ago
I’d bet my house that the founder just pissed off some big Apple guy, probably took some talent with him when he left, so now they’re throwing the book at him.
- vunie 7y ago
  Doesn't that carry a risk for Apple? I thought CA had some legislation specifically to deter lawsuits like this.
  - mikeryan 7y ago
    The early part of the complaint covers this a bit. He did work on the new startup while still employed at Apple, including poaching engineers. He was also responsible to not do anything that could "compete with or take any actions inimical to the interests of Apple while employed by Apple" That tied to some claims that he's utilizing some Apple IP. Looks like he may have been doing a lot of the work on his startup based on his work at Apple - and potentially sandbagging his work there and stashing the goods under his new umbrella - (my interpretation apparently he said he was developing technology that Apple needs) There's enough here that seems outside of the protections that CA affords.
    - Braggadocious 7y ago
      Are side projects really that big of a deal? This is tech. Everybody has side projects. Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side?
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        I don't know anyone who has a startup as a side project. This isn't as common as you think it is.
        wayoutthere 7y ago
        There's a lot of grey area between "startup" and "side project". I do know quite a few people who operate niche cloud services that pull in a few thousand dollars a month. Certainly not enough to build a company around, but the $ per hour works out pretty well. I could see how someone might want to quit their job to work on turning their side project into a startup. That said, nobody I know over 30 who works in tech does their "side projects" in tech anymore. We've all moved on to kids or hobbies that allow us to escape the tech world like music or painting.
NetBeck 7y ago
Reminiscent of, "Apple Files $5-Million Lawsuit Against Jobs"[1] [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-...
- w0mbat 7y ago
  That's what I was going to say! It's very like when Steve Jobs started NeXt in the 80s, and Apple sued claiming theft of intellectual property and poaching of key staff. In my opinion the Apple claims had no merit, particularly in California, but Apple still managed to get a settlement that put a lot of limitations on NeXt. NeXt had to show Apple their prototypes before release, were not allowed to ship a computer before July 1, 1987, and were only allowed to make high-end machines, not compete in the consumer market. They also had to agree not to hire any more Apple employees. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-settles-suit-filed-by-apple.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-sett...
traderjane 7y ago
The most extraodinary claim is here: > To further intimidate any current Apple employee who might dare consider leaving Apple, Apple’s complaint shows that it is monitoring and examining its employees’ phone records and text messages, in a stunning and disquieting invasion of privacy.
- pgrote 7y ago
  Could it have been as simple as an Apple employee sharing the text messages they received?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - morganw 7y ago
    That was my first thought- Williams' Notice of Demurrer claims they were intercepted, but the complaint just quotes some texts without saying how they were obtained. I hope for transparency in this matter.
- ducadveritatem 7y ago
  This just seems like them attempting to be sensationalist. Anyone who has a company device managed with MDM that doesn't think their employer can monitor everything that happens on that device should go back and reread the terms they accepted when they got the device.
  - ecf 7y ago
    MDMs can, but no employer in their right mind ever should actually take the steps to enable sms tracking. I used to work in IT, and have rolled out MDM programs for startups before. What needs to happen is a signed contract between the employer and the employee stating exactly what the current capabilities of the MDM are, and under what scenarios the employer can change those capabilities. This needs to be separate from their employment agreement.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
guelo 7y ago
Apple might see this as a warning to existing engineers but it is also a warning to potential hires. Don't work at Apple.
- ducadveritatem 7y ago
  Or maybe "don't work at Apple if you plan to spend dozens of hours of company time on the phone with your startup cofounders and use proprietary HR information to poach employees while still employed yourself."
  - ecf 7y ago
    Even if this was being done at home while not on the clock? Oh wait, we’re all suckers and are salaried. Does that mean the company owns 100% of our time if desired?
    - NonEUCitizen 7y ago
      Not in California.
  - ActorNightly 7y ago
    Is there any evidence that he did this on company time?
PascLeRasc 7y ago
Why is Apple so focused on him being misleading in casual conversation about his post-Apple plans? Their whole case seems so weak, even before considering how hard it is to enforce a non-compete in CA.
echelon 7y ago
To the Apple PR folks reading this thread now : Unless there are facts of the case that relate to actual IP theft, you've just done more damage to your hiring pipeline than you can imagine. Take steps internally to fix this. It isn't a bad look to step down. In fact, you'll improve your standing if you consider how the engineering community views this. This action is hostile and will greatly impact your hiring and retention of talent.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Apple's pissing on what made it and the Valley great.
  - caust1c 7y ago
    And has been for the last few years. I'd be surprised if they back off willingly.
- majestik 7y ago
  I don’t think I agree with your premise that Apple should allow employees to moonlight and poach their talent.
  - BloominOnion 7y ago
    Why not? What an employee does in their time is their business. Furthermore it takes two to tango, it's a free market. If an Apple employee is solicited and accepts, then they're finding the opportunity or terms more agreeable than whatever Apple currently provides, why should an employee be denied the opportunity? I trade my time, skills and knowledge for money. I don't owe my employer anything other than the above. If I receive a better offer, why shouldn't I take it?
- braythwayt 7y ago
  I love Apple's products as a consumer, but as a tech worker, their entire history has been a dumpster fire. People venerate Jobs for being they stereotypical drive-people-to-death toxic boss, but he was also the "take credit for everyone else's ideas" toxic boss. They are famous for destroying anyone who leaks. It's admirable that they don't leak, but their methods for cracking down on leaks are draconian, to say the least. This includes illegally spying on employees. They participated in the cartel that engaged in wage-fixing and limiting employee mobility. They were sued by employees for denying breaks that were mandated by law. And on and on. It is unsurprising that they are harsh to former employees. When you look at their stance relative to their current employees, it would be surprising if they took a "live and let live" approach to those who leave. People say that using Apple products is a cult, and liking their products is "drinking the kool-aid.". I say that working for Apple is joining an abusive, tyrannical cult, and if you don't know where the expression "drinking the kool-aid" came from, you ought to find out before working there.
PunchTornado 7y ago
I hope Apple loses. This case of ex-employees starting a company is a classic example of improving competition in the market. You need to have the domain knowledge to be successful, so ex-employees are probably what companies fear.
auggierose 7y ago
I said before that Apple needs to produce and rent servers that can run high-performance Metal. Maybe the Nuvia guy sees it the same way but could not convince anyone at Apple of it.
- h5ra4ehj5er4 7y ago
  "Metal" as in the low-level graphics API? I'm not sure I see the business need, but also, WebGPU spec is in-progress as a higher-level API that would wrap around Metal and Vulkan, imho it would be more practical to launch such a service using the upcoming spec.
- ActorNightly 7y ago
  Apple doesn't have the tech skill to build anything for high performance. They are a hardware aesthetics company.
  - pensatoio 7y ago
    Are you specifically referring to high performance in the context of servers or workstations? My impression has been that Apple is absolutely dominating in the low-power, mobile-first segment with fabrication processes more advanced than all their direct competitors.
    - StillBored 7y ago
      They are just using off the shelf fab space. OTOH, they do a fine job of building a custom core for a specific purpose. That means they can tune and remove functionality they don't need for their particular application set. As someone else mentioned in this thread apparently they don't implement EL2 which is the virtualization layer on armv8. Yet their die sizes a huge and they are targeting a pretty narrow frequency range. So It doesn't really take much to eak out a few 10's of percent here/there to create a product that looks better than a generic core from ARM + a generic OS tuned more for servers (linux) with a JIT'ed GUI. I've seen cases where just pulling compiler flags on an application yield a larger difference than what is seen between top end android and apple phones.
lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Friendly reminder: if you work in the US, and you don’t live in California, Montana, North Dakota, or Oklahoma, your non-compete is enforceable. Nuvia would likely not be possible in Washington, Oregon, Texas, or Massachusetts.
habosa 7y ago
I have been waiting for a case like this. The boilerplate SV Software Engineer contract says that the employer basically owns your whole intellectual output. In practice it's extremely common for people to leave FAANG companies and start companies that are basically more agile "forks" of whatever they were working on before. I have seen this so many times at Google. Someone makes a cool internal tool/service, leaves, makes it into a SaaS company. A famous example is Foursquare. Google bought Dodgeball, which was the original product. The founders got paid then left Google and ... started the same company again but called it Foursquare! My assumption is these companies don't sue because they can't afford the negative impact on hiring. If you thought Apple would own your mind forever you'd never work there in the first place.
- adventured 7y ago
  > If you thought Apple would own your mind forever you'd never work there in the first place. Only a very small fraction of Apple's employees will ever attempt to be entrepreneurs. It's no threat to the extreme majority of all employees in Silicon Valley. Outsized total compensation and great benefits is all most tech workers in SV are after, entirely reasonably so. I agree that it will scare off many employees that are heavily inclined toward starting their own thing. It's an interesting question as to whether companies like Apple are better off or worse off in that scenario. People that are particularly entrepreneur-minded often don't make for great employees (I'm in that group).
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    Where do you think the outsized total compensation came from? Where do you think the cultural entity known as the Silicon Valley came from. Where do you think the phrase "traitorous eight" came from? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
  - adavis321 7y ago
    California is different than many states in the USA. In many places a non-compete agreement can stop you from going to a competing company. That doesn't just affect entrepreneurs, it affects all employees. The end result is employees can't change jobs as easily and wages are depressed. Non-solicitation agreements have a similar effect. I don't think I'll ever root for companies enforcing non-compete or non-solicitation agreements. But, if Apple can prove that this guy was working/soliciting for his new company on Apple's time or while using Apple equipment then they may have a case, but it should be a limited case.
soperj 7y ago
This is the same company that screwed our profession royally for years by colluding with other big companies not to hire each others employees.
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  By threatening to sue companies that didn't agree to this illegal setup. https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/23/tech/innovation/steve-jobs-palm-lawsuit/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/23/tech/innovation/steve-jobs-pa...
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  Yep, Apple, along with Google, Adobe, Intel, eBay, Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm[1] all colluded with each other not to hire each other's employees, effectively depressing workers' market value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - sitkack 7y ago
    Think off all the people that would have moved for life and live, but were imprisoned in their cars for that commute.
- NonEUCitizen 7y ago
  The agreement came courtesy of Steve Jobs. If you're an engineer, remember that next time you're about to think that Jobs was a great guy.
meh206 7y ago
Dirty
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Makes you wish there was whistleblower and non-compete lawsuit insurance you could buy.
gumby 7y ago
I'm really surprised that this might be pursuable in California. At first, as Williams is a chip guy, I thought it might be in Texas where you can screw employees six ways from Sunday (up to and including successfully asserting IP ownership of the contents of someone's head, as the DSC case showed). California is much more strict, and several of the assertions don't appear to hold up in my understanding of employment IP law (IANAL but have hired many people and have dealt with several close employee cases on both sides - company and employee -- over the years). The lines in the law are pretty clear and broad. Most strikingly to me from the complaint is the fact that apple claims that he 1> used his design knowledge to found another company (jeez, people do this all the time) and 2> did so while working at apple (ditto). The worst thing you can do is use Apple's property to start another company, which is a strict no-no. But apple doesn't claim he used an apple-issued phone (or computer) to set up NuVia, and if they thought that it would be a trump card they'd brandish right up front. Instead they have the weak "knowledge" grounds which is pretty vague. Likewise they claim he solicited employees, but non solicitation clauses are likewise no longer enforceable in CA as of this year. This smacks of intimidation: they don't care if they lose; they want others to know that if you leave apple to start a company or work for a competitor they'll sock you with an expensive and distracting legal battle. Which is pretty sad given that Apple was on the receiving (and losing) end of such a case a few years ago...relating chip design!
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Pretty much, I expect California to dismiss unless he has a contract where he waived his rights.
  - lambdasquirrel 7y ago
    Well that's the thing, you can't waive your rights. That's the whole point of these clauses being unenforceable. This is a really disappointing move on Apple's part. The guy isn't pursuing something competing with any Apple product, or even anything trying to sell back to Apple. He's just going off and doing something else.
    - 7y ago
loeg 7y ago
The article talks about non-compete agreements as if that concept is relevant here, but those are illegal in California, where Apple is headquartered and the bulk of its employees are. (I don't know where Williams worked, but if I had to guess...)
mensetmanusman 7y ago
If Apple thinks engineers are valuable, they can pay them more. It’s unfortunate that the big companies in CA (with Steve Job’s support) worked with business leaders to surprises the wages of scientists and engineers. Note: this moment we are living in is a historic shift in power centers as have always existed in western democracies; that is, business/law/finance have always held the keys to the kingdom. These nerdy engineer types were never a threat to the power structure until now.
summerlight 7y ago
The primary goal seems to be a clear warning to its employee rather than the lawsuit itself. It's pretty well known that Apple's chip department has been losing tons of talents to a bunch of start-up and other big techs. I don't know why, but given all ML hypes and new opportunities in hardware businesses this could be just a natural trend. In this case, it seems many other talents already have joined Nuvia (including John Bruno and Manu Gulati in a leadership group, who already left Apple a long time ago) My guess is that Gerard was the irreplaceable key person to Apple's processor strategy as an engineer and a talent hub. Apple may expect his leave to accelerate its predicament with hardware talents and this lawsuit might be a desperate attempt to stop this flow. Not sure if it will work though.
fnord77 7y ago
> [Nuvia] also allege [in their counter suit] that Apple's evidence in its complaint, notably text messages he exchanged with another Apple engineer and conversations with his eventual Nuvia co-founders, were collected illegally by the highly paranoid iPhone maker.
antpls 7y ago
I hope Nuvia's CEO wins and that Apple must pay them back for the time and damage made by this suing. Only from the presented facts, it looks like pure intimidation and anti-competitiveness.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
Well, if this doesn't work, they'll be plenty of lawsuits on chip designs. That 50 mil going to dry up fast, should just give it to me.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
outside1234 7y ago
I wonder if this is in response to Tony Fadell leaving Apple, forming Nest, and then hiring a ton of people for Nest that he then sold to Google...
GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
>Apple’s lawsuit filed in August alleged Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own business you have to give an honest reason you're leaving a company? that's dumb
annoyingnoob 7y ago
What are you afraid of Apple? Rising salaries?
musicale 7y ago
Regardless of how this turns out, I am not a fan of employers insisting on non-compete agreements and preventing you from working for a competitor or starting your own competing company after your employment ends for any reason. Permitting workers to change companies and/or start their own companies is how a competitive labor market is supposed to work. Worse, non-compete agreements make it hard for employees to find work in their field after being laid off. Imagine if I were to insist, as a condition of accepting employment, that in the case that my employment ends for any reason my employer refrain from entering into any new work agreements with other professionals in my field, for a period of at least two years. That would get nowhere fast, but of course it's the same sort of non-compete agreement that employers are requiring for employees. If there's a patent or trade secret issue, sue on that basis. Don't artificially restrict the labor market.
musicale 7y ago
> Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own business while still working at Apple, and that he drew on his work in steering iPhone processor design to create his new company 1a) "Hey boss, I'm preparing to leave Apple and found a competing company, but I want to keep my job for the next year, OK?" 1b) "Tell us what your plans are for the next 5 years" Oh, I want to work for Apple to learn as much as I can about processor design so I can quit and found my own company. Will you hire me? I wish companies were more OK with alumni leaving to start competing companies, and it might be less of an issue in countries with different labor laws, but in the US it's a quick road to unemployment. 2) Requiring employees not to learn from experience is laughable; I also think it will be hard to prove that he steered iPhone processor design away from Apple's interests and toward his own competing interests

284 points by JoachimS 7y ago

Summary: The lawsuit alleges that he started a new company (while employed with Apple) with technology that he was working on (iPhone and iPad processors), and luring away other Apple engineers. Nuvia, the company of which he's the CEO, has attracted $53 million in venture funding.

aguyfromnb 7y ago
>Nuvia, the company of which he's the CEO, has attracted $53 million in venture funding. Do VCs do any due diligence anymore? Or do they simply not care, deal with it later? "Silicon Valley" is going to be the next generation's "Wall Street".
- nraynaud 7y ago
  how exactly do you ask Apple on what people were working on before leaving?
- geofft 7y ago
  It's possible that they did due diligence and determined that Nuvia would likely prevail in court, no?
  - Traster 7y ago
    That seems incredibly unlikely, since the cost of litigation for a small company against a company like Apple is huge. It's going to distract engineers, it's going to damage the company's reputation, it's going to slow progress as they try to meticulously explain where their IP came from and it's going to cost millions in legal fees most likely if it actually gets to court. And all that's before we even consider whether they're likely win - which they're not, because Apple has much more resources at their disposal.
- zopppo 7y ago
  The VC likely has information regarding this matter that we do not.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ryandrake 7y ago
This is why you don’t work on that side project while still working at your main job. Every large company I’ve worked at has been very clear during orientation: they will assert ownership of anything you do while employed, on or off the clock, using your own equipment or theirs. It’s not worth the risk to moonlight bootstrapping your startup. Not saying it’s right but saying that it is. These companies have a lot of lawyers.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  How do they have the right to own what you make off the clock on your own equipment?? Do they own you outside of your contractually agreed-upon hours?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - kthartic 7y ago
    You're in a contract with them that specifies this as a clause. So yes, they kinda do (unfortunately).
    - echelon 7y ago
      And that's wholly unethical. Companies that do this are happy for employees to remain wage slaves and nothing more. They don't truly admire success unless it feeds the bottom line. Unless Apple can prove this person stole something (cf. Waymo), fuck them. I hope every engineer they have that is working on their own side hustle leaves and that anyone considering the company for employment looks elsewhere.
      - zxienin 7y ago
        Are these unethical contracts made (or at min. shielded/supported) by same folks who once had mini / side hustle of own and now gone big? Or is it a different populace altogether? (edit: might just turn out to be a rhetoric)

rayiner 7y ago

The complaint is here: https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pd... Paragraph 24 is interesting. Apple’s breach of contract claim is based on Williams’ alleged creation of a competing business in violation of his Intellectual Property Agreement with Apple. Apple appears to concede that Nuvia is targeted to servers and Apple doesn’t make servers. So they have a hook in there that they’ve considered developing or customizing servers. (As a factual matter, I’m not sure anybody would consider customizing servers for internal use to be in competition with selling chips for commercial servers, but that seems to be Apple’s story.) It’s not clear what Apple’s beef is. Nuvia’s founder clearly did some organizational work while he was at Apple. Maybe that’s enough to technically breach the agreement. (Or maybe not. Without purporting to know anything about California employment law,[1] Nuvia’s motion to dismiss seems pretty robust in its reliance on California law and public policy against non-competes and restraints on employment, as well as preemption of the contract action by trade secrets law.) But what I’m curious about is what Apple thinks the damages are from Nuvia starting a business in a sector (servers) Apple hasn’t competed in for more than a decade? It’s also curious Apple didn’t bring a trade secrets claim. The architecture of Cyclone, etc., is famously under wraps compared to AMD and Intel’s designs. Apple has gotten amazing performance out of these chips, but nobody is entirely sure how they’re doing it. [1] Obligatory disclaimer: Not barred in California, not an employment lawyer, etc. For entertainment purposes only.

jakobegger 7y ago
I'm not sure I'd read too much into the "for servers" part. Everyone expects Apple to switch to ARM chips sooner or later for their laptops and desktops. Their A CPUs would probably already be fast enough for entry level Macbooks, but they still need some higher wattage versions for big Macbooks and desktops. I'm also not sure how good Apples chips are with regard to virtualisation features. These are all things that would be useful for servers, but Apple needs them for their high end desktops as well. (And Apple won't announce in a court filing that they are working on ARM CPUs for the Mac)
- saagarjha 7y ago

poopoo2 7y ago

Poopoo peepee

toyg 7y ago

I’d bet my house that the founder just pissed off some big Apple guy, probably took some talent with him when he left, so now they’re throwing the book at him.

vunie 7y ago
Doesn't that carry a risk for Apple? I thought CA had some legislation specifically to deter lawsuits like this.
- mikeryan 7y ago
  The early part of the complaint covers this a bit. He did work on the new startup while still employed at Apple, including poaching engineers. He was also responsible to not do anything that could "compete with or take any actions inimical to the interests of Apple while employed by Apple" That tied to some claims that he's utilizing some Apple IP. Looks like he may have been doing a lot of the work on his startup based on his work at Apple - and potentially sandbagging his work there and stashing the goods under his new umbrella - (my interpretation apparently he said he was developing technology that Apple needs) There's enough here that seems outside of the protections that CA affords.
  - Braggadocious 7y ago
    Are side projects really that big of a deal? This is tech. Everybody has side projects. Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side?
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      I don't know anyone who has a startup as a side project. This isn't as common as you think it is.
      - wayoutthere 7y ago
        There's a lot of grey area between "startup" and "side project". I do know quite a few people who operate niche cloud services that pull in a few thousand dollars a month. Certainly not enough to build a company around, but the $ per hour works out pretty well. I could see how someone might want to quit their job to work on turning their side project into a startup. That said, nobody I know over 30 who works in tech does their "side projects" in tech anymore. We've all moved on to kids or hobbies that allow us to escape the tech world like music or painting.

NetBeck 7y ago

Reminiscent of, "Apple Files $5-Million Lawsuit Against Jobs"[1] [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-...

w0mbat 7y ago
That's what I was going to say! It's very like when Steve Jobs started NeXt in the 80s, and Apple sued claiming theft of intellectual property and poaching of key staff. In my opinion the Apple claims had no merit, particularly in California, but Apple still managed to get a settlement that put a lot of limitations on NeXt. NeXt had to show Apple their prototypes before release, were not allowed to ship a computer before July 1, 1987, and were only allowed to make high-end machines, not compete in the consumer market. They also had to agree not to hire any more Apple employees. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-settles-suit-filed-by-apple.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-sett...

traderjane 7y ago

The most extraodinary claim is here: > To further intimidate any current Apple employee who might dare consider leaving Apple, Apple’s complaint shows that it is monitoring and examining its employees’ phone records and text messages, in a stunning and disquieting invasion of privacy.

pgrote 7y ago
Could it have been as simple as an Apple employee sharing the text messages they received?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- morganw 7y ago
  That was my first thought- Williams' Notice of Demurrer claims they were intercepted, but the complaint just quotes some texts without saying how they were obtained. I hope for transparency in this matter.
ducadveritatem 7y ago
This just seems like them attempting to be sensationalist. Anyone who has a company device managed with MDM that doesn't think their employer can monitor everything that happens on that device should go back and reread the terms they accepted when they got the device.
- ecf 7y ago
  MDMs can, but no employer in their right mind ever should actually take the steps to enable sms tracking. I used to work in IT, and have rolled out MDM programs for startups before. What needs to happen is a signed contract between the employer and the employee stating exactly what the current capabilities of the MDM are, and under what scenarios the employer can change those capabilities. This needs to be separate from their employment agreement.
- saagarjha 7y ago

guelo 7y ago

Apple might see this as a warning to existing engineers but it is also a warning to potential hires. Don't work at Apple.

ducadveritatem 7y ago
Or maybe "don't work at Apple if you plan to spend dozens of hours of company time on the phone with your startup cofounders and use proprietary HR information to poach employees while still employed yourself."
- ecf 7y ago
  Even if this was being done at home while not on the clock? Oh wait, we’re all suckers and are salaried. Does that mean the company owns 100% of our time if desired?
  - NonEUCitizen 7y ago
    Not in California.
- ActorNightly 7y ago
  Is there any evidence that he did this on company time?

PascLeRasc 7y ago

Why is Apple so focused on him being misleading in casual conversation about his post-Apple plans? Their whole case seems so weak, even before considering how hard it is to enforce a non-compete in CA.

echelon 7y ago

To the Apple PR folks reading this thread now : Unless there are facts of the case that relate to actual IP theft, you've just done more damage to your hiring pipeline than you can imagine. Take steps internally to fix this. It isn't a bad look to step down. In fact, you'll improve your standing if you consider how the engineering community views this. This action is hostile and will greatly impact your hiring and retention of talent.

dehrmann 7y ago
Apple's pissing on what made it and the Valley great.
- caust1c 7y ago
  And has been for the last few years. I'd be surprised if they back off willingly.
majestik 7y ago
I don’t think I agree with your premise that Apple should allow employees to moonlight and poach their talent.
- BloominOnion 7y ago
  Why not? What an employee does in their time is their business. Furthermore it takes two to tango, it's a free market. If an Apple employee is solicited and accepts, then they're finding the opportunity or terms more agreeable than whatever Apple currently provides, why should an employee be denied the opportunity? I trade my time, skills and knowledge for money. I don't owe my employer anything other than the above. If I receive a better offer, why shouldn't I take it?
braythwayt 7y ago
I love Apple's products as a consumer, but as a tech worker, their entire history has been a dumpster fire. People venerate Jobs for being they stereotypical drive-people-to-death toxic boss, but he was also the "take credit for everyone else's ideas" toxic boss. They are famous for destroying anyone who leaks. It's admirable that they don't leak, but their methods for cracking down on leaks are draconian, to say the least. This includes illegally spying on employees. They participated in the cartel that engaged in wage-fixing and limiting employee mobility. They were sued by employees for denying breaks that were mandated by law. And on and on. It is unsurprising that they are harsh to former employees. When you look at their stance relative to their current employees, it would be surprising if they took a "live and let live" approach to those who leave. People say that using Apple products is a cult, and liking their products is "drinking the kool-aid.". I say that working for Apple is joining an abusive, tyrannical cult, and if you don't know where the expression "drinking the kool-aid" came from, you ought to find out before working there.

PunchTornado 7y ago

I hope Apple loses. This case of ex-employees starting a company is a classic example of improving competition in the market. You need to have the domain knowledge to be successful, so ex-employees are probably what companies fear.

auggierose 7y ago

I said before that Apple needs to produce and rent servers that can run high-performance Metal. Maybe the Nuvia guy sees it the same way but could not convince anyone at Apple of it.

h5ra4ehj5er4 7y ago
"Metal" as in the low-level graphics API? I'm not sure I see the business need, but also, WebGPU spec is in-progress as a higher-level API that would wrap around Metal and Vulkan, imho it would be more practical to launch such a service using the upcoming spec.
ActorNightly 7y ago
Apple doesn't have the tech skill to build anything for high performance. They are a hardware aesthetics company.
- pensatoio 7y ago
  Are you specifically referring to high performance in the context of servers or workstations? My impression has been that Apple is absolutely dominating in the low-power, mobile-first segment with fabrication processes more advanced than all their direct competitors.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    They are just using off the shelf fab space. OTOH, they do a fine job of building a custom core for a specific purpose. That means they can tune and remove functionality they don't need for their particular application set. As someone else mentioned in this thread apparently they don't implement EL2 which is the virtualization layer on armv8. Yet their die sizes a huge and they are targeting a pretty narrow frequency range. So It doesn't really take much to eak out a few 10's of percent here/there to create a product that looks better than a generic core from ARM + a generic OS tuned more for servers (linux) with a JIT'ed GUI. I've seen cases where just pulling compiler flags on an application yield a larger difference than what is seen between top end android and apple phones.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago

Friendly reminder: if you work in the US, and you don’t live in California, Montana, North Dakota, or Oklahoma, your non-compete is enforceable. Nuvia would likely not be possible in Washington, Oregon, Texas, or Massachusetts.

habosa 7y ago

I have been waiting for a case like this. The boilerplate SV Software Engineer contract says that the employer basically owns your whole intellectual output. In practice it's extremely common for people to leave FAANG companies and start companies that are basically more agile "forks" of whatever they were working on before. I have seen this so many times at Google. Someone makes a cool internal tool/service, leaves, makes it into a SaaS company. A famous example is Foursquare. Google bought Dodgeball, which was the original product. The founders got paid then left Google and ... started the same company again but called it Foursquare! My assumption is these companies don't sue because they can't afford the negative impact on hiring. If you thought Apple would own your mind forever you'd never work there in the first place.

adventured 7y ago
> If you thought Apple would own your mind forever you'd never work there in the first place. Only a very small fraction of Apple's employees will ever attempt to be entrepreneurs. It's no threat to the extreme majority of all employees in Silicon Valley. Outsized total compensation and great benefits is all most tech workers in SV are after, entirely reasonably so. I agree that it will scare off many employees that are heavily inclined toward starting their own thing. It's an interesting question as to whether companies like Apple are better off or worse off in that scenario. People that are particularly entrepreneur-minded often don't make for great employees (I'm in that group).
- yowlingcat 7y ago
  Where do you think the outsized total compensation came from? Where do you think the cultural entity known as the Silicon Valley came from. Where do you think the phrase "traitorous eight" came from? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
- adavis321 7y ago
  California is different than many states in the USA. In many places a non-compete agreement can stop you from going to a competing company. That doesn't just affect entrepreneurs, it affects all employees. The end result is employees can't change jobs as easily and wages are depressed. Non-solicitation agreements have a similar effect. I don't think I'll ever root for companies enforcing non-compete or non-solicitation agreements. But, if Apple can prove that this guy was working/soliciting for his new company on Apple's time or while using Apple equipment then they may have a case, but it should be a limited case.

soperj 7y ago

This is the same company that screwed our profession royally for years by colluding with other big companies not to hire each others employees.

lern_too_spel 7y ago
By threatening to sue companies that didn't agree to this illegal setup. https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/23/tech/innovation/steve-jobs-palm-lawsuit/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/23/tech/innovation/steve-jobs-pa...
heavyset_go 7y ago
Yep, Apple, along with Google, Adobe, Intel, eBay, Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm[1] all colluded with each other not to hire each other's employees, effectively depressing workers' market value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
- sitkack 7y ago
  Think off all the people that would have moved for life and live, but were imprisoned in their cars for that commute.
NonEUCitizen 7y ago
The agreement came courtesy of Steve Jobs. If you're an engineer, remember that next time you're about to think that Jobs was a great guy.

meh206 7y ago

Dirty

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

Makes you wish there was whistleblower and non-compete lawsuit insurance you could buy.

gumby 7y ago

I'm really surprised that this might be pursuable in California. At first, as Williams is a chip guy, I thought it might be in Texas where you can screw employees six ways from Sunday (up to and including successfully asserting IP ownership of the contents of someone's head, as the DSC case showed). California is much more strict, and several of the assertions don't appear to hold up in my understanding of employment IP law (IANAL but have hired many people and have dealt with several close employee cases on both sides - company and employee -- over the years). The lines in the law are pretty clear and broad. Most strikingly to me from the complaint is the fact that apple claims that he 1> used his design knowledge to found another company (jeez, people do this all the time) and 2> did so while working at apple (ditto). The worst thing you can do is use Apple's property to start another company, which is a strict no-no. But apple doesn't claim he used an apple-issued phone (or computer) to set up NuVia, and if they thought that it would be a trump card they'd brandish right up front. Instead they have the weak "knowledge" grounds which is pretty vague. Likewise they claim he solicited employees, but non solicitation clauses are likewise no longer enforceable in CA as of this year. This smacks of intimidation: they don't care if they lose; they want others to know that if you leave apple to start a company or work for a competitor they'll sock you with an expensive and distracting legal battle. Which is pretty sad given that Apple was on the receiving (and losing) end of such a case a few years ago...relating chip design!

ChuckMcM 7y ago
Pretty much, I expect California to dismiss unless he has a contract where he waived his rights.
- lambdasquirrel 7y ago
  Well that's the thing, you can't waive your rights. That's the whole point of these clauses being unenforceable. This is a really disappointing move on Apple's part. The guy isn't pursuing something competing with any Apple product, or even anything trying to sell back to Apple. He's just going off and doing something else.
  - 7y ago

loeg 7y ago

The article talks about non-compete agreements as if that concept is relevant here, but those are illegal in California, where Apple is headquartered and the bulk of its employees are. (I don't know where Williams worked, but if I had to guess...)

mensetmanusman 7y ago

If Apple thinks engineers are valuable, they can pay them more. It’s unfortunate that the big companies in CA (with Steve Job’s support) worked with business leaders to surprises the wages of scientists and engineers. Note: this moment we are living in is a historic shift in power centers as have always existed in western democracies; that is, business/law/finance have always held the keys to the kingdom. These nerdy engineer types were never a threat to the power structure until now.

summerlight 7y ago

The primary goal seems to be a clear warning to its employee rather than the lawsuit itself. It's pretty well known that Apple's chip department has been losing tons of talents to a bunch of start-up and other big techs. I don't know why, but given all ML hypes and new opportunities in hardware businesses this could be just a natural trend. In this case, it seems many other talents already have joined Nuvia (including John Bruno and Manu Gulati in a leadership group, who already left Apple a long time ago) My guess is that Gerard was the irreplaceable key person to Apple's processor strategy as an engineer and a talent hub. Apple may expect his leave to accelerate its predicament with hardware talents and this lawsuit might be a desperate attempt to stop this flow. Not sure if it will work though.

fnord77 7y ago

> [Nuvia] also allege [in their counter suit] that Apple's evidence in its complaint, notably text messages he exchanged with another Apple engineer and conversations with his eventual Nuvia co-founders, were collected illegally by the highly paranoid iPhone maker.

antpls 7y ago

I hope Nuvia's CEO wins and that Apple must pay them back for the time and damage made by this suing. Only from the presented facts, it looks like pure intimidation and anti-competitiveness.

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

Well, if this doesn't work, they'll be plenty of lawsuits on chip designs. That 50 mil going to dry up fast, should just give it to me.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

outside1234 7y ago

I wonder if this is in response to Tony Fadell leaving Apple, forming Nest, and then hiring a ton of people for Nest that he then sold to Google...

GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago

>Apple’s lawsuit filed in August alleged Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own business you have to give an honest reason you're leaving a company? that's dumb

annoyingnoob 7y ago

What are you afraid of Apple? Rising salaries?

musicale 7y ago

Regardless of how this turns out, I am not a fan of employers insisting on non-compete agreements and preventing you from working for a competitor or starting your own competing company after your employment ends for any reason. Permitting workers to change companies and/or start their own companies is how a competitive labor market is supposed to work. Worse, non-compete agreements make it hard for employees to find work in their field after being laid off. Imagine if I were to insist, as a condition of accepting employment, that in the case that my employment ends for any reason my employer refrain from entering into any new work agreements with other professionals in my field, for a period of at least two years. That would get nowhere fast, but of course it's the same sort of non-compete agreement that employers are requiring for employees. If there's a patent or trade secret issue, sue on that basis. Don't artificially restrict the labor market.

musicale 7y ago

> Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own business while still working at Apple, and that he drew on his work in steering iPhone processor design to create his new company 1a) "Hey boss, I'm preparing to leave Apple and found a competing company, but I want to keep my job for the next year, OK?" 1b) "Tell us what your plans are for the next 5 years" Oh, I want to work for Apple to learn as much as I can about processor design so I can quit and found my own company. Will you hire me? I wish companies were more OK with alumni leaving to start competing companies, and it might be less of an issue in countries with different labor laws, but in the US it's a quick road to unemployment. 2) Requiring employees not to learn from experience is laughable; I also think it will be hard to prove that he steered iPhone processor design away from Apple's interests and toward his own competing interests