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Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai/ https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/10/apple-sues-openai/
- dreamoftheiris 3mo agoWOW so these companies really are stealing enterprise data to make competing products! Fucking slimy! How can anyone trust them now?
- InsideOutSanta 3mo agoYeah, I find the majority of comments here interesting. Sure, it should be common sense not to email internal documents to yourself when you leave, or keep a company laptop and access internal networks after you no longer work at a place. That's just dumb and unethical and illegal. But also, I can't find it in myself to really care about this. Trillion-dollar company takes ideas from other trillion-dollar company. Apple has done this to much smaller companies countless times. But OpenAI-on-Apple violence is so far removed from a crime that actually harms normal people that I'm not sure why I should give a shit.
- SirHackalot 3mo agoGet ‘em Apple. Begin the IP wars have…
- orliesaurus 3mo agoMr Tan is suddenly going to be in a LOT of trouble
- iwontberude 3mo agoWhich equals fame and intrigue in the Trump era, big congratulations to Mr. Tan on his new found wealth
- draw_down 3mo ago[dead]
- etchalon 3mo agoWhat a neat culture OpenAI has.
- nullbio 3mo agoThis is a drop in the ocean compared to what Anthropic does behind closed doors.
- azinman2 3mo agoBased on what?
- nullbio 3mo agoThey do all of this, plus far worse. Including but not limited to flooding the internet with guerrilla marketing and sentiment-shifting bots across all social media platforms. This is the sort of company they are, and it's just the tip of the iceberg: https://clawd.rip https://clawd.rip
- CookieCrisp 3mo agoI tend to see far more obvious bots attacking Claude than any other - which makes sense, they're winning.
- mcintyre1994 3mo agoSame, the main network I see bots on is X and there’s a really obvious bot attack on them there since the fight with the DoD.
- nullbio 3mo agoReddit and X are flooded with them.
- mcintyre1994 3mo ago
- zygo 3mo agoNothing is too low for Sam. I expect any kind of shady shit from that company
- joshstrange 3mo agoSome pretty damning stuff: > OpenAI also instructs new hires on how to avoid scrutiny when they leave Apple. For example, Mr. Tan warns them not to tell Apple that they have taken jobs at OpenAI, so they can stay at Apple as long as they can. > Apple says it discovered a pattern of OpenAI recruits emailing themselves confidential information when leaving Apple, including Tan. > OpenAI apparently used confidential Apple hardware information when approaching Apple suppliers, and tricked one company into using a "specific trade secret metal-finishing technique" for an OpenAI device by claiming it had Apple's permission to do so. > 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. Non-competes and the like are gross but what's described here isn't just "bring your expertise to OpenAI" it's "here is how to steal secrets on your way out" which is even grosser.
- ErneX 3mo agoThis isn’t the first time something like this happens and I always wonder how are these seemingly smart people earning good money so dumb.
- paxys 3mo agoIntelligence is domain-specific. People who have put too many skill points in technical knowledge often have none left for common sense and street-smarts.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- groundzeros2015 3mo agoIntelligence is actually extremely general and transferrable - IQ measures meta skills and ability that predicts success in a plethora of areas. If you don’t believe in IQ consider agency and conscientiousness
- 3mo ago
- grttw14 3mo ago[flagged]
- bigyabai 3mo agoNothing that Steve Jobs advocated for coincides with OpenAI's business ethos. OpenAI would be just fine. The burden of proof falls on you to defend that theory.
- nba456_ 3mo ago[flagged]
- tiahura 3mo agoCopy of the Complaint. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474095/gov.uscourts.cand.474095.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.47... 9. In the months before he left Apple, Mr. Tan met with OpenAI or its collaborators and discussed meetings with a key Apple supplier. He began emailing himself information about Apple’s suppliers and internal summaries of the consumer electronics industry. And today, when interviewing Apple employees for jobs at OpenAI, Mr. Tan uses Apple’s confidential information to gain access to even more insider knowledge. He has used an Apple internal project codename to ask, “What’s the plan[?]” for an unannounced Apple product. He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information. These directions to bring Apple’s parts to OpenAI job interviews surprised at least one of the candidates, who commented that he “didn’t even know we could take those from the office.” 10. This is part of OpenAI’s strategy to extract Apple’s confidential information. OpenAI has been instructing Apple employees to bring “CAD/design artifacts” and “prototypes” to their interviews and to divulge details about their work such as “subsystem and component selection,” the “tools or methodologies you use for system integration, such as CAD software, simulation tools,” and “Vendor selection and communication/collaboration with vendors.” 11. OpenAI also instructs new hires on how to avoid scrutiny when they leave Apple. For example, Mr. Tan warns them not to tell Apple that they have taken jobs at OpenAI, so they can stay at Apple as long as they can. After his own departure, Mr. Tan improperly retained or obtained an internal Apple managers’ document marked “Need to Know” that describes security procedures for employee departures. Messages left on Apple-issued work devices show that Mr. Tan and his OpenAI colleagues have been sharing this document with new hires before they give notice to Apple of their departures, previewing Apple’s security protocols. Unsurprisingly, Apple’s investigation has found a pattern by employees who depart for OpenAI of taking steps to evade the security processes intended to protect Apple’s confidential information.
- andrewinardeer 3mo agoThis is going to be interesting. Only because both companies have access to billions and infinite lawyers.
- throwatdem12311 3mo agoCan you pay for lawyers with RAM, GPUs or IOUs for tokens?
- grttw14 3mo agoImagine comparing what apple has access to vs a deeply money losing firm
- FridgeSeal 3mo agoThe “nuclear bomb vs coughing baby” meme comes to mind.
- generj 3mo agoMore importantly Apple can effectively bring up the shadow of this lawsuit whenever OpenAi tries to acquire money. They can make legal fillings and calls to Bloomberg to keep the story going as long as they want to and suck some oxygen out of any IPO ramp up.
- benoau 3mo agoI would guess these days Apple probably has more lawyers than engineers.
- avgDev 3mo agoLawyers: rubbing hands together
- chasd00 3mo agoYeah it reminds me of tha Pink Floyd lyric “..we’re so happy we can hardly count!”.
- jediknightluke 3mo ago
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- exabrial 3mo agoThey didn't still the property, that would be illegal. They trained a model on it. That's totally ok.
- nba456_ 3mo agoReminds me of Apple suing Samsung. Why bother with the free market when you can just sue your competitors?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dofm 3mo agoSome of the Apple/Samsung complaint was horseshit (and was a bit of a distraction because they knew they'd need to settle their suit with Nokia). But it was design copying and IP infringement stuff: duplication of things already in the wild. This is on another level. If any of this is true, it's extraordinary, and I think OpenAI will likely want to settle quickly, thus increasing Apple's AI-related earnings.
- Conscat 3mo agoAccording to Apple, are there any tech companies in the galaxy who haven't stolen their trade secrets?
- mingus88 3mo agoIf you can’t see the difference between a design firm pointing out obvious riffs on their first to market designs… And a company openly instructing poached employees to exfiltrate documents on their way out the door, well…
- cosmicgadget 3mo agoI didn't read the full complaint but the article focuses on bringing Apple IP to interviews. It's not clear that it was intended to steal trade secrets. The Liu guy seemingly did so but he wouldn't be the first person to try to take his own work product out the door for personal reasons. I distrust statements like: > “pattern by employees who depart for OpenAI of taking steps to evade the security processes intended to protect Apple’s confidential information.” This could mean almost anything.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoThey do explain that in more detail deeper in the complaint. They allege that OpenAI has obtained the offboarding checklist for Apple managers, that OpenAI is using it to issue guidance to departing employees on how they can avoid scrutiny, and that employees receiving this guidance have been ignoring Apple security personnel who try to schedule their standard exit processes.
- cosmicgadget 3mo agoThat doesn't sound too heinous. As far as I am aware, employers aren't entitled to exit processes so long as they get their property back. OpenAI possessing an offboarding checklist accessible to any Apple manager doesn't seem like an IP issue. I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this part other than Apple trying to imply OpenAI has something to hide.
- frays 3mo agoIt's ok because this information was just being used to train their models.
- apparent 3mo ago>In its lawsuit Friday, Apple accused Tang Tan, OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and a former Apple executive, of coaching his hires from Apple on how to evade Apple’s security processes for departing employees. The word "coaching" is very malleable, and could refer to perfectly legal conduct, or conduct that is illegal, unethical, or both. How would an OpenAI employee know what Apple's security processes for departing employees are? One would assume he was told by previously-departed Apple employees. Would they have been forbidden to disclose information about the outgoing process? I would think so, given how careful Apple is about these things. > Apple accused another former employee, Chang Liu, of using a former colleague’s Apple-owned laptop to access and download technical documents while working at OpenAI. Mr. Liu told that Apple employee what information about unannounced products she should study before job interviews, Apple said. I would be very hesitant to assist a former colleague who is still at Apple in this way. Apple is well known for using deliberate leaks to smoke out leakers, and it would be easy for them to get a current/loyal employee to go through the interview process at a competitor for the purpose of finding out if the competitor is trying to get Apple employees to act unethically/illegally. EDIT: I see my comment, which I posted on the HN thread for an NYT article, has been merged into the comment section of a different article, and is now being downvoted a bunch. Please understand I did not post this comment here, so if it seems out of place that's why.
- wilsonnb3 3mo ago> How would an OpenAI employee know what Apple's security processes for departing employees are? The openAI employee in question is also a former Apple employee.
- apparent 3mo agoAh, somehow I missed that even though it was included in the quote I copied. Thanks!
- MeetingsBrowser 3mo agoNot just any employee. A 24 year veteran and at the time of departure the VP of design for the iPhone and Apple Watch
- ChrisArchitect 3mo agoSome more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019
- LoganDark 3mo agoThe threads have now been merged, it seems.
- s08148692 3mo agoWell they trained their model by scraping all digitised human knowledge and ignoring IP and CW laws so whats a little bit of corporate espionage in the grand scheme of things
- generj 3mo agoApple kindly wanted to make OpenAI add in some legal liabilities to their IPO filling. Discovery is going to be great fun (for Apple).
- j2kun 3mo agoDiscovery is the entertainment for the rest of us.
- mayneack 3mo agothis will settle before it gets to discovery I bet
- rising-sky 3mo agoYes, exactly. Probably a settlement similar in spirit to Google v Uber RE: Anthony Levandowski stealing self driving IP
- glenpierce 3mo agoDepends 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.
- kkarakk 3mo agodoubt 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.
- overgard 3mo agoI mean, Trump turns on people in an instant depending on his interests.. he's not a reliable friend. He is, also, very thin-skinned and he (probably?) knows his base is extremely against datacenters. (It's hard to ignore that political reality now -- it's like the nations' most politically unifying thing!) Dario was in the admin's good graces, until very suddenly he wasn't.
- xnx 3mo agoA company that behaves like this in one area, cannot be trusted in any area. Any enterprise that endorses/allows OpenAI products to be used is taking a big risk.
- benoau 3mo agoYou can trust Apple. I mean they openly lied to a judge last year under oath, but you can trust them.
- willtemperley 3mo agoCan you provide a source? Otherwise your comment is useless.
- benoau 3mo agoJudge's ruling. > To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate. > [..] > Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies. They did not seek to withdraw the testimony or to have it stricken (although Apple did request that the Court strike other testimony). Thus, Apple will be held to have adopted the lies and misrepresentations to this Court. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265/gov.uscourts.cand.364265.1508.0_3.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...
- xp84 3mo agoI'm the farthest thing from an Apple fanboi you can find, but Apple's not so unethical as to make all this (OpenAI trade secret) stuff up. The OpenAI settlement they'll no doubt get from this won't amount to 30 days of their App Store rent-seeking that they were propping up with those lies. If they can't prove any of this stuff they wouldn't file the suit. No matter what you or I think of Apple, the chances that this went down at least as criminally as they allege, are very high.
- LoganDark 3mo agoWeirdly, this seems like they're trying to train a model to work like Apple? They seem really interested in processes and how stuff is done, rather than only the finished artifacts.
- phainopepla2 3mo agoThat doesn't seem that weird to me. Good processes lead to good artifacts.
- LoganDark 3mo agoApple just seems like a weird target for that kind of stuff, is all.
- thewebguyd 3mo agoGiven that allegedly hardware information was involved I’d lean more toward this is for developing either custom silicon based on Apple’s designs or OpenAI wants to make consumer hardware. Aren’t they making something with Jony Ive too?
- Cyberdog 3mo agoI assumed consumer hardware too though I can't imagine what OpenAI hardware would look like. Another take on the "smart speaker" that has hit the consumer market with a resounding "meh?"
- Andrex 3mo agoThere's rumors they've been planning a phone. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/29/everything-we-know-about-openai-iphone-rival/ https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/29/everything-we-know-abou...
- tudelo 3mo agoIt would make sense. Massive distribution vector
- Marciplan 3mo agoprobably the real reason why Apple opted Gemini over ChatGPT
- simondotau 3mo agoChanging suppliers is potentially the reason why Apple’s AI strategy was so delayed.
- solfox 3mo agoPretty foolish of them to play so unethically only to lose such a big account and now gain an open-and-shut lawsuit that will seriously damage their ability to compete in hardware for a very long time.
- cosmicgadget 3mo agoMaybe they believed Apple would roll their own AI and not have to license Google's.
- Andrex 3mo agoThere's also the possibility it was a coincidence, and the stakeholders in the Gemini decision are breathing a heavy sigh of relief.
- etchalon 3mo agoBased on the timelines at play here, I'd wager this.
- spongebobstoes 3mo agoI heard oai turned apple down, not the other way around
- andy_ppp 3mo agoCan't wait for the inevitable bailout and US tax dollars to pay for this!
- Cyberdog 3mo agoBailout of OpenAI? Doubt it, unless Trump and Musk have some sort of falling out (again).
- andy_ppp 3mo agoHas nobody heard about this theory yet? https://youtu.be/RqDAMeqvUgo https://youtu.be/RqDAMeqvUgo
- Cyberdog 3mo agoThat video's over an hour long. Care to sum it up for us?
- raziel2701 3mo agoIdea is that Trump would bailout AI companies and call it "job protection" or "America growth" or "national security" because they know the word 'bailout' is politically bad. Other ideas discussed are that AI companies are going through a chain of larger and larger subsidies: VC --> Big Tech --> Governments. And that these companies haven't been able to make money off of AI so they're priming things for a bailout that's not a bailout wink wink. And that they foresee a situation where Trump will accept bribes in order to heavily regulate some AI companies but not others. Picking winners and losers.
- jgalt212 3mo agoHence the rise of the DSA.
- Robdel12 3mo agoOpenAI is about to get ROCKED on this. From this report, this looks open and shut. Apple has basically infinite money and incredible lawyers. Not sure what OpenAI can counter with unless they have clear, hard evidence this hasn’t been happening.
- overfeed 3mo agoOpenAI 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.
- transdev12 3mo agoOpenAI 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.
- harry8 3mo agoLegal fees are insignificant to open ai. Either they get profitable and the money does not run out or they don't, eventually can't raise more and close leaving these proceedings irrelevant. At no point is money as a resource being spent on this legal case any kind of meaningful constraint. Equally true for both open ai and apple. You? You're toast if you need legal justice with either co on the other side. The law exists so that the strongest might not always get their way. It was a good ideal, maybe we should bring it back.
- kkarakk 3mo agoyep the most that will happen is apple/openai co-branded devices or some sort of "corporate synergy" now that everyone knows apple tech is in the upcoming openai stuff. there's no value in it for apple to go nuclear like there was for google to push a competitor out of the market w/ uber vs waymo
- browski 3mo agoAltman showing how desperate he is to get into hardware. He knows local models that supplement models in chip are the end of OIA
- willtemperley 3mo agoThis is a really bad look for a company that has vast quantities of our IP stored on its servers.
- ungreased0675 3mo agoI don’t put my company’s IP on their servers, because I don’t trust them to not steal it.
- willtemperley 3mo agoI do hope Anthropic are better with IP, and I think they may be. Given Dario Amodei hasn't been sued by OpenAI while building Anthropic this seems likely. I think Amodei may actually be quite a good human, despite my trust in big tech being at an all-time low.
- gabriel-uribe 3mo agoThis season of Silicon Valley is getting spicy
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- fauchletenerum 3mo ago> According to a report by The New Yorker, Swartz described Altman as a "sociopath" who "can never be trusted" and "would do anything Who is surprised by this development?
- cosmicgadget 3mo agoApple suing someone when they lose ground in a space is never surprising.
- NetOpWibby 3mo agoSuper stupid actions by these ex-employees LMAO These people think OpenAI can/will protect them?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- stahhhpit 3mo agoStop trying to cram your "P" into "AI".
- oogabooga13 3mo agoProbably among many reasons for the switch to Gemini for their band aid AI until they get theirs were they want/need.
- sashank_1509 3mo agoHot take, but Apple has done the same and worse to many other companies when they could. Of course Apple can sue and they will probably settle some amount with OpenAI, but acting like this is not commonplace in today’s business environment, and OpenAI is uniquely worse at stealing corporate secrets is laughable. Especially considering Apple’s famous history!
- JumpCrisscross 3mo ago> Apple has done the same and worse to many other companies when they could The closest involved Apple selling Xerox pre-IPO shares [1]. And there are zero allegations any PARC employees who moved to Apple with confidential information the this has gone down. > acting like this is not commonplace in today’s business environment It's not. It's why it gets litigated and criminally charged. I won't disagree that there is a section of Americans who think it's commonplace. But that's because they're either personally doing the crimes or surrounded by criminals. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-21/larry-tesler-dead-steve-jobs-personal-computer https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-21/larry-tesl...
- sashank_1509 3mo agoHmmm it does seem like this seems much worse than what I thought of Apple doing (like stealing the idea for a mouse and GUI from Xerox), the best I could find is Qualcomm claiming Apple stole its modem code and gave it to Intel. That was settled before trial. This however does actually seem far worse, reminds me more of Waymo vs Uber, people can go to jail.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo agoApple’s “stealing” has been dramatized because Jobs gave it a good line. It’s really not comparable to what these guys are doing.
- losthubble 3mo agoDidn't apple get banned from selling apple watch because they pretended to want to buy IP and basically just poached and gutted the company instead?
- uhfraid 3mo agoI forgot they were still working on a device, any guesses what it is? I’m guessing a wrist wearable
- benoau 3mo agoI’d guess phone, anything else is too compute-constrained and just an accessory for them, plus has to pay 30% of subscriptions and can be disadvantaged strategically.
- cosmicgadget 3mo agoMy money is on drone with missile pods.
- kalleboo 3mo agoAn egg
- yesfinally 3mo agoFried egg fried egg gotta get down on fried egg Aybody's lookin forward To tha Weakened
- lobsterthief 3mo ago… in these trying times?
- orangepanda 3mo agoThe one from Black Mirror?
- setnone 3mo agothe only ai device that makes any sense is a robot
- dash2 3mo agoMaybe handcuffs, hee hee
- thraway3837 3mo ago
- naturalmovement 3mo agoI will never grow tired of highly paid so-called geniuses so deluded by their own hubris they think no one will not only not notice them moving GBs of data onto a USB on their last day of work, but assume they also don't have logs of everything you accessed and everything you took. Little no-name companies have this capability with off the shelf software. Large companies like Apple have entire departments of staff whose job it is to monitor data theft. It's bonkers and I love every single story as if it's never been told before.
- yumraj 3mo agoThis may be the reason why OpenAI reportedly delayed its IPO. They might have had an inkling that this was coming.
- simonswords82 3mo agoI read that Apple warned them about a potential litigation in February so you could be correct.
- system2 3mo agoSam Altman is doing Sam Altman stuff.
- firesteelrain 3mo ago[flagged]
- cocacola1 3mo agoThat’s a pretty grotesque insinuation.
- firesteelrain 3mo agoWhy? It’s not unheard of to perform corporate espionage
- nickthegreek 3mo agoit’s racism.
- firesteelrain 3mo agoEver heard of the China Initiative? It’s real.
- teravor 3mo agoaren't most of their suppliers Chinese? don't need to spy to get hardware trade secrets when you get BCC'ed on everything.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoToo bad I cannot downvote your blatant racism. Take it to Gab social or X.
- firesteelrain 3mo agoThat’s a dismissive jab for telling people where they belong which is against HN guidelines. “When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.”
- html5cat 3mo agoInteresting how Tang Yew Tan worked at Apple for 25 years (!!) and then threw it all out for this.
- The_Blade 3mo agowho knows, maybe he had giant gambling debts or other addiction(s) or bad real estate investments and/or lost half of it all to an ex-wife first. things that Jony might be readily aware of. assuming there is more than a kernel of truth to this - and i can't imagine not, the OpenAI comms guy who responded already scrubbed his X account - it doesn't surprise me that Tan was a criminal, it's that he was such a bad criminal
- andersonpico 3mo ago> the OpenAI comms guy who responded already scrubbed his X account who responded to what?
- hug 3mo agohttps://x.com/drewpusateri/status/2075708238650089981 https://x.com/drewpusateri/status/2075708238650089981 and https://x.com/drewpusateri https://x.com/drewpusateri
- telotortium 3mo agoWhat did he scrub? Looks like an account with posts to me
- romanovcode 3mo agoIsn't scrubbing any of the data on a public platform that everyone sees AFTER you are being sued is not the smartest decision?
- saalweachter 3mo agoEh, not a lawyer, but my experience with internet PR problems is that the Internet is pretty lazy with a short attention span. Take something down and most of the Internet is too lazy to dig up an archive and they wander off to find something else to score internet points off of.
- nba456_ 3mo agoLike when Apple sued Samsung. Why bother with the free market when you can just sue your competitors?
- y1n0 3mo agoWhat a dumb take. Apple is the most wildly successful company in the market. You think whatever pittance they get from this will outweigh the cost of stolen ip?
- JumpinJack_Cash 3mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- etchalon 3mo ago... what the hell are you talking about?
- ed_mercer 3mo ago> At Apple, our teams are constantly developing breakthrough technologies I sure hope they weren't referring to Siri here
- Cider9986 3mo agoAlthough I haven't tried the new Siri.
- wnevets 3mo agoIf you sleep with dogs you're gonna get fleas. These AI companies have made billions by stealing other peoples content, what makes you think they would be above stealing from Apple?
- rukuu001 3mo agoCasually dragging new employees into the deepest shit, it’s breathtaking. Also the naïveté of going along with it?? > He has directed job candidates still working for Apple to bring “Actual parts” from Apple to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions in which he and his team at OpenAI can elicit still more Apple confidential information
- PeterHolzwarth 3mo agoQuick reminder that Apple was part of the silicon valley crew that partook of illegal non-poaching arrangements with other SV companies, helping to stifle salaries and more. But, that's a bit of a tangent. On the other hand, Apple is accused of (and a jury ruled against them on the issue) hiring from Masimo to steal trade secret. Appeals are pending, of course, but it's a reminder that Apple is not lily white on this topic.
- akamaka 3mo agoThe jury ruled against Apple only on the issue of patents, and the claims of trade secret theft were dismissed. There doesn’t seem to be evidence that the Masimo employees who went to work for Apple brought any confidential information along with them.
- bel8 3mo agoYeah I cannot feel any sympathy for either companies here. They all do this exact thing, including Apple. OpenAI was just the last one to get caught. And if OpenAI uses this hardware information to bring less locked hardware to the masses, wishful thinking I know, then more power to them. If AI keeps improving, it is very important to make sure everyone gets at least a smidge of a chance of equal access to AI otherwise the income disparity will grow even more. And Apple is the last company in the world to think of the masses. They sell $1000 aluminium monitor stands: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-monitor-stand-price-reaction-misses-point-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-monitor-stand-price-re...
- rustystump 3mo agoThis is silly. Iirc there is a big dif between poaching people for ip and telling people to lie keep working download and physically steal ip. Open ai is not a hero. Open ai is the kind of intellectual property theft and i hope the entire thing crashes and burns. There are plenty of other companies out there less disgusting that can work on foundation models
- aleksandrm 3mo agoI'm curious, who is actually making the calls and who is actually doing the scouting for these people. If this is coordinated, the chain must long, so let's see it!
- opengrass 3mo ago> Chang Liu What did he steal, Garageband?
- paxys 3mo agoReminder that Apple hired 30+ engineers from Masimo and stole multiple trade secrets, including their blood-oxygen monitoring tech, leading to a $634 million judgement against them. They also asked President Biden to intervene and pressure the ITC to reverse their ruling. Not saying OpenAI is innocent here of course, but really no large corporation is. This is just how the game is played.
- akamaka 3mo agoThe $634 million judgement you’re referring to was only for Masimo’s patents, and the other claims they made about trade secret theft were dismissed.
- bel8 3mo ago> only for Masimo’s patents. Sorry but there's no such thing as "only patents", these are often what companies live and die for. The handwaving of Apple wrongdoings have no limits.
- akamaka 3mo agoAll of three of these companies are huge $10+ billion corporations who are capable of doing good and bad simultaneously. If you’re happy painting them as black or white, that your choice, but some people are interested in the specific facts of each case. All I did was quote a fact without any additional comments, and you are the one being dismissive and handwaving it away.
- bel8 3mo agoYou're the one downplaying "breaking patents", not me.
- namocat 3mo agoI now wonder whether Tang Tan was involved in the Masimo incident while at Apple. Maybe he brought that part of the Apple culture to OpenAI.
- jtfrench 3mo agoUntil the industry addresses the Original Sin of Generative AI (and the ascendance of Thievery Corporations), we should expect more and more of this. So far, theft has been rewarded. As long as you make enough money, people seem to be okay with ignoring long-lasting impacts of intellectual theft. As long as you become King of the Cannibals, it seems many are happy to remember you as King and not as the Cannibal.
- ag709 3mo agounrelated, but I love the writing style of this comment
- Tarq0n 3mo agoIgnoring patent law has done great things for 16th century continental Europe and more recently China. Rent-seekers and ladder kickers shouldn't always be respected, they'll slow down societal advancement to a crawl if you let them. The question is whether the gains these AI companies are making from their transgressions are overly privatized.
- b3kart 3mo agoI think significantly fewer people would have an issue with this if the profit was socialized. The fact that a company took all of humanity’s data and is profiting from _is_ the issue.
- impulser_ 3mo agoThis is basically the end of OpenAI hardware. This is by far worst than the Waymo vs. Uber lawsuit which killed the Uber self driving project. Also if you are a business using OpenAI models, I would highly suggest you do not because they are most likely looking at your code and IP.
- glenpierce 3mo agoGood point. If these are the ethical standards they go by, who’s to say they’re abiding by any standards to keep my data private.
- tiahura 3mo agoMy guess it winds up like the old FAT joke about Android.
- nullbio 3mo agoObviously they are looking at your IP and code. Anthropic trains on your data regardless of you opting out, I know that one for certain. There's no coincidence they "keep your data temporarily despite opting out" - because they wash it in legal loopholes. There is no opt out. These companies WILL steal your business. Only a matter of time before they are sued as well.
- Chu4eeno 3mo agoWeren't they required by a court to keep everything, despite the privacy policy etc.? Or am I mixing up my companies in constant law battles.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoThey were required to keep all non-European user logs for a temporary period between April and September 2025, because the media companies suing them think these logs may be the only evidence in existence that could prove or disprove their alleged misconduct.
- azinman2 3mo ago
- nullbio 3mo ago[flagged]
- maz1b 3mo agoWow. Makes me see OpenAI in an entirely different light.
- Voultapher 3mo agoMy gut instinct is to call you a mooncalf, given the lengthy documented history of OpenAI "re-appropriating" things and wanting to profit from it. So here is my honest question, what light did you see them in before and what did you base that on?
- nyanmatt 3mo agoMaybe lead with the question instead of the feigned insult?
- nicce 3mo ago> Wow. Makes me see OpenAI in an entirely different light. Based on what has been already going on there, not even surprised anymore.
- wwind123 3mo agoIn every company I've worked at (all with >1000 employees), there is always some text in the offer or onboarding documents clearly stating that you should not bring any previous employer's trade secret or intellectual property to this company. I wonder whether Open AI's offer letter or onboarding document also says such a thing.
- luciana1u 3mo ago[flagged]
- jhatemyjob 3mo agoThis kind of stuff happens all the time. The employees in question are just incredibly bad at covering their tracks, normally they'd get fired and that would be it. It is fishy that OpenAI's leadership didn't have the watchdogd in place to catch it. And there's this huge public lawsuit about it now. Plus there's the Elon lawsuit. Makes me think somebody wants OpenAI to go down. Almost like a sacrificial scapegoat, in order to achieve psychosocial unity in the programming community, or something like that.
- drob518 3mo agoSeems to me that OpenAI has a culture of questionable ethics that includes this incident but goes way beyond it. This seems very “on brand” for them.
- mandeepj 3mo agoWhy are most lawsuits filed on Friday? To avoid the excessive news cycle? But in this case, Apple might want that.
- seydor 3mo agoNew revenue streams
- narrator 3mo agoJust remembering randomly here, xAI also sued an employee who went to OpenAI for trade secret theft: https://winbuzzer.com/2025/09/01/xai-sues-former-engineer-alleging-theft-of-grok-trade-secrets-for-openai-xcxwbn/ https://winbuzzer.com/2025/09/01/xai-sues-former-engineer-al...
- throwa356262 3mo agoxAI argues the stolen data contains “cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT”. The company claims this information could provide OpenAI with a “potential overwhelming edge in the race to dominate the AI landscape”. This has to be a joke. The also-ran accusing the market leader. Specially when some of what xAI has achieved was stolen from Google.
- avadodin 3mo agoIt would not be bard hard to believe if you told me that they stole Siri and then they put it back on the shelf.
- Lio 3mo agoOpenAI 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 could your company afford to sue OpenAI and would it still be too late to save the business?
- thewhitetulip 3mo agoDon't matter to people who look at codex as a way to replace employees
- baxtr 3mo agoMaybe. But those people might care about their IP being stolen by Codex.
- throw1234567891 3mo agoIf they were, they would not be shipping code to those platforms already.
- sunnybeetroot 3mo agoAnd Apple is a company built on anti trust violations[1]. Every company that sees it profitable to break the law and pay a fine seems to do it. There are no “good guys”. [1] https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-compliance-court-ruling-breakdown https://www.theverge.com/apple/659296/apple-failed-complianc...
- mhdi_kr99 3mo agosteam/valve are good guys
- 3mo ago
- zftnb666 3mo agoApple protecting trade secrets is like a bank protecting vaults — except the vault is made of glass and the code was probably written by OpenAI's LLM anyway.
- himata4113 3mo agoIs this the simple case of being used to stealing so much (most ai companies pretty much stole all of data available on the internet with little consequence) that they also felt comfortable stealing data from companies?
- runako 3mo agoThis reads like there are enough alleged serious federal felonies that DOJ needs to get involved immediately. People do this kind of stuff because people rarely go to jail for white-collar crime.
- steve1977 3mo agoIt's not really surprising that a company that is essentially built on stolen IP will steal more IP when there's an opportunity .
- avodonosov 3mo agoIf instead of downloading the files they took the info out in the form of neural network trained on the files and able to reproduce the information, that would be just fair use, 100 pound.
- m3kw9 3mo agoIs the same clean room technique used for code bases.
- avodonosov 3mo agoThe fair use concept applies to any copyrighted material, I suppose. BTW, maybe OpenAI can build on this their defence line. If they prove in court that the materials they got from Apple have never been used for design of products, and OpenAI only collected some linguistic statistics from the docs (as we know, training LLM is concepfually no different from calculating word frequencies), which does not violate copyrights. As for possible similafities in pfoducts to the Apple design, that's just a coincedence, developers can come to equal solutions when solving equal problenms. Equipped with modern AI assistants they quickly re-discover approaches others have discovered.
- m3kw9 3mo agothis would be some crazy landmark ruling opening the door to IP clean rooming of every IP, which means companies will no longer file IPs and keep it secret to delaying the inevitable
- anematode 3mo agoExactly!
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- cromka 3mo agoSo I guess we can forget about next AI IPOs for a while, can't we? It's Crazy that Elon may end up winning this one, too.
- agigao 3mo agoSam, thinking that he could get away with everything. The master strategist of the west.
- Luker88 3mo agoAnd everyone will keep using them, and nothing will happen, because the markets are completely irrational, sociopathic and nobody was actually in charge, regulations are bad etc... What is the realistic expectation where megacorporations are above a good chunk of the law, the citizens can't hopefully pass any legislation and pardons are just a matter of a donation?
- alpineman 3mo agoBad look for Jonny Ive
- tancop 3mo ago[dead]
- barrkel 3mo agoThere comes a point in a startup's life where more controls are needed. Red tape. The stuff that slows down the big boys. Problem is, the red tape is scar tissue from previous informal process failures.
- laravinson26 3mo ago[dead]
- kneel25 3mo agoThe 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.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- nvarsj 3mo agoThe irony to me is Apple did the exact same thing to Motorola back in the day, which I saw firsthand as a Mot eng. Poached employees and IP. I doubt the iPhone would have happened otherwise. Jobs was absolutely ruthless and would do anything for his goals.
- stefan_ 3mo agoOf course, this is essentially the basis of capitalism. Corporations are just people, folks, spread the knowledge and we all get richer. The best corporations I worked at had people dedicated to reverse engineering competitor products and were deeply steeped in the market, the worst were those where product just cared about making their bosses happy.
- awakeasleep 3mo agowhat do you mean by "exact same thing" This isn't about "poaching" employees (in our society people can work where they choose, they are not property of a feudal lord) and using their knowledge. This is about ex-employees accessing Apple's internal fileshares. It's about instructing employees who were about to leave to take everything they could with them, and giving them training on how to evade Apple's offboarding security process.
- 2mo ago
- liendolucas 3mo agoI don't really get it. High profile people working for Apple leave for OpenAI, obviously for money. Is it worth it though? You already have a good job, enough money and work for an iconic company. I mean people in these positions taking these decisions, wouldn't have actually benefited way much more if staying at Apple and actually disclosed OpenAI attempts to steal IP and technology?
- AbstractH24 3mo agoHow far are we from OpenAI being “too big to fail”? Eventually this bubble will burst. Question is what’ll do it. (I’ll say I don’t use OpenAI after the DoD stuff, so don’t misconstrue this as approval.)
- quietthrow 3mo agoAt the end of the day leadership matters in corporate settings (or for a country for that matter). The person at the helm sets the tone for the culture - what’s acceptable what’s not etc. how to go about achieving a goal. Objectively speaking and leaving out judgement of good or bad- Sam, Trump etc all are extremely good at the skill they bring. And when they are put in a position of power they do end up revealing who they are. Thats the thing about power - once you have it will reveal who you are and you have no control over that And Thats the deal. Sam prolly has no idea about it but given who he is he only has a bunch of narcissistic megalomaniacs surrounding him and so on and so forth with dilution as levels progress
- greenoracle9 3mo agoI expected this to be mostly about Apple being angry that OpenAI hired its hardware people, but the complaint sounds more specific and obviously it is still only Apple’s side for now.
- cmiles8 3mo agoOpenAI are really starting to look and smell like “the bad guys” in the industry.
- nullbio 3mo agoAnthropic is doing the same thing but at an even larger scale than OpenAI, ironically. OpenAI was just unlucky enough to get caught.
- ralphington 3mo ago[citation needed]
- kzrdude 3mo agoYeah but it also seems like they have the best model right now?
- preisschild 3mo ago"Open"AI, Apple, Anthropic, "Space"X are all bad guys
- overgard 3mo agoI think their moral failures are just a bit more visible at the moment. I don't think the other companies are much better. Maybe they're more competent at not running afoul of the law. If this is the kind of thing that makes people want to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions, I'd suggest going to local models instead of Anthropic, or smaller providers with more stringent ethical guidelines.
- xandrius 3mo agoStarting? Did you just connect to the Internet?
- Andrex 3mo agoYeah, whatever small amount of Koolaid I was excited to drink went out the window when they ditched the charity angle. A broken clock's right twice a day and Musk is right about that.
- rambojohnson 3mo agojust desserts. let them fight each other. every major monopolistic corporation in this country was founded on theft anyway. lets not clutch pearls here guys...
- sidcool 3mo agoApple was smart to move to Gemini before suing OpenAI. But I feel nothing's gonna come out of it.
- verdverm 3mo agohttps://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-executive-sentenced-18-months-jail-trade-secret-theft-google https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-executive-s... Prior art suggests jail time and product failure
- jakeinspace 3mo agoApple has all the money in the world to take this to court, I don't see why they'd accept a settlement. The discovery process alone could honestly destroy OpenAI by making investors and employees nervous enough to look elsewhere. Would be especially interesting if this crosses into criminal territory, especially if there's solid proof of upper management or executives being aware.
- bigyabai 3mo ago> I don't see why they'd accept a settlement. glances at Kushner's $1 billion OpenAI investment through Thrive Capital Are you sure they won't settle? Apple settled their case with NSO Group, even though they were (and still are) hacking iPhone handsets. Seems to me like Apple is happy to settle cases that interfere with their political ambitions whenever America's government asks them to stand down. If Apple's protectionist treatment is predicated on non-interference with other protected companies like OpenAI, maybe they will be motivated to settle out of court.
- causal 3mo agoIf OpenAI is this shady culturally then all kinds of dark secrets could come out. They just released 5.6 to great fanfare with benchmarks showing even their weakest model (Luna) supposedly smoking Fable. Having used it a couple hours I'm certain this is a lie, and I'm now curious what else is.
- dzonga 3mo agothis is just a repeat of the whole Uber case in regards to self driving vs Waymo. the people responsible will be sent to jail - and if they can pay trump for pardons they will get out - but if not they're looking at 10 years at the FEDs.
- overgard 3mo agoI'd really love to see OpenAI use ChatGPT to mount their defense. Eat your own dog food! It should be PhD level right?
- _RPM 3mo agoThe culture of cheating is normalized in Asian culture.
- halamadrid 3mo agoI fail to understand the need to do this, isn't it obvious from the history that Apple will find out and will go after this? Why take this risk? I feel its better to start from scratch & redo things so that you get two things 1. a chance to correct problems you couldn't before because things evolved too much 2. don't break rules or agreements you have signed before The first one is the key part - I think redoing something the second time almost always ends up in a better result. If you are paid to do it with enough resources and team then all the more easier.
- pwthornton 3mo agoDid you really expect better from a Scam Altman company? 0 morals or ethics.
- zkid18 3mo agoWow, American AI labs are now quite close in ethical competition to their Chinese counterparts heh. It seems we're truly in a power war rn.
- warumdarum 3mo agoOne way a bubble can pop is from the healthy endavours to devour the bubble inhabitants whose funds run out in a legal feeding frenzy?
- Someone 2mo ago> 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 How come Apple didn’t remotely wipe that laptop or at least black it from accessing their network? Whether they couldn’t or didn’t, that doesn’t show well for their IT department.