As much as everybody hates on OpenAI for chaotic management, they did buy Jony Ive and are presumably giving him everything he wants to build a platform for them. Even though it probably only buys them a 20% chance of success, they haven't doomed the project by underestimating what it takes budget-wise.
And they blew it. Maybe they blew it by not realizing that even long time Apple employees could get arrogant about security. Or maybe it was a loose ethical environment in general. Whatever is it the root or the problem, they set billions of dollars on fire maybe tens of billions, by being unnecessarily cute about Apple proprietary information when they could've been above reproach. They had the resources to hire all the right people with the right knowledge and probably already had them on board.
Altman doesn’t appear to be a beacon of corporate ethics.
There has to be a reason why almost every single important partnership OpenAI had, abruptly ended, except for maybe Nvidia.
Just recently Satya Nadella publicly implied that OpenAI should not be trusted.
They are slowly becoming the STD of the AI industry, it’s like they think they are too big and awesome to need friends.
Maybe pissing Apple off will teach them a lesson?
All they seem to have gotten out of it is some creepy blogpost:
I increasingly see AI investment, generally speaking, as a lost cause. It has very little chance to pay off.
Frontier labs are racing towards SaaS commoditization at incredible speed. And while there might possibly be $Trillions in productivity gained from their use, there's no reason to think those gains get captured by the model makers or inference providers at this point.
Maybe the Claude or ChatGPT desktop apps will dominate as the new MS Excel, but that's hard to do without already having locked the whole market into Windows.
There's virtually no platform play available to them.
That might be true in tech-savvy industries -- but in non-tech industries where the biggest software purchase might be the office suite or the ERP, inertia means the GSuite shops stick with Gemini, and the Exchange/Office 365 shops stick with Copilot.
The moat is way smaller than with Office or Gsuite because they feed data into the chat interface and it gives them an answer. The moat for Gsuite and Office is higher because you have to move all your data and reorganize it. Oh and everyone has to learn how to use the new software clients.
This time, it is different with AI. The rate of change is significant.
From no internet to internet the change is pretty profound. But my job is already very automated for the most part. It's true AI might automate it a bit more, but it's not like I'm going from zero automation to full on automation. That's not nothing, and it is worth something, but it's also not internet from no internet level of change either.
This is essentially what Google has done, and it's a shame the US is so weak on enforcing antitrust laws.
China is obviously in the GPU/RAM race. Heard of Huawei, Moore Threads, Lisuan Tech, CXMT?
Unless someone comes up with a brilliant optimization strategy or new hardware that renders all that inefficient Nvidia crap overnight.
It's also possible to lose touch (e.g., butterfly keyboards).
This is hilarious. The company run by sama? The company that started as the largest copy right violation ever? How can you be above reproach when you start such disregard like that?
> they did buy Jony Ive and are presumably giving him everything he wants to build a platform for them
If they hired Jony Ive to build a "platform" they will be very disappointed. He has no experience in doing that. They hired him to design a device, probably comment on the UI (if there is any, though I don't think he is qualified to direct either UI personally).
Aside from that, yeah, they royally screwed up here. Either by hiring unsavory people who think this acceptable behavior and/or by not managing/supervising them.
I've said it before on this topic: this goes _way_ past non-competes and the like. If you learn a novel method for doing something you are free (in my book) to recreate it at another company. You are not free to steal code/designs/etc verbatim and you are absolutely not ok to encourage people you are poaching (poaching is fine itself) to steal secrets/ideas on their way out. Also the whole "lying to a manufacturer to say Apple gave OpenAI permission to use the same proprietary technique" is really gross.
Is there any reason to think this is roque employees doing something? We know Altman is ethically challenged. It is equally or even more likely that management welcommed employees to doing this.
That's why Apple used open-source software to build a kernel.
And why they used third party developers to develop the ecosystem of applications.
Isn't that the very definition of a platform?
Hell they might’ve been bought by OpenAI for billions instead of… HP lol
sama plays loose with the truth. so likely the employees are gonna follow their boss in cutting corners.
you see it everywhere in gvt/large organizations - if you come from a poor country - if the president is corrupt - the whole gvt gets corrupted.
This could be a blessing in disguise for OpenAI. This mess was conducted under Altman’s watch—it could be an opportunity to Kalanick him.
The Board could elevate Altman to Chairman emeritus or something, choose a new CEO and settle with Apple. That will probably involve shutting down the hardware project and clawing back comp from its employees who helped make this mess.
Ahistoric jibber jabber. Microsoft gave it their very best shot with Windows Phone. Facebook renamed the entire company to make VR happen. These companies have shoved everything they got into making these platforms, and their fate would not have been different if they had been given another billion.
Platforms are hard to make, and wanting it bad enough is not enough to make one.
Stealing from the one company that has managed to court success makes a lot of sense. They are the only company with any successful experience.
It makes a lot of sense to get into a massive legal battle with one of the most deep-pocketed companies on the planet?
They also succeeded in the monumental task of making VR look boring.
VR platforms are an escapist's dream: you can be anything you want doing whatever you want. And how did they show off their fantasy world machine? They did office meetings in avatars of their real life selves.
Just spend one night in VRChat and everything Meta did will look like Plato's cave shadows.
I mean regardless of whether it’s a trade secret, you’re going to know how to do specific things that can’t be protected against copying.
There are no practical laws against understanding the laws of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy when it comes to anodizing.
Except there are. It’s why clean-room design [1] is a thing.
Legally, no. Reasonably, for purposes of discussion, I think it has. The “LOL” dumbfuck who airlifted files into OpenAI isn’t particularly ambiguous [1].
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-11/openai-en...
LOL Liu hasn’t—to my knowledge—been fired. When OpenAI was notified of his conduct, they didn’t confidentially settle. Instead, OpenAI’s legal went cold on Apple.
It’s not legally certain. But you really have to stretch the facts to make this seem ambiguous.
The rest of us are allowed to rightfully laugh at them.
Who is to say Apple employees (at Apple) haven’t been vibe coding or asking gpt for technical topics? Also, funny timing from Apple - there is a lot of PR and optics riding on this lawsuit.
It sounds like, in this case, Apple has hard proof that documents were stolen.
Honest question: Are there countries where this is not the case? I'd be interested to read more about how that manage that. If it's some sort of "protecting the little guy"-type thing or a general suppression of legal costs. Or maybe I'm reading too much into your comment.
So if you have been wrongly accused, that may cost you nothing.
In every other country, the loser pays the winner's legal fees.
Honestly, the proof is the least surprising part -- Apple's been paranoid about leaks for decades, even when the stakes have been lower.
I believe some articles mentioned about employees bragging to their former colleagues about accessing documents. Also I believe they lied to Apple about being employed elsewhere so they can continue using their access and hardware, etc.
If these are correct, the whole OpenAI playbook is very dirty, and I won't pity them a bit.
Also Apple could have filed the litigation right before the IPO and after a IPO announcement. OpenAI doesn't get to decide when Apple sues them.
Isn’t that precisely what being late to the party means? You should have showed earlier?
So if I'm a former Apple employee and I get one of these scary letters, I'm asking my attorney if I could get out of a lawsuit by sharing any information I have about any potential OpenAI shady practices.
You talk to a lawyer and do what they say, not what Apple demands of you. No one but a judge can demand anything of you.
At this point, the assumption would be that they are a non-party witness.
So, beyond not destroying any potential evidence, you might as well tell them to shove it.
If it was a small number, four or five total, maybe, but not 40.
Corps lose law suits all the time. They always have to go whatever "this far" is before it happens, surely?
Companies often file frivolous lawsuits against other companies. It’s much rarer to throw frivolous lawsuits at individuals.
My guess is these employees weren’t chosen randomly. If they refuse to coöperate with Apple, they’ll get personally sued as well.
And the reality of the matter is, given Altman’s public persona and reputation, there is a good chance an AG somewhere starts looking at whether these folks broke any laws.
This isn't law and order and that's not how civil litigation works.
Might have to make some phone calls to my local representatives now...
But it doesn't follow at all that Apple is threatening to sue them. A long time ago, in an unrelated case, I got a letter like this because I was in the room when a certain decision was made and happened to have some notes about that meeting. But there was no chance I would be sued. I wasn't the decider, and was basically a third-party involved.
If I am understanding your question, they went so far as to sue their employees.
CHANG LIU, TANG YEW TAN, OPENAI FOUNDATION f/k/a OPENAI, INC., OPENAI GROUP PBC, and IO PRODUCTS, LLC f/k/a IO PRODUCTS, INC.,
Parent is being downvoted likely because their statement implies the “dozens” receiving letters are individually being sued, but that’s not the case.
And while I am far from an Apple fan boy, yes a lot of big corporations file frivolous lawsuits but Apple typically does not engage in that behavior against other companies. Also bear in mind that open AI is a huge name so there is a public/political element that goes along with this for Apple. There are going to be a lot of people who do not want Apple to win this regardless of how true their claims are and will figut like hell to protect openAI
Besides: Apple is a "real" company that will definitely still be around in five years. They've already fumbled Siri multiple times. IMO Google was certainly the right choice for actually executing well on Apple's own terms for the foreseeable future.
I know some insane stories that will never be publicly disclosed for one reason or another, and…it’s not a legal team I’d ever want to cross paths with.
It’s also not the first time Apple has cried wolf at employees leaving the company to do bigger and better things, while trying to take responsibility for their successes.
I do not love Apple, as I said another comment I am so far from an apple fanboy, but frivolous lawsuits against other companies is not really typical for them. Also, these accusations are far from frivolous and they either have proof or they don’t. It would be very strange for them to file this thinking they would win with some sort of gray area argument
As you could imagine, I’m not sharing any specific information.
It shows a level of pettiness and arrogance which I never expected to see from Apple.
I can’t put myself in the mind of John, but he clearly hated Tang.
From outside and with a parent’s perspective this looks like my kids throwing a tantrum.
John must be thinking he is the new Steve Jobs (Steve would definitely do this)
Tang was never mentioned as a candidate in anything I read over the past few years. He wasn't an SVP.
Sending the notification letters is probably petty though.
John Ternus doesn't become CEO until September 1st. If you think that this is still John Ternus' play, Tim Cook is still the one in charge and signed off to start this, meaning "Tim Cook would never have started this" is still 100% wrong.
But the iPhone is the most valuable consumer hardware product on the planet, and the accusations here is “conspiracy to steal” essentially.
Is it really that petty? Apple should be okay with theft of valuable secrets?
If Apple’s accusations prove to be true, it just means that OpenAI is consistent.
Based on the previous thread, Apple seems to have damning evidence of wrongdoing by the (ex)employees before-and-after they left their positions at Apple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48865019
Seems very similar to Google/Waymo winning its case against Uber (ex-Googler Anthony Levandowski) stealing corporate data.
Apple has the employees' emails history, the server access logs, etc. Really don't see Apple pursuing this unless they had a mountain of evidence against them.
Depending on what is at stake. Example the one with Nuvia and Qualcomm I believe they just settled.
This could actually be the fuckup that kills OpenAI as an independent company. The threat of a cash judgement gums up not only an IPO, but also debt-based fundraising. (We equity guys are idiots, so we’ll probably keep writing cheques until the market turns.)
I wonder if they’ll be the Lehman Brothers of this bubble
Also, they don't have a directly competing business with OpenAI, so slander doesn't make sense.
I think this is genuine.
Apple already caught former employees accessing the Apple internal network with unreturned laptops after termination that’s pretty much game over.
It's been nothing but warning signs from this company for at least a year now. I'm so happy to have nothing to do with them (having deleted my account a year or so ago).
Their marketing dept is going to have to really dig to get them out of this hole they've made for themselves.
The idea that I would trust any device they might roll out that is as personal as a personal AI assistant… It's no better than Meta and their creepy glasses.
Yeah, no thanks.
EDIT: I don't mind the downvotes—it means I touched a nerve—whether I am on the right or wrong side of the issue is not as interesting.
Apple, for its flaws, has not lost my trust with regard to my personal data—Meta and others are likely to never gain that back. OpenAI continues to do things to signal that they will not have that trust with me as well.
A bully at times? I wouldn't argue with that.
Maybe, just maybe, you are also evil?
APP STORE, COMPETITION, AND MARKET CONTROL
- U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit Accuses Apple of monopolizing
smartphone markets and anticompetitive behavior.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple-monopolizing-smartphone-markets
- EU Commission DMA breach The European Commission found Apple in breach of
the Digital Markets Act regarding steering rules.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-finds-apple-and-meta-breach-digital-markets-act
- Epic Games injunction sanctions Court rules Apple defied App Store order
regarding external payment links.
https://apnews.com/article/69b16572d2b2c990f6b69d4bbad9b57b
- EU €1.8B App Store fine Fined for abusive music-streaming rules and
preventing cheaper alternative information.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_1161
- Apple Will Finally Pay for Throttling iPhones (WIRED) Apple settled the
throttling lawsuit for up to $500 million (without admitting guilt).
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-batterygate-settlement-payments-finally-coming/
- The End of Parts Pairing? Almost (iFixit) On how software component linking
forces warnings and loses functionality.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/100266/the-end-of-parts-pairing-almost
- Self-Repair Programme Critique (Right to Repair Europe) Critiques
serialization, remote authorization, and part restrictions.
https://repair.eu/news/apples-self-repair-programme-is-not-the-right-to-repair-we-need/
- France is Fighting to Save Your iPhone from an Early Death (WIRED) Regarding
France's probe into planned obsolescence and parts pairing.
https://www.wired.com/story/right-to-repair-apple-france/
- Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit (Reuters) Lawsuit
alleging accidental Siri recordings and sharing with third parties.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-siri-privacy-lawsuit-2025-01-02/
- Apple's CSAM On-Device Scanning Critiques (EFF) The Electronic Frontier
Foundation's critique of Apple's plan to scan photos on-device (later
dropped).
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-different-about-encryption-opens-backdoor-your-private-life
- Apple Reveals Supply Chain, Details Conditions (Reuters) Early reporting on
audit findings of child labor and work violations.
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uk/apple-reveals-supply-chain-details-conditions-idUSTRE80C1KV/
- Rights Group Says Apple Suppliers in China Broke Labor Laws (Reuters)
Reports of excessive overtime and labor violations in Chinese factories.
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/rights-group-says-apple-suppliers-in-china-breaking-labour-laws-idUSBRE85R0EF/
- State aid: Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13
billion (European Commission) The EC ruling that Ireland gave illegal tax
benefits to Apple, later upheld.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_16_2923Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties (yahoo.com)
52 points by notRobot on Jan 1, 2021 | un‑favorite | 5 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25607386
Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments (jessesquires.com)
468 points by ig0r0 on March 31, 2021 | un‑favorite | 291 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216
Apple removes nearly 100 VPNs used by Russians to bypass censorship (elpais.com)
31 points by speckx on Oct 1, 2024 | un‑favorite | 3 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712728
Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA (open-web-advocacy.org)
514 points by yashghelani on July 14, 2025 | un‑favorite | 383 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348
Apple defined ICE as a "protected class" in blocking anti-ICE apps (boingboing.net)
146 points by baobun 9 months ago 69 comments
> Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties (yahoo.com)
Apple routinely terminates relationships with suppliers when they identify abusive practices, sometimes they’re slow about it.
> Apple's Cooperation with Authoritarian Governments (jessesquires.com)
> Apple removes nearly 100 VPNs used by Russians to bypass censorship (elpais.com)
Apple obeys local laws
> Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA (open-web-advocacy.org)
Apple chooses to maintain control over a specific implementation detail of their platform that a handful of nerds object to.
> Apple defined ICE as a "protected class" in blocking anti-ICE apps (boingboing.net)
The claim made in this headline is just straight up false.
I don’t know, I don’t think their less-than-ideal behaviour is anywhere bad enough to reasonably be described as “evil”. Otherwise, we’re probably all evil.
The cars that I’ve driven since 18, My contribution to the plastic problem over the years, etc.
(I worked at Apple and am aware of little "theft" incidents that came and went. Obviously those little incidents never made the news cycle.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electron....
This is a perception created by your choice of media.
Would never buy anything from Samsung.
(HackerNews, FWIW.)
Nope. You wrote an ambiguous blurb that then breaks guidelines by commenting “about the voting on comments” [1].
Try taking out the edit and change “this company” in the second paragraph to OpenAI.
(Weird thing about HN.)
Removing ChatGPT due to ToS violations seems like it would be ok.
Depends if they hate Apple or OpenAI more.
OpenAI has a lot ot catchup on the EU hate scale.
I think this is a good reminder that no company is going to put their neck out for you. IF you go above and beyond whether, whatever the carrot is on the end of the stick you chase, you are only good as what you give back.
Never stay loyal or go all out for your employers, I think the new gen z are far more wiser. It's simply not worth it and I don't feel guilty for working three different employers via remote. Would they get mad and fire me if they found out? Sure. But then I'd just replace them with the next one.
YOU are the only person you should be loyal to. Don't steal for companies, don't lie for companies, don't work extreme hours for some "startup equity" that won't mount to shit (note those are extremely rare)
Collect your pay check, do the minimum, if possible find more pay checks.
Regardless of whether OpenAI poached some of their talent or is the one in the wrong, Apple has such a massively dominant hardware business (some might say monopoly level in some areas) that for them to be publicly acknowledging how scared they are of OpenAI…it’s just…pathetic.
They’re a $5T company and can’t muster up the motivation to get in the game and compete in the next computing frontier.
Apple fanboys will invent some narrative about them swooping in with the best product as a laggard and claim it’s always their strategy, but I see zero evidence they have the capacity to do that anymore.
The Siri situation is just absolutely pathetic and no amount of bad press about OpenAI is going to change the fact that Apple neglecting Siri for a decade now has been a big F-U to their customers.
You can steal trade secrets, which is what this case is about.
(If you’re going to suggest a full rewrite of IP and anti-trust law, you should at least have an understanding of the current situation.)
The history of Silicon Valley and most of its innovation come from this kind of thing, and we eliminated non-competes in California for exactly this reason.
Apple having a serious competitor in hardware would be a good thing for consumers all over the world.
Apple’s overzealous secrecy culture starts to become insidious once you become such a dominant force in the marketplace.
At what point do we allow their innovations to bleed into the rest of humanity and lower their margins so humanity doesn’t pay out a 60% tax to them anymore. I think they’ve made enough profits for investors at this point. Id be happy if my Apple stock went nowhere if it meant 20 other companies could grow and innovate new products off the back of it.
(and to develop 5G modem too)
“You may think a monopoly is an overwhelmingly dominant position as a supplier of a good or service, but that’s just naive popular economics! Acshually, according to the latest economic theories (by economists who share our politics), a monopoly is any firm that is big enough to have market power—like pricing power—to do things that can harm a competitor unfairly.”
Us dummies will keep calling that competition.
Note: The only thing Google got out of Apple was a one billion dollar refund on an existing search engine agreement, AI real value in the future is as a new addition, to the existing programming stack or toolkit used by programmers. That value does not add up to spending $1 trillion dollars on capex.
If Apple spends any big money in the next 2 to 4 years, they had better spend it on bringing the design and engineering of memory in-house to the Apple Silicon Group and TSMC.