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

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/apple-says-more-ex-employees-may-have-taken-confidential-data-to-openai/
Apple is cutthroat in business too.

Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone, and later Nest founder, commented this in Stratechery about the lawsuit when filed:

"This is Apple’s typical tactic to scare Apple employees — either former or current. I heard this lawsuit was driven by the Apple board.

Steve threatened to file a lawsuit against Nest for poaching 80-100 Apple employees. He called me, screamed for a while with lots of accusations. Then I said, “Steve, it’s Apple’s job to retain its talent, not mine.” He stopped his rant and then we went on to talk about our families and vacation plans. We kept hiring…"

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If Tony and Steve were friends, that's not Apple being cutthroat. Cue: the chapter about poaching from friends in Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things. If you cross that line and poach from your friends, expect to hear about it. Another example: https://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1jgz...
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> And, [OpenAI] said that Apple didn’t admit to the claim that the “residual access” allowing former employees to access Apple’s system was the result of poor security procedures on Apple’s part.

Sam "I hack others by mistake" Altman dunking on the security practice of others is funny, is there any glass house he won't go to?

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> is there any glass house he won't go to?

The one containing his children, only the nanny goes there.

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Ah, probably why he thinks its such a great idea to have ChatGPT make a podcast about your children to listen to instead of, you know, talking to them.
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Really don't like all the drama around this. Should be dealt with in court, not tried in the press.

Both sides should learn to remain silent and work the case through legal channels.

Why are you both-sidesing this?

Apple is doing it right, simple high level statements.

OpenAI is acting like a teenager posting screenshots of literal texts and being overall petulant.

This is open and shut. The mature company will win this.

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It's OpenAI still trying to maintain control of the narrative while they burn to the ground. For years they haven't really delivered while bullying anyone who doesn't have an "AI strategy".

The media is happy to stoke the flames.

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>Both sides should learn to remain silent and work the case through legal channels.

Why? Apple surely doesn't want to and why should they?

Huh? Apple is literally working through legal channels, the article is pulled from the court filings which are public record. OpenAI is the one making blog posts.
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