[Robdel12]

OpenAI 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]

OpenAI 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]

OpenAI 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]

Legal 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]

yep 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

[xienze]

A billion dollars would buy a hell of a legal team. You think they couldn't scrape that up from investors who stand to lose substantially more if OpenAI gets blasted?

[csomar]

On the other hand, investors might want to claw back on their investments if they think OpenAI is going south. OpenAI is a company built purely on momentum, so a 180 flip is part of the game.

[anon373839]

I agree that both companies have sufficient capital that legal resources are a a wash. But:

> It's going to end most other corporate courtroom tangles: with an undisclosed settlement and a well-publicized partnership.

This we don't know. We don't know what Apple wants to accomplish with this suit. They may be more interested in the injunctive relief than the monetary recovery. They may want to weaken OpenAI as part of a strategic pivot toward marketing local, private AI inference. As everyone has noted, the factual allegations are detailed and extensive - Apple likely has OpenAI dead to rights on this.

[yugioh3]

Exactly. what financial benefit can Apple get from a nonexistent OAI hardware business with no launched products? What actual harm has been caused so far? This is all about preempting future harm by slowing their product launch by years or, like Waymo/Uber, forcing OAI’s hand to cut losses and sunset their hardware ambitions permanently.

[asadotzler]

They may just want to cow workers a bit more. This would be par for the course in Silicon Valley, keep workers scared and suppress wages however possible.

[enraged_camel]

>> OpenAI also has infinite money

Except OpenAI needs every cent of that money for compute, and they don't have healthy profits that can replenish what they spend.

Their financial situation is simply not comparable to that of Apple's.

[tybit]

The OPs point wasn’t that OpenAis financial situation is comparable to Apples. It was that the likely cost of litigation is a drop in the ocean for OpenAi too despite their comparative lack of cash to burn. Legal disputes like this cost in the hundreds of millions over many years, so well below 1% OpenAis last single funding round in single year. If they got a tiny benefit from this (very gross) behaviour it may be finically well worth while. OpenAI may very well go under IMO, but this will barely be a straw on the camels back.

[msabalau]

Agree on the fees.

At the same discovery process in trade secret litigation is invasive and time-consuming and likely be a heavy tax on the focus of senior leadership.

This also is a complication to their IPO. The financial impact isn't just about the lawyer's fees.

On the plus side, the whole hardware thing was possibly a stupid distraction anyway, having to flush it might not be the worse thing.

[y1n0]

OpenAI has no shortage of vc money sources.

[jhfdbkofdchk]

For now.

[crossroadsguy]

Infinite money if lawyers are accepting AWS and Azure credits. You got to store those discovery documents somewhere after all.

[rukuu001]

> OpenAI also has infinite money

And an infinite money-eating bonfire

[zelphirkalt]

At business schools they should introduce Hilbert's infinite money burning bonfire. How can an infinite cash supply still be burned, when an infinite amount of money is already burning?

[bigyabai]

Unless Apple protracts the case, that won't become an issue.

[runako]

Drag out a legal battle? Surely, Apple would never do something like that[1].

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....

[amazingman]

OpenAI's money belongs to investors and can be pulled if, say, investors got spooked. Apple's money is much more real.

[harry8]

Investors get spooked the only thing they can do is mark it to zero. There's no "getting your money back" It has been spent on salaries, servers, Washington PR firms, political donations...

[amazingman]

I'm talking about the money in the bank, the promised money to come, etc. Of course the spent money is already spent.

[csomar]

We don't know the specifics of openai fund raises, but there are generally clawback clauses.

[overgard]

Nope, OpenAI is the equivalent of a rich kid spending his parents money (they certainly aren't making it). As soon as VC dries up and the hyper scalers stop subsidizing them the bills are going to come due very quickly.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/

(This was independently verified by the Financial Times)

[dgellow]

OpenAI wealth isn’t really that liquid

[jkman]

Lmao if only one could pay lawyers in equity and promissory notes

[sfifs]

Well OpenAI is offering equity to the US Government (and who knows who else privately) Tim Apple famously refused to bring manufacturing back to the US when the current president asked and play hardball on infosec. While this is a civil case, increasingly judiciary seems to be an extension of the executive. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[ecommerceguy]

Does this ring true in California?

[dannyw]

Yes, the Supreme Court can reverse anything, and they're re-evaluating the Apple/Fortnite case (which was surprising to a lot of people).

I don't like bringing politics, but the recent 5-4 decision on birthright citizenship doesn't promote a lot of credibility in the current Supreme Court.

[xtracto]

This is when I wish Jobs was still in charge of Apple. I never quite liked him, but I like Altman way less. And Jobs would CRUCIFY the whole openAI team for this. It would be beautiful to watch.

[crossroadsguy]

That's a very twisted kind of relative deification.

[thraway3837]

It wouldn’t be effective at accomplishing anything. He wanted to go thermonuclear (his words) on Google and Samsung. Yet here they are, equal heavyweights to Apple.

I love Apple, and I’m a fanboy, but they are not the good guys.

[jayrot]

More and more I’m coming to the realization that they’re definitely not the good guy, but certainly seem to be the least bad.

[throw28273]

"Great artists steal."

[xp84]

For real. If Apple can prove half of this complaint, OpenAI need to be jumping straight to "how can we settle this immediately." Can you imagine how much fun Apple lawyers would have taking this to a jury trial? Especially considering overall Apple knows that the public overall vaguely likes Apple and distrusts "AI" companies for, hmmm... (alleged) IP theft.

I'm also wondering about all these involved ex-Apple people who decided to pivot to crime, it seems like OpenAI has to fire all of them, no? Because how do you just keep them, knowing that they're all basically tainted, and that Apple will be coming back to sue you again for anything that seems "inspired" by Apple products or tech.

What a massive cock-up for whoever (Tan?) is at the top of this conspiracy, to think this was worth the risk, and to have not known that the chances of getting caught going this far outside the legal boundaries were less than 100%.

[downrightmike]

Also OpenAI is the one that bought all the ram chips for the years to come, so no one likes them

[spacedcowboy]

Apple’s proposed remedy: give Us all the ram.

[romanovcode]

Glorious Leader Trump likes them. They gave stock to him.

[xp84]

Too bad for them that Trump probably won’t be on the jury

[maleldil]

Yes, because that's the only way powerful people can influence judicial outcomes.

[mannanj]

Is there any other AI company with as much controversy as this company?

- ~murdered~ (dead) employee who's mother is on a anti-sam hate campaign - ceo fired then coup's his way back into the company - conflict of interest with Microsoft

Despite Anthropic's bad press, they haven't been as dishonest as this company.

[frankdenbow]

proactively creating the script for the movie

[dataviz1000]

> ceo fired then coup's his way back into the company

Are we discussing Steve Jobs in 1985?

Any time there is that much money and power involved there is going to be intense drama.

[bumblehean]

> Are we discussing Steve Jobs in 1985?

Steve Jobs left because he lost a corporate power struggle. Sam Altman was fired because the board thought he was too fundamentally untrustworthy to remain as CEO (if we're to believe their statement ofc).

Different kinds of "controversy" IMO

[dataviz1000]

> Steve Jobs left because he lost a corporate power struggle

Sam stayed because we won a corporate power struggle.

Likely Steve Jobs left because if we stayed we would have been fired or removed of all responsibilities.

[etchalon]

Steve also actually, you know, left. And stayed away for over a decade.

[mannanj]

This is not drama though, it's more inline with unethical, immoral, and bad. It's indicative of company with bad character.

[m463]

I hope they can pull it off.

That said, silicon valley is full of stories where people brazenly stole from company A to start company B and pretty much got away with it.

EDIT: this is the one I remember:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_Design_Systems%2C_Inc....

[busymom0]

The silicon valley TV show even had episodes on this! Man I miss that show. They'd have so much funny material nowadays if they came back.

[IAmGraydon]

Definitely in my top 5 favorite shows of all time. I still rewatch it from time to time.

[an0malous]

What kind of repercussions will OpenAI face?

[paxys]

In the extreme case it may result in OpenAI having to abandon their in-progress consumer hardware products, but honestly that might actually be good for them. I really can't see all that investment being worthwhile. Better for them to stick to their core competency.

More realistically - OpenAI will cooperate, the specific employees involved will be punished, there will be a settlement, and this whole matter will be forgotten.

[calebkaiser]

Based on a cursory read of the situation, it seems similar (at least on its face) to the Waymo vs Uber situation. In that case, Uber payed a Waymo an equity stake and signed an agreement about which technology they would/wouldn't use. The key person involved also was sentenced to 18 months in prison (pardoned after 6 months).

[y1n0]

Basically nothing. I mean they’ll have to pay up but money clearly isn’t something OpenAI worries about. They’ll just raise more from the infinite vc money tree.

[Hupriene]

In the end some guy from apple (lets call him Mr. Johnson) will have to hire a plucky band of hackers and security experts to operate from the shadows and get revenge. Isn't having corporations be above the law grand!

[anon373839]

Apple may get a chance to rifle through OpenAI's trade secrets. And they may win an outcome where there is direct court supervision over what OpenAI is allowed to build and how.

[blueblisters]

OpenAI will just put the employees involved under the bus. They can claim the information acquired wasn't used for OpenAI's benefit or authorization especially since the device isn't actually out yet.

[diab0lic]

Given that they tricked a vendor in using a secret metal finishing technique by lying and saying they had permission… I’d say the “wasn’t used for OpenAI’s benefit” argument is going to be a difficult case to make. They’ve got intent at the very least.

[moomoo11]

Apple should buy OpenAI

[IAmGraydon]

Apple doesn’t want a financial sinkhole. They’re in the business of actually making money.

[sneak]

With what money? I don't think you have looked at OAI's valuation lately.

[gessha]

What they’re actually worth is probably something within Apple’s cash range but investors have other ideas.