[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