Sam Altman said he was very sad about Apple\u2019s trade-secrets lawsuit and that his first reaction was that the allegations sounded egregious, while OpenAI has moved to have the case dismissed. California voids non-compete agreements, so an employer losing engineers has to litigate afterwards rather than restrain them in advance.<\/p>\n
Sam Altman called himself \u201ca mega Apple fanboy\u201d and said he was \u201cvery sad\u201d about Apple\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI, speaking to the journalist Alex Heath. Business Insider<\/a> reported the interview on Saturday.<\/p>\n The line worth keeping is what came next. \u201cWhen I first heard about it, I was like, Man, this sounds egregious. Someone must have done something badly.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that OpenAI does not want any company\u2019s intellectual property, and does not want people who would take it and bring it in.<\/p>\n Apple sued in July, alleging a \u201ccoordinated pattern of misconduct at an institutional level\u201c. The 40-page complaint names two former Apple employees, Chang Liu and Tang Tan.<\/p>\n TNW reported the allegation that Apple prototypes were carried into show and tell<\/a> interviews. Apple says the two took or retained confidential information and asked current staff about unannounced products.<\/p>\n Altman is barely mentioned in the complaint himself, which names corporate entities and the two engineers.<\/p>\n OpenAI has asked for the case to be thrown out<\/a>, arguing it does not state a claim.<\/p>\n So the chief executive of the defendant has publicly called the allegations egregious while his lawyers argue there is nothing to answer. Those are different registers rather than a contradiction, and both are now on the record.<\/p>\n Apple has also asked a court to freeze OpenAI out<\/a> of its trade secrets through a preliminary injunction. OpenAI\u2019s response is that Apple fears its hardware might reduce demand for Apple\u2019s.<\/p>\n Where the case was filed shapes what it is about. California voids non-compete agreements, so an employer losing engineers to a rival has to litigate afterwards over what they took rather than restrain them in advance.<\/p>\n