OpenAI engineer’s ‘LOL’ moment set stage for legal fight with Apple

When iPhone engineer Chang Liu quit for a job at OpenAI’s nascent hardware division, Apple Inc. says he left with more than just years of experience. According to a lawsuit filed Friday, Liu departed with three things: a company-issued MacBook he never returned, a close relationship with an Apple employee who continued sharing internal information, and, most significantly, knowledge of a software bug that gave him ongoing access to internal file servers.

“LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny,” Liu wrote to his former Apple colleague, Alyssa Peng. He then, Apple alleges, used that access to download presentations, hardware designs, manufacturing details and testing procedures — all while already working at OpenAI. When Liu discovered the bug, Peng stepped in to help, according to the suit.

She replied, “I’m ready,” and eventually helped obtain more information through her own laptop. A few months later, in April, Peng herself left for OpenAI’s growing hardware division. She joined more than 400 other former Apple employees drawn by the opportunity to work on next-generation devices designed to replace the two-decade-old iPhone — with salaries and stock options that trumped Apple’s less dazzling pay packages.

The episode is one of many that Apple says illustrate a “systematic effort to acquire, retain and use” its confidential information to help OpenAI replicate its decades of work building the world’s most successful consumer electronics business. The 40-page lawsuit alleges that OpenAI encouraged prospective employees still at Apple to study confidential materials before interviews and brazenly bring hardware components and prototypes to so-called show-and-tell sessions at OpenAI’s offices. In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI said it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.”

“We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based company said. The lawsuit wa