Injunctions, restraining orders, delays.

The Equity Podcast crew breaks down how Apple’s trade secret lawsuit could throw a wrench in OpenAI’s hardware ambitions.

Apple filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI last Friday, and it’s not messing around. The complaint alleges a pattern of misconduct reaching all the way up to OpenAI’s chief hardware officer and claims more than 400 former Apple employees now work at the company. OpenAI’s response so far has been carefully hedged, and the timing couldn’t be worse with the company reportedly eyeing an IPO as early as later this year.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into what the lawsuit could mean for OpenAI’s own hardware ambitions and IPO timeline, plus a bigger theme running through the week’s news: how much should anyone trust AI companies with their data?
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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:40 Would you want Sam Altman listening to you?

01:53 Apple sues OpenAI over trade secrets

13:24 Satya Nadella’s warning: “you’re paying twice” with your data

19:03 Open source vs. going deeper with AI labs

24:52 General Catalyst gives David Beckham’s health drink startup $1B

30:05 Ex-OpenAI researcher raises $200M for drug discovery startup

32:58 Outro

Pitching to VCs as a deep-tech founder means crafting a precise story. Andrew Dai, co-founder and CEO of Elorian shares his tips for pitching to non-technical investors.

Listen to the full episode of Build Mode for more inside their pre-seed fundraise at a $300M valuation.