This week feels like a car crash in slow motion. And loud.
Apple just sued OpenAI. New York banned new data centers. Someone has really bad diarrhea in forty states. 🤢
It is a lot. But let’s start with the money. Because the lawsuit isn’t just about theft. It is about fear.
The iPhone Thief
Apple filed papers last Friday. The allegation is simple, brutal, and messy: OpenAI stole hardware secrets. Specifically, unreleased iPhone prototypes and confidential designs.
The villain here is Tang Tan. He is OpenAI’s Chief Hardware Officer. Before that? Twenty-four years at Apple. Apple says he didn’t just leave. They say he encouraged his exit crew to take proprietary tech with them. Like a master thief passing notes through prison walls.
Brian Barrett thinks it’s classic Apple. Remember Tony Fadell? The Nest thermostat guy? He hired hundreds of Apple staff. Steve Jobs screamed at him on the phone. Threatened lawsuits. Jobs’ famous quote? “It is your job to keep them.”
Zoë Schiffer points out that Apple hates leaks. They are paranoid. They jump.
But here is the twist. Zoë thinks Apple doesn’t care about the damages money. Apple wants to slow down. OpenAI is building hardware. A device that might look like a Furby. With moving parts. An audio-first AI companion.
Apple is betting everything on the iPhone being the primary computer. If we switch to voice agents, to devices where we don’t need to look at screens? Apple panics.
Brian is skeptical. He thinks the phone stays king. You carry the phone. You use it constantly. A speaker on the desk? Cute. But the phone is in your hand. Always.
The numbers are scary though. OpenAI hired 400+ former Apple employees. Last year, they bought IO Products for $6.5 billion. Co-founded by Jony Ive and Scott Cannon. Apple is hemorrhaging talent. Hardware people. AI brains. It hurts.
The real fun? Discovery. 📁
Lawsuits mean email dumps. We are going to see the trash talk. The private Slack messages where everyone hates each other. Brian calls it a delight. Zoë agrees: “No one is cattier than a lawer with an IP issue.”
Put that on a shirt.
The PAC Wars
The legal trouble isn’t enough. Now comes politics.
Inside OpenAI, there is a civil war brewing. A group of employees launched a Super PAC. Called Guardrails Alliance. Catchy name, right? Sounds like an insurance policy for bad behavior.
It raised $5 million. That’s it.
They are fighting against a rival fund. $100 million dollars. Called “Leading the Future.” Funded by OpenAI exec Greg Brockman and his friends. These guys want AI growth at any cost. No guardrails. Speed. Power.
Zoë notes the tension. OpenAI is changing. New hires are arriving. Some employees call them “MAGA blondes.” Whether they are actually blonde or actually MAGA is debatable, but the vibe is shifting. The culture feels less liberal, less rebellious, more… aligned with the donors?
Leah Feiger loves the detail of one donor: Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe. A research engineer. He gave $200,000 of his own money. He works on AI safety. Societal harm mitigation. He is funding a political fight against his company’s executive leadership.
What does $5 million actually buy?
Brian asks the hard question. Compared to $100 million? Nothing?
Leah argues it matters for down-ballot races. Local elections. Smaller states. You can win Maine or Texas swing districts with less cash if you spend it right. But Anthropic has their own PAC too. Public First Action. $20 million in. The race is 100 vs 25.
It feels like David vs. Goliath. But Goliath is inside the room with you.
“It says they need to work on down-ballot local campaigns.”
Data Centers & Diarrhea
Switching gears because the AI talk is making your head spin.
New York just passed a first-in-the-nation moratorium on data centers. 🏗️❌
Donald Trump is angry. The power grid is stressed. The buildings are getting too hot, too fast. Other states might follow. Or they might laugh at New York’s gridlock. We’ll see.
Then there is the disease. Cyclosporiasis.
It sounds like a superhero. It causes “turbo diarrhea.” It is spreading across thirty-plus states. Emily Mullin explains why it’s bad. Why it’s sticking around. And why we should probably stop eating fresh cilantro from unknown sources for a minute. 🌿
DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—is also hiding stuff. They used AI to make housing policy at HUD. They won’t say how. FOIA requests? Stonewalled. 🗣️🤐
The Open Question
We end with a feeling of unease.
Apple wants its secrets back. OpenAI workers are funding politicians who might regulate their bosses. A billionaire exec is bankrolling deregulation. A disease is tearing up intestines in Iowa.
It is messy.
No tidy conclusion here. No lesson to learn. Just a week where everything is breaking in different directions.
How much chaos can we handle before the AI takes over the blame?
We are still guessing.
