Apple recently filed a trade secrets lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the AI company of a pattern of misconduct aimed at getting current and former Apple employees to share confidential information. (In response, OpenAI said it is “not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit.”)

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I debated whether this lawsuit will cast a shadow over OpenAI’s much-discussed plans to get into the hardware business (starting with a mobile smart speaker) and go public.

“Even setting aside whether or not the court grants any kind of injunctive relief or any kind of restraining order over what OpenAI is doing, it just naturally can lead to that sort of situation where it’s going to cause some delays in what OpenAI is working on,” Sean suggested. “Which I’m sure was probably part of the reasoning behind Apple doing this. They don’t do this stuff willy nilly.”

With all those plans on the line, will OpenAI try to settle this as quickly as possible, or did it learn from its recent courtroom victory against Elon Musk that it can endure the cost and embarrassment of a trial? Kirsten, at least, predicts the latter.

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Kirsten Korosec: Sean, how do you feel about Sam Altman listening to you with a little device maybe in your pocket?

Sean O’Kane: I’m good. Maybe that’s predictable, but I’m good. No thanks.

We’ll get into it, I’m sure, but this is allegedly the first product that OpenAI has been working on in its hardware division with Jony Ive and company. They’ve been really coy ever since that weird video they put out last year of them sitting at that coffee shop or bar in San Francisco and sort of talking very vaguely about hardware and legacy devices, meaning laptops and phones. And so if this is the direction they’re headed in, all power to people who want to have somebody like that always listening to them. This is not going to be for me.

Anthony Ha: Part of what we have to remember about those kinds of devices is also that, depending on how mobile it is, it’s not just listening to you, it’s listening to the people around you. I might be fine with it — I’m not fine with it, but let’s say I was — but then if we met up in-person at Disrupt, then suddenly it might be listening to all of us. 

There’s all kinds of social norms that are going to have to be renegotiated if these things become widespread. I think we should make fun of and criticize people who record other people without consent.

Kirsten: Well, I bring up the device that has been speculated about for a really long time, and we’ll see what it really ends up being once it’s officially introduced, but it’s important in the context of this lawsuit that Apple filed last Friday. 

It was the biggest news of the week, certainly, and this is a trade secret lawsuit. It has some pretty wild allegations and we should very much emphasize these are allegations that have been filed in a complaint by Apple. But what it is accusing OpenAI of is a pattern of misconduct at the highest levels, specifically directed towards OpenAI employees who used to work at Apple. And in fact they’ve named the chief hardware officer Tang Tan in this lawsuit.

This is all important because Apple is accusing OpenAI of essentially stealing their trade secrets, but in the context of that, this could be then used for a competing hardware product. I’m wondering if maybe we don’t get into whether this lawsuit has merits, because we haven’t gone through full discovery, but what are your initial impressions of the lawsuit aside from the fact that wow, this is going to be entertaining?

Sean: Two things. One, this is a pretty big risk potentially to whatever it is OpenAI is working on. Even setting aside whether or not the court grants any kind of injunctive relief or any kind of restraining order over what OpenAI is doing, it just naturally can lead to that sort of situation where it’s going to cause some delays in what OpenAI is working on, which I’m sure was probably part of the reasoning behind Apple doing this. They don’t do this stuff willy nilly.

The other is that we think that OpenAI is — we know that they’ve filed confidentially for an IPO. We think it might happen as early as the end of this year, or early next year, if you believe Sam Altman’s cautious language around the IPO. And this just raises a whole bunch of questions around that because, on the one hand, we think their business right now is probably overwhelmingly the software; they’re not really factoring in any hardware business into that picture at the moment.

They’re about to go to the markets and they’re going to be pitching bankers and investors on where they think their addressable market should be, and if they have a big amount of that pegged to a potential hardware division and hardware products, this could be a huge risk to that and changes a lot of the calculus of sort of how the IPO gets priced. So that’s where my head’s at.

Anthony: One [allegation] that I assume that Apple must have pretty solid like numbers on is, they said more than 400 Apple employees now work at OpenAI. Granted, both of them are very large companies with many thousands or tens of thousands of employees. So as a percentage, it’s not necessarily huge. But that seems like a lot of people and a pretty serious talent drain. 

And the other thing I’m wondering is related to Sean’s point. With the context of the potential IPO, how much damage did OpenAI ultimately take from a marketing and brand perspective from the trial it already went through? That it seemed to basically win, but there was a lot of not-terrible-but-kind-of-embarrassing dirty laundry that came out in the testimony. To what extent are they just like, “We do not want to go through that again”? Or did they take the lesson of, “Hey, we went through it and we survived and we’ll be okay if we have to do another trial with Apple”?

Kirsten: I fully predict the latter, by the way.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

Last week, I wrote about Uber and Waymo and how their partnership appears to be deteriorating. I predicted the two companies would end up on opposing sides of autonomous vehicle policy. That wasn’t a guess.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been talking to sources and digging through correspondence Uber sent to the D.C. Council, which is evaluating a proposed bill that would allow autonomous vehicles to operate in Washington, D.C.

What I found: Uber and Waymo are already on opposite sides of the proposal, sparring behind the scenes and in public. Uber has made a particularly interesting argument in its effort to shape the rules that govern autonomous vehicles.

Uber, which opposes the D.C. bill, argues it would displace for-hire human drivers and hand Waymo a de facto monopoly. Instead, it has lobbied for a system that would require robotaxis to operate on a ride-hailing network alongside human drivers.

Insiders tell me the “hybrid” approach has little chance of becoming law. But if it did, it would leave AV developers like Waymo with two suboptimal choices: either put their robotaxis on ride-hailing apps like Uber or employ human drivers alongside fleets of robotaxis that took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.

A D.C. Council hearing on Monday drew representatives from Lyft, Tesla, Uber, and Waymo, along with dozens of disability rights and accessibility advocates, local business and industry groups, highway safety organizations, government officials, labor unions, and think tanks.

My takeaway — based on the public testimony and the calls and texts I received afterward — is that Waymo is one of the few companies that generally likes the bill. Much of the rest of the industry does not.

Tesla’s senior policy adviser, India Herdman, echoed concerns I’ve heard from multiple AV developers, including objections to the 180-day, 250,000-mile mandatory testing requirement; the $1 million application fee; the $5 million permit fee; and the $0.15-per-mile tax. Tesla, along with other companies, argued that testing miles accumulated in other jurisdictions should count toward the mileage threshold.

Waymo, which has been testing its AVs with human safety operators in Washington, D.C., has already surpassed the 180-day and 250,000-mile requirements. That means if the bill passed as written today, Waymo would enter the market with at least a six-month head start.

Deals!

Uber is considered a ride-hailing and delivery giant. It is now cementing that status through a $14.8 billion deal to acquire Germany’s Delivery Hero. 

If the deal closes — and it will absolutely take time to overcome the regulatory hurdles — Uber will get access to nearly 100 markets across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. The upshot: Uber’s delivery footprint will double.

Delivery Hero also made a separate agreement to sell its business in 14 markets, where Uber Eats is already operating, to New York-based investment firm SSW Partners for $1.6 billion.

Other deals that got my attention …

Self Inspection, a San Diego-based startup trying to disrupt the vehicle inspection process, raised $10 million in a round led by the family office of Sheryl Sandberg. Tire distributor U.S. AutoForce and automotive lender Westlake Financial made strategic investments. Early-stage funds Costanoa Ventures, Rebellion Ventures, and BrightCap Ventures also invested.

Senra, a startup modernizing how wire harnesses are made, raised $65 million in a Series B round co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund, among others.

Zepto, the Indian fast-delivery company, is seeking a valuation in an initial public offering well below its $7 billion peak, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Chip Motors, a Miami-based startup, revealed a low-speed small EV designed for short errands and families, and with some automated driving capabilities.

The Los Angeles Police Department is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States.

Lucid Motors is pushing back — and hard — on a report that claimed the EV maker was weighing whether to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s comms team, its CEO, and a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission all say the same thing: The rumors are false. The initial report sent the company’s stock down more than 50% on Tuesday, its biggest intra-day drop ever. The stock has since recovered and is now trading about 28% higher than it was prior to the big drop. 

Lyft CEO David Risher says it’s the “Good Uber,” per Wired.

Manual, or standard, transmission vehicles are a dying breed, according to preliminary government data that shows just 0.6% of new vehicles made for the U.S. in 2025 had stick shifts, the Washington Post reported. I own two manual vehicles. Does that make me a driving unicorn?

The National Transportation Safety Board said the driver of a Tesla who crashed into a house in June had pressed the accelerator pedal to 100%, overriding the company’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software.

San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie has urged state regulators to toughen rules on autonomous vehicles after Waymo robotaxis became immobile in heavy July 4 traffic, ran out of power, and blocked key streets, further compounding the gridlock. In a letter (parts of which are excerpted here) Lurie outlined four core requirements he would like to see enacted to ensure robotaxi companies can “perform reliably” during extraordinary events. 

SpaceX abruptly aborted the second attempted launch of its upgraded Starship rocket system on Thursday, just moments after the booster ignited at the company’s complex in South Texas.

Zoox issued a software recall after one of its robotaxis got confused by smoke emitting from an emergency fire scene in June.

One more thing …

Uber chief product officer Sachin Kansal talks to TechCrunch EIC Connie Loizos about travel, AI agents, and playing both sides of the robotaxi race, in the latest Strictly VC podcast episode. If you’d rather read the interview, check out the Q&A.

Christopher Nolan, the Oscar-winning director whose new version of “The Odyssey” is currently conquering the box office, said it’s been “pretty encouraging” to see deep skepticism of AI, especially from young people.

Nolan was responding to a question from interviewer Hugo Travers, who publishes on YouTube under the name HugoDécrypte. Travers brought up the legendary Trojan horse, which plays a key role in Nolan’s film — just as the horse was a gift concealing murderous Greek invaders, he wondered if AI might be something “that you welcome in your daily life” but ends up becoming “something else and something darker.”

Laughing, Nolan responded, “I think AI is a Trojan horse that everybody knows the Greeks are inside.” He later described the technology as “a transparent horse, it’s made of glass.”

“I’ve never seen a technology advancing so rapidly [that’s been] so completely rejected by the public,” he said. “Everybody’s suspicion of it is so extreme, particularly young people. The reaction to AI videos online and people my children’s age immediately calling it ‘AI slop’ and coining that term and just putting it in a box.”

In Nolan’s view, this is “a very healthy skepticism, because technology is always going to give us great gifts, as you say, but it has to be viewed with skepticism.” Similarly, he said, “The motives of the people giving it to us also have to be viewed with skepticism. That’s when we’ll get the best out of a new technology, rather than just blind faith that everything’s going to be great.” (Meanwhile, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been angrily posting about the film’s nonwhite and transgender cast members.)

Nolan didn’t get more specific about what he views as the threat from AI, but the technology has been a growing source of concern in Hollywood and was a major focus during the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023. The Directors Guild of America, where Nolan is president, also won some generative AI protections in its most recent contract.

The director has been famously resistant to other technologies, including smartphones; his embrace of film can make him seem simultaneously like a Luddite and pioneer, with “The Odyssey” becoming the first feature film to be shot entirely on Imax film and Imax cameras.

When The New York Times recently asked Nolan if he thinks of himself as a technophobe, he replied, “I think of myself as a techno-skeptic,” and said his love of film comes from the fact that it’s “better in terms of representing the way the eye sees the world than any digital imaging system I’ve seen.”

“I embrace new technology all the time, but it tends to be sold to people at the expense of systems that might still be valid and viable,” Nolan said. “That’s what I saw in my industry — throwing the baby out with the bath water. We almost lost film!”