★ Mornings in Cupertino Have the Aroma of Napalm Once Again

‘It Seems You Have a Different Policy’ Ben Thompson, in a subscriber-only Stratechery update Tuesday : I got a fun email from former Apple executive, Nest founder, and one-time Stratechery Interview subject Tony Fadell in response to yesterday’s Update about Apple suing OpenAI (published with permission): Good article as always… This is Apple’s typical tactic to scare Apple employees — either former or current. I heard this lawsuit was driven by the Apple board. Steve threatened to file a lawsuit against Nest for poaching 80-100 Apple employees. He called me, screamed for a while with lots of accusations. Then I said, “Steve, it’s Apple’s job to retain its talent, not mine.” He stopped his rant and then we went on to talk about our families and vacation plans. We kept hiring… This sounds about right — and in terms of the Steve Jobs angle, John Gruber made a compelling case on Dithering that this lawsuit may very well have been driven by John Ternus channeling his inner Jobs. Fadell, of course, is correct that it’s Apple’s job to retain its talent. Recent reporting from Mark Gurman suggests that John Ternus is keenly aware of this , at least as it pertains to Apple’s industrial design team, which has been ground zero for the Apple-to-OpenAI recruitment pipeline. (And the Dithering episode Thompson references is the one we made free-to-listen this week .) Playing hardball when it comes to poaching is deeply embedded in Apple’s DNA. Steve Jobs hated Apple employees getting poached. In 2005 he sent this email to Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen : From: Steve Jobs To: Bruce Chizen

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Uploaded Jul 19, 2026

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