
Apple Sues Nuvia’s CEO, a Former Employee - JoachimS
https://www.eetimes.com/apple-sues-nuvias-ceo-a-former-employee/
======
gumby
I'm really surprised that this might be pursuable in California. At first, as
Williams is a chip guy, I thought it might be in Texas where you can screw
employees six ways from Sunday (up to and including successfully asserting IP
ownership of the contents of someone's head, as the DSC case showed).

California is much more strict, and several of the assertions don't appear to
hold up in my understanding of employment IP law (IANAL but have hired many
people and have dealt with several close employee cases on both sides -
company and employee -- over the years). The lines in the law are pretty clear
and broad.

Most strikingly to me from the complaint is the fact that apple claims that he
1> used his design knowledge to found another company (jeez, people do this
all the time) and 2> did so while working at apple (ditto).

The worst thing you can do is use Apple's property to start another company,
which is a strict no-no. But apple doesn't claim he used an apple-issued phone
(or computer) to set up NuVia, and if they thought that it would be a trump
card they'd brandish right up front. Instead they have the weak "knowledge"
grounds which is pretty vague.

Likewise they claim he solicited employees, but non solicitation clauses are
likewise no longer enforceable in CA as of this year.

This smacks of intimidation: they don't care if they lose; they want others to
know that if you leave apple to start a company or work for a competitor
they'll sock you with an expensive and distracting legal battle. Which is
pretty sad given that Apple was on the receiving (and losing) end of such a
case a few years ago...relating chip design!

~~~
ChuckMcM
Pretty much, I expect California to dismiss unless he has a contract where he
waived his rights.

~~~
lambdasquirrel
Well that's the thing, you can't waive your rights. That's the whole point of
these clauses being unenforceable. This is a really disappointing move on
Apple's part. The guy isn't pursuing something competing with any Apple
product, or even anything trying to sell back to Apple. He's just going off
and doing something else.

~~~
edw
I take no position on the enforceability or the wisdom of the case. That said…

It seems completely reasonable to me that there will be ARM-based desktops and
laptops from Apple in the next five years and that they plan to offer them in
hardware or software configurations that are suited to server work; macOS
Server is still a thing.

I three-quarters expected, when the new Mac Pro was announced a year or two
ago, that it would be the first ARM-based desktop Mac. I was wrong, but I
think I was wrong on timing, not on whether it would eventually happen. Apple
cares a lot about having control of every key technology that makes up its
offerings.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
> macOS Server is still a thing

It is? With no server hardware except for _maybe_ a rack-mounted Mac Pro (
which doesn't really strike me as server grade hardware)[0] and most of the
actual server services gutted[1]?

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro#Mac_Pro_Server](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro#Mac_Pro_Server)
&
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini#Mac_mini_Server](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini#Mac_mini_Server)

[1] [https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/24/major-changes-macos-
server/](https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/24/major-changes-macos-server/)

~~~
thetinguy
I have seen many macos server installations on Mac mini.

------
rayiner
The complaint is here:
[https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pd...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pdf)

Paragraph 24 is interesting. Apple’s breach of contract claim is based on
Williams’ alleged creation of a competing business in violation of his
Intellectual Property Agreement with Apple. Apple appears to concede that
Nuvia is targeted to servers and Apple doesn’t make servers. So they have a
hook in there that they’ve considered developing or customizing servers. (As a
factual matter, I’m not sure anybody would consider customizing servers for
internal use to be in competition with selling chips for commercial servers,
but that seems to be Apple’s story.)

It’s not clear what Apple’s beef is. Nuvia’s founder clearly did some
organizational work while he was at Apple. Maybe that’s enough to technically
breach the agreement. (Or maybe not. Without purporting to know anything about
California employment law,[1] Nuvia’s motion to dismiss seems pretty robust in
its reliance on California law and public policy against non-competes and
restraints on employment, as well as preemption of the contract action by
trade secrets law.) But what I’m curious about is what Apple thinks the
damages are from Nuvia starting a business in a sector (servers) Apple hasn’t
competed in for more than a decade?

It’s also curious Apple didn’t bring a trade secrets claim. The architecture
of Cyclone, etc., is famously under wraps compared to AMD and Intel’s designs.
Apple has gotten amazing performance out of these chips, but nobody is
entirely sure how they’re doing it.

[1] Obligatory disclaimer: Not barred in California, not an employment lawyer,
etc. For entertainment purposes only.

~~~
ogre_codes
There is a pretty clear conflict of interest here. The guy was building his
company and recruiting Apple employees to it while he was getting paid by
Apple. I'm not entirely certain what California's non-compete laws say, I
thought they only applied _after_ you left an employer (or in situations where
you leave to join another company), not while you are still getting paid, have
access to confidential information; recruiting internally; and are using
Apple's corporate resources to further your own personal business.

~~~
the_watcher
Anything done on the employee's own time, using their own equipment, and not
relying on IP owned by the company is owned by the employee, and non-competes
do not apply. There's a standard form outlining this attached to every CA
employment agreement.

~~~
saagarjha
You missed the part where you can't work on something that is in the same
field.

~~~
levythe
Has this actually held up? My understanding is that what specific and
specialized areas of work on off-time is considered company IP have to be
enumerated, and must depend upon availability of unusual proprietary
information.

~~~
the_watcher
I haven't found any cases in my (admittedly brief) search that actually rule
on this, but there's a pretty clear pattern in CA jurisprudence that suggests
that a broad application of "related work" is unlikely to be looked upon
positively. To me, it's pretty clear that use of trade secrets would be about
the only thing that courts are _likely_ to agree upon as out of bounds for
personal work.

------
echelon
To the Apple PR folks reading this thread now : Unless there are facts of the
case that relate to _actual_ IP theft, you've just done more damage to your
hiring pipeline than you can imagine.

Take steps internally to fix this. It isn't a bad look to step down. In fact,
you'll improve your standing if you consider how the engineering community
views this.

This action is hostile and will greatly impact your hiring and retention of
talent.

~~~
ogre_codes
I doubt it's going to affect their hiring and retention at all. This isn't
like the guy left Apple and started a company. He started a company, ran it on
Apple's dime while it was getting started, then wandered the hallways
recruiting people for it.

It's pretty easy to see the huge conflicts of interest here.

~~~
echelon
> ran it on Apple's dime

I'm sorry, but when I go home at night and choose to spend my remaining hours
awake on my own project, that's 100% mine. I bought and paid for it. Instead
of spending time with friends or loved ones, playing video games, going out
and having fun, I labored.

> wandered the hallways recruiting people for it

This makes it sound like you can't have professional relationships or friends
at work. Or that you wouldn't want to work with those people after joining
another company.

~~~
ogre_codes
> I'm sorry, but when I go home at night and choose to spend my remaining
> hours awake on my own project, that's 100% mine.

The problem comes in when you blur the lines between your personal project and
what you are paid by Apple to do. At what point are you working on your thing
versus Apple's and who is paying you to do it?

The big question is what he was doing while purportedly on the clock. Was he
using Apple provided hardware, software, and time to further his own personal
ends?

> This makes it sound like you can't have professional relationships or
> friends at work.

Ethics are hard, lines are blurry. It's best to avoid the blurry bits and keep
to the places where you are clearly in the right.

Maintaining relationships while working is fine. Recruiting for a side
business on the other hand is a clear conflict of interest and crosses an
ethical threshold IMO.

Calling your existing friends up after you quit and offering them jobs is
fine.

I have no idea what this guy did, but it sounds like he was definitely in the
grey areas of ethics and from the sounds of it the law.

~~~
caconym_
My employer is allowed to recruit for my position while I'm still working in
it, and kick me to the curb only after they've found a replacement they like
(whether they're cheaper, or whatever else). Besides being a dickish thing to
do, this causes me to incur a real opportunity cost corresponding to the time
I could have spent searching for new employment.

It's unethical, arguably, but most companies show again and again that they're
willing to behave unethically toward their employees, so I'm not sure why I
should feel bad for them given that employment is a two-way business
relationship. The pervasive focus on employees being "bad employees" and
simultaneous tacit acceptance of corporate dickishness is an insidious and
toxic double standard that should not be tolerated.

~~~
ogre_codes
You are similarly "allowed" to search for another job while working for a
company, which is 1:1 comparable to your idea of the company looking for your
replacement while you are still there.

What the company isn't doing is billing you for the time they spend doing it,
or having you spend your free time doing it while you are at home.

What someone does in their own free time with their own resources is their
business. What they do while they are at work, getting paid is "company"
business and should be treated as such.

~~~
echelon
These aren't at all comparable unless the employee can use the employer's
time, money, and resources to search for a better job.

Beyond this, I find it ridiculous that you're comparing humans with thoughts
and feelings and limited time on this earth to wholly inanimate corporations.
We should err on the side of giving humans more freedom and liberty.

~~~
ogre_codes
> These aren't at all comparable unless the employee can use the employer's
> time, money, and resources to search for a better job.

That's exactly what Apple this case is about, an employee who is being accused
of using his employer's time, money, and resources to not just search for a
better job, but to create a multi-million dollar company.

------
habosa
I have been waiting for a case like this. The boilerplate SV Software Engineer
contract says that the employer basically owns your whole intellectual output.
In practice it's extremely common for people to leave FAANG companies and
start companies that are basically more agile "forks" of whatever they were
working on before. I have seen this so many times at Google. Someone makes a
cool internal tool/service, leaves, makes it into a SaaS company.

A famous example is Foursquare. Google bought Dodgeball, which was the
original product. The founders got paid then left Google and ... started the
same company again but called it Foursquare!

My assumption is these companies don't sue because they can't afford the
negative impact on hiring. If you thought Apple would own your mind forever
you'd never work there in the first place.

~~~
adventured
> If you thought Apple would own your mind forever you'd never work there in
> the first place.

Only a very small fraction of Apple's employees will ever attempt to be
entrepreneurs. It's no threat to the extreme majority of all employees in
Silicon Valley. Outsized total compensation and great benefits is all most
tech workers in SV are after, entirely reasonably so.

I agree that it will scare off many employees that are heavily inclined toward
starting their own thing. It's an interesting question as to whether companies
like Apple are better off or worse off in that scenario. People that are
particularly entrepreneur-minded often don't make for great employees (I'm in
that group).

~~~
904baf11
> People that are particularly entrepreneur-minded often don't make for great
> employees (I'm in that group).

No boss, I can't meet that deadline, I'm too smart.

~~~
dang
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've
done it a lot already, and we're trying for something better than that here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
904baf11
Please do not deny my right to free speech.

~~~
dang
There's no right to speech on HN, but there is a duty: to follow the site
guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
toyg
I’d bet my house that the founder just pissed off some big Apple guy, probably
took some talent with him when he left, so now they’re throwing the book at
him.

~~~
Bud
"Took some talent with him when he left" is a clear violation of his contract.

So that's not a "just". That's something he deserves to be sued and heavily
penalized for.

~~~
lm28469
> That's something he deserves to be sued and heavily penalized for.

Sued for making job offers to your ex colleagues ? Even in the US that
wouldn't fly.

~~~
ducadveritatem
No, sued for actively recruiting them _while still employed by the same
company_. He had a contractual duty of obligation to work in the company's
best interest and instead spent dozens and dozens of hours on the phone with
his co-founders and recruiting coworkers to leave with him.

------
soperj
This is the same company that screwed our profession royally for years by
colluding with other big companies not to hire each others employees.

~~~
heavyset_go
Yep, Apple, along with Google, Adobe, Intel, eBay, Intuit, Pixar and
Lucasfilm[1] all colluded with each other not to hire each other's employees,
effectively depressing workers' market value.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)

~~~
sitkack
Think off all the people that would have moved for life and live, but were
imprisoned in their cars for that commute.

------
lioeters
Summary:

The lawsuit alleges that he started a new company (while employed with Apple)
with technology that he was working on (iPhone and iPad processors), and
luring away other Apple engineers.

Nuvia, the company of which he's the CEO, has attracted $53 million in venture
funding.

~~~
ryandrake
This is why you don’t work on that side project while still working at your
main job. Every large company I’ve worked at has been _very_ clear during
orientation: they will assert ownership of anything you do while employed, on
or off the clock, using your own equipment or theirs. It’s not worth the risk
to moonlight bootstrapping your startup. Not saying it’s right but saying that
it is. These companies have a lot of lawyers.

~~~
WhompingWindows
How do they have the right to own what you make off the clock on your own
equipment?? Do they own you outside of your contractually agreed-upon hours?

~~~
Traster
Obviously it varies by employment region, but my contract doesn't say "You
work 40 hours a week". It says "We own everything you create while you're
employed by us".

~~~
seriesf
This is common but not universal. The agreement I have with google, by
contrast, gives them a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive right to use
anything I create while I work here. This is not the same as owning those
things.

------
NetBeck
Reminiscent of, "Apple Files $5-Million Lawsuit Against Jobs"[1]

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
xpm-1985-09-24-fi-18710-story.html)

~~~
w0mbat
That's what I was going to say! It's very like when Steve Jobs started NeXt in
the 80s, and Apple sued claiming theft of intellectual property and poaching
of key staff.

In my opinion the Apple claims had no merit, particularly in California, but
Apple still managed to get a settlement that put a lot of limitations on NeXt.

NeXt had to show Apple their prototypes before release, were not allowed to
ship a computer before July 1, 1987, and were only allowed to make high-end
machines, not compete in the consumer market. They also had to agree not to
hire any more Apple employees.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-
sett...](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/18/business/steven-jobs-settles-suit-
filed-by-apple.html)

------
traderjane
The most extraodinary claim is here:

> To further intimidate any current Apple employee who might dare consider
> leaving Apple, Apple’s complaint shows that it is monitoring and examining
> its employees’ phone records and text messages, in a stunning and
> disquieting invasion of privacy.

~~~
ducadveritatem
This just seems like them attempting to be sensationalist. Anyone who has a
company device managed with MDM that _doesn 't_ think their employer can
monitor everything that happens on that device should go back and reread the
terms they accepted when they got the device.

~~~
ecf
MDMs can, but no employer in their right mind ever should actually take the
steps to enable sms tracking.

I used to work in IT, and have rolled out MDM programs for startups before.

What needs to happen is a signed contract between the employer and the
employee stating exactly what the current capabilities of the MDM are, and
under what scenarios the employer can change those capabilities. This needs to
be separate from their employment agreement.

------
PascLeRasc
Why is Apple so focused on him being misleading in casual conversation about
his post-Apple plans? Their whole case seems so weak, even before considering
how hard it is to enforce a non-compete in CA.

------
PunchTornado
I hope Apple loses. This case of ex-employees starting a company is a classic
example of improving competition in the market. You need to have the domain
knowledge to be successful, so ex-employees are probably what companies fear.

------
fnord77
> [Nuvia] also allege [in their counter suit] that Apple's evidence in its
> complaint, notably text messages he exchanged with another Apple engineer
> and conversations with his eventual Nuvia co-founders, were collected
> illegally by the highly paranoid iPhone maker.

------
lawnchair_larry
Friendly reminder: if you work in the US, and you _don’t_ live in California,
Montana, North Dakota, or Oklahoma, your non-compete is enforceable.

Nuvia would likely not be possible in Washington, Oregon, Texas, or
Massachusetts.

------
auggierose
I said before that Apple needs to produce and rent servers that can run high-
performance Metal. Maybe the Nuvia guy sees it the same way but could not
convince anyone at Apple of it.

~~~
ActorNightly
Apple doesn't have the tech skill to build anything for high performance. They
are a hardware aesthetics company.

~~~
pensatoio
Are you specifically referring to high performance in the context of servers
or workstations? My impression has been that Apple is absolutely dominating in
the low-power, mobile-first segment with fabrication processes more advanced
than all their direct competitors.

~~~
ActorNightly
They can do mobile for sure, but even then the chips that they use are not
really ahead in performance intrinsically, they are just bigger (and generally
more expensive) which naturally gives them better performance. And a lot of
the speed improvements comes from just better direct compilation rather than
JIT like Android does.

For server architecture, Apple has never been competitive. The only reason to
get Mac workstations in the past before was that they were more stable than
the Windows counterparts, but those days are long gone.

------
mensetmanusman
If Apple thinks engineers are valuable, they can pay them more.

It’s unfortunate that the big companies in CA (with Steve Job’s support)
worked with business leaders to surprises the wages of scientists and
engineers.

Note: this moment we are living in is a historic shift in power centers as
have always existed in western democracies; that is, business/law/finance have
always held the keys to the kingdom. These nerdy engineer types were never a
threat to the power structure until now.

------
musicale
Regardless of how this turns out, I am not a fan of employers insisting on
non-compete agreements and preventing you from working for a competitor or
starting your own competing company after your employment ends for any reason.

Permitting workers to change companies and/or start their own companies is how
a competitive labor market is supposed to work. Worse, non-compete agreements
make it hard for employees to find work in their field after being laid off.

Imagine if I were to insist, as a condition of accepting employment, that in
the case that my employment ends for any reason my employer refrain from
entering into any new work agreements with other professionals in my field,
for a period of at least two years. That would get nowhere fast, but of course
it's the same sort of non-compete agreement that employers are requiring for
employees.

If there's a patent or trade secret issue, sue on that basis. Don't
artificially restrict the labor market.

------
musicale
> Williams hid the fact he was preparing to leave Apple to start his own
> business while still working at Apple, and that he drew on his work in
> steering iPhone processor design to create his new company

1a) "Hey boss, I'm preparing to leave Apple and found a competing company, but
I want to keep my job for the next year, OK?"

1b) "Tell us what your plans are for the next 5 years" Oh, I want to work for
Apple to learn as much as I can about processor design so I can quit and found
my own company. Will you hire me?

I wish companies were more OK with alumni leaving to start competing
companies, and it might be less of an issue in countries with different labor
laws, but in the US it's a quick road to unemployment.

2) Requiring employees not to learn from experience is laughable; I also think
it will be hard to prove that he steered iPhone processor design away from
Apple's interests and toward his own competing interests

------
summerlight
The primary goal seems to be a clear warning to its employee rather than the
lawsuit itself. It's pretty well known that Apple's chip department has been
losing tons of talents to a bunch of start-up and other big techs. I don't
know why, but given all ML hypes and new opportunities in hardware businesses
this could be just a natural trend.

In this case, it seems many other talents already have joined Nuvia (including
John Bruno and Manu Gulati in a leadership group, who already left Apple a
long time ago) My guess is that Gerard was the irreplaceable key person to
Apple's processor strategy as an engineer and a talent hub. Apple may expect
his leave to accelerate its predicament with hardware talents and this lawsuit
might be a desperate attempt to stop this flow. Not sure if it will work
though.

------
antpls
I hope Nuvia's CEO wins and that Apple must pay them back for the time and
damage made by this suing. Only from the presented facts, it looks like pure
intimidation and anti-competitiveness.

------
loeg
The article talks about non-compete agreements as if that concept is relevant
here, but those are illegal in California, where Apple is headquartered and
the bulk of its employees are. (I don't know where Williams worked, but if I
had to guess...)

------
GrayTextIsTruth
>Apple’s lawsuit filed in August alleged Williams hid the fact he was
preparing to leave Apple to start his own business

you have to give an honest reason you're leaving a company? that's dumb

------
outside1234
I wonder if this is in response to Tony Fadell leaving Apple, forming Nest,
and then hiring a ton of people for Nest that he then sold to Google...

------
annoyingnoob
What are you afraid of Apple? Rising salaries?

------
guelo
Apple might see this as a warning to existing engineers but it is also a
warning to potential hires. Don't work at Apple.

~~~
ducadveritatem
Or maybe "don't work at Apple if you plan to spend dozens of hours of company
time on the phone with your startup cofounders and use proprietary HR
information to poach employees while still employed yourself."

~~~
ecf
Even if this was being done at home while not on the clock?

Oh wait, we’re all suckers and are _salaried_. Does that mean the company owns
100% of our time if desired?

~~~
NonEUCitizen
Not in California.

------
meh206
Dirty

