A new job is your chance to put what you know to work. Just be sure not to share what belongs to your current or former employer.
Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI serves as a fresh reminder of the risks involved in drawing on your expertise without crossing into protected territory.
Filed on Friday, the lawsuit alleges that OpenAI sought confidential details from Apple engineers during job interviews and that one former employee continued accessing sensitive material after joining OpenAI.
Two former Apple employees were named as individual defendants alongside OpenAI, which previously told Business Insider it has no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. The named employees and representatives for Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
While the allegations have yet to be tested in court, the case raises broader questions about how workers can change jobs without sharing a former employer’s trade secrets. Legal experts say sharing this information can expose both the worker and the new company to lawsuits, substantial legal bills, and reputational damage.
“Whether you intend to or not, it can open up a huge can of worms,” said Joseph H. Harris, a partner at employment law firm FordHarrison.
Such disputes are not unusual, and employers may deliberately recruit workers to gain access to a competitor’s confidential knowledge, said Betsy Bulat, an equity partner with the employment law firm Martenson, Hasbrouck, Simon, and Bulat LLP.
“There are some unscrupulous employers that probably do hire people just for the sole purpose of getting a competitor’s information,” Bulat said, speaking generally.
She added that the stakes can be especially high for AI companies because the field is new and the pool of workers with deep expertise remains limited.
“I think we’re going to continue seeing these kinds of lawsuits going forward,” Bulat said.
How trade secrets walk out the door
It may seem obvious not to share trade secrets, yet Harris said employees sometimes take sensitive documents with them when leaving a company, reasoning that because they helped create the material, it’s fair game and may come in handy later. They may have no malicious intent, he said, but these documents don’t belong to them.
“Even though you wrote it and you worked on it, it’s still the former employer’s information,” Harris said.
In other instances, workers may simply be trying to get up to speed and fail to recognize that moving confidential material outside company systems is not allowed.
Jennifer Schielke, CEO of staffing firm Summit Group Solutions, recalled a newly hired account manager who emailed a confidential client template to a personal account a few years ago. The employee, who didn’t yet have access to their work email from home, wanted to study the template outside the office and openly mentioned doing so during onboarding.
The person was trying to learn, “but they didn’t really think about the fact that they crossed the line,” Schielke said.
The risk can arise before someone is hired. Michael Doud, a recruiter for The Barton Partnership, an executive search firm, said job candidates sometimes disclose confidential details about a current or past employer during interviews because they’re bragging or desperate to land an offer.
The move can backfire, he said, because an interviewer may see the disclosure as an indicator of the candidate’s judgment and trustworthiness.
“That’s not the right first impression,” said Doud. “It absolutely could hurt your candidacy.”
The cost of sharing too much
The potential consequences of sharing trade secrets during a job interview or after getting hired can be severe.
A former employer can sue both the worker and the new company for allegedly misappropriating trade secrets. Claims may arise from nondisclosure provisions in an employment agreement or company policies that the worker signed upon joining the business.
Harris said a new employer could fire the worker to distance itself from the alleged misconduct, potentially leaving the worker on the hook for substantial legal fees. Even if a case doesn’t go to trial, a public lawsuit accusing a worker of theft or dishonesty can create “severe reputational risk,” Harris said.
These kinds of disputes often end in settlements because they are expensive to litigate and difficult to prove. Evidence that confidential material was taken does, however, sometimes surface.
Employment lawyer Pam Howland said her firm once handled a case involving several employees who left a business with few competitors in the region. Soon afterward, a new company emerged that looked strikingly similar and began taking market share from their former employer.
The former employer sued the workers and their new company, and years into the litigation, a document surfaced that Howland said showed the workers had used their former employer’s proprietary information after all. The case was then settled.
‘Don’t take the bait’
The AI talent wars are prompting employers to scrutinize candidates’ past work more closely as they try to distinguish genuine expertise from “lip service,” said Tara Flickinger, a partner at executive search firm ON Partners.
That deeper questioning can lead applicants to reveal too much as they try to prove their credentials.
Her rule of thumb: “If you wouldn’t say it in front of your former employer’s general counsel, then don’t say it in an interview.”
Knowing where that line falls starts with reviewing any employment agreements and trade-secret policies before changing jobs, Bulat said. Workers can use the expertise and industry knowledge they developed in a previous role, she said, but not a former employer’s documents, data, or other confidential information.
“Don’t share anything,” Bulat said of a current or former employer’s confidential information. “If someone’s trying to bait you into doing it, don’t take the bait.”
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