Incidental job interview
July 10, 2026 · \[Essays 116, 117\]
OpenAI & Apple, LeBron James
→ Apple/OpenAI shows just how much you can learn in a job interview.
→ By asking for voice notes, LeBron is missing out.
Incidental job interview
Apple sued OpenAI late on Friday for theft of trade secrets.1 From the WSJ:
Apple also accused OpenAI’s hardware chief, Tang Tan, of soliciting trade secrets from its employees interviewing for jobs, and encouraging them to bring “actual parts” from Apple for “show and tell” sessions at OpenAI.
Setting aside the legality of all of this, we should wonder at how far this show-and-tell concept could extend. While there are other claims in the complaint, show-and-tell is distinct from the more standard file downloading by an employee that was the subject of the massive Uber/Waymo trade secret case over self-driving car technology.2 The most interesting question isn’t whether the behavior is legal—it’s whether the interviews were more valuable to OpenAI than the hires.
As an employee, what’s the limit of how much you can talk about what you have done at your job when you are applying for another one? In an AI environment with aggressive behavior, companies could really push the envelope with this.
We now have more meeting notes thanks to AI transcriptions than we’ve ever had before. AI is more used in hiring processes and screens than ever before. Combine those and companies might start to think it’s normal to ingest a lot of context on the applicant before a meeting. The company wants to know what kind of leader the applicant will be and also happens to get information about the strategy of the prior company as ‘incidental’ data in the process.
Can meeting notes be fully kept in the company? We’re closer to the wild west on that than locked down security if a company like Apple, which prides itself on secrecy and security, had the issues alleged in the complaint.
Rolfe Winkler at the WSJ states that the show-and-tell practice is common:
But bringing parts to an engineering interview isn’t unusual, say people familiar with the tech hiring process. Interviewers want candidates to talk through their work.
After a few discussions, I can say that this is not common or at least never happens at several companies when dealing with not-yet-public hardware products. And a job applicant quoted in the complaint disagrees with Winkler’s premise: “he didn't even know we could take those from the office." The better test here is why wouldn’t a company working on highly sensitive and confidential products (both OpenAI and Apple) insist on being rigorous about not ever receiving information it shouldn’t be receiving. In these types of cases, they’d want to argue that \_rejecting highly sensitive information from candidates and new hires \_is the industry standard and that soliciting via \_show-and-tell \_is far from the norm.
In the NFL draft process, quarterbacks are provided with game film of themselves and asked to analyze the plays, their thinking, their (former) coaches’ instructions, and play design. The NFL is often described as a ‘copycat league.’ We could imagine this extending to job interviews for coaches who are asked to walk through their playbooks and explain the thinking.3
So-called expert networks, like GLG, allow companies to pay hourly for consultations from employees presently employed at competitors.4 Finance has solved some of these issues with long ‘garden leaves’ where ex-employees are paid to not work for long enough for their trade secrets to have effectively expired.
It’s always been a natural tension in the tripartite relationship of current company, employee, and potential future company. What is different here is that the information and context available to senior hires is considerably greater than in the past. We’re only scratching the surface of the potential for creative tactics around applicants and knowledge transfer. Some of it is legal. Some of it isn’t.
The dividing line seems to be whether a company even cares about making the hire after gleaning all the information in the hiring process.5 If actually hiring the candidate no longer matters, you may just have really had other intentions. In fact, if you are a company with tens of thousands of applicants all the time for a range of roles across a range of industries, perhaps ingesting massive amounts of business workings and artifacts as part of the candidate process could yield results. Kindly share everything you worked on and how you shaped company strategy…
---
Voice memos for LeBron
LeBron James, in the midst of deciding where he’ll play next after announcing he’s leaving the Lakers, has been asking teams to send him voice notes if they’re interested in recruiting him.
Asking for voice notes, instead of videos or elaborate in-person pitches, flips conventional wisdom on its head. Netflix’s founder, Marc Randolph, summarized the popular conception of voice notes:
Voice memos drive me crazy…they shift all the work from the sender to the receiver. When you write something out, YOU do the hard work…
But a voice memo? You just hit record and ramble. Meanwhile, I'm stuck listening to your 3-minute stream of consciousness—with no way to skim, no way to jump to the point.
The difference from Randolph’s voice memo critique is that LeBron is soliciting them. This process shows LeBron in decision-making mode—not particularly swayable by a pitch. The voice notes show LeBron is in charge of the process—rightly thinking he’s an underpaid player at the salary levels in discussion—and that he feels he’s got all the information already to make a decision. The voice memo forces the teams to have ownership or senior management record—it’s something someone senior needs to rehearse or do a few takes.
For an ongoing production chronicling his final years, LeBron could play back some of these voice note pitches paired with reactions from LeBron and his inner circle. There’s negotiation-as-content at play here.6
Philadelphia’s brass appeared on a podcast to get close to Rich Paul, LeBron’s agent. As we’ve seen before, podcast appearances are great signaling. Here:
Bob Myers, \[of\] the Philadelphia 76ers, took the option one step further Wednesday by appearing on the "Game Over" podcast with Paul and co-host Max Kellerman to espouse the Sixers' merits.
And other teams are taking LeBron up on it:
A few other teams, sources told Charania, have had their owner, or president, or general manager record a voice memo.
The public nature of the messages, both the voice notes and the podcast appearance, also naturally precludes some of the dealings that could occur. There may be owners that want into the LeBron James business beyond basketball and this is a natural conversation point that’s being closed off.7 LeBron isn’t having a conversation or taking a call; the process is set up to be a one-way street from owner/team to LeBron without an interplay.
In this case, there are very plausible, non-basketball deals to be had. Business investments, joint ventures, media distribution—everything could be on the table. There’s an alternate, more creative world where genuine new value is discovered through really pushing on what each option could best look like in a two-way discussion. Even if not now, it’s not helpful to close down these communication channels for the post-retirement future.
Being closed off isn’t the only way for superstars, whether in business or sports. Tom Brady, before signing with Tampa Bay, was very open to all sorts of conversations.8 He didn’t limit himself to the obvious destinations and was amenable to different possibilities and fits throughout the process. Importantly, this trait carried on after Brady’s playing career where today he seems very accessible to CEOs and investors who have a compelling partnership pitch. Brady passes on most, but he’s not signaling the same roadblocks as LeBron’s voice notes. On podcast appearances, Brady will often mention being around CEOs and investors and learning to do business. Openness is Brady’s shingle and he has it out deliberately. Different games in the end.
---