OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive’s io
OpenAI (MacRumors, Hacker News):
It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company. And so, one year ago, Jony founded io with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and Tang Tan.
We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing. Many of us have worked closely for decades.
The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco.
As io merges with OpenAI, Jony and LoveFrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io.
Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffary (tweet):
Hankey, who will become an OpenAI employee along with Tan and Cannon, said that ChatGPT’s debut prompted a realization that hardware technology would have to change. “A number of us looked at each other and said, ‘This is probably the most incredible technology of our career,’” she said in an interview.
While Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent, they will take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software. Altman said his first conversations with Ive weren’t about hardware, but rather about how to improve the interface of ChatGPT.
“We are obviously still in the terminal phase of AI interactions,” said Altman, 40. “We have not yet figured out what the equivalent of the graphical user interface is going to be, but we will.”
LoveFrom has a number of former Apple designers who helped create the look of the Mac and iPhone operating systems, including Bas Ording, Mike Matas and Chris Wilson, Ive said.
Emphasis added.
Imagine 55 people being worth $6.5B.
What the other commenters are forgetting is that this is the same Sam Altman who planned and executed the extraction of Reddit from Condé Nast.
This acquisition (and the Windsurf acquisition) are all-stock deals, which have the added benefit of reducing the control the nonprofit entity has over the for profit OpenAI entity.
How do you extract the for profit entity out of the hands of a nonprofit?
Step 1: you have close friends or partners at a company - with no product, users, or revenue - valued at 6.5billion.
Step 2: you acquire that entity, valuing it unreasonably high so that the nonprofit’s stake is diluted.
And now control of OpenAI (the PBC) is in the hands of for profit entities.
To think that Apple could have had this from Jony and team…but for whatever reason they chose to throw it all away.
Maybe someday we’ll hear more about why Ive and his team wanted to leave Apple, but it seems unlikely that this is what they’d have been doing had they stayed.
This is just a vibes teaser, but the vibe is a shot across the bow. It conveys grand ambition, but without pretension. To say I’m keen to get my hands on what they’re making is an understatement.
How it started & how it’s going
Previously:
- Why Apple Still Hasn’t Cracked AI
- OpenAI to Become For-Profit Company
- OpenAI and Ive
- Jony Ive Is Leaving Apple
- Humane Acquired, Ai Pin Discontinued
11 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
My heart goes out to this other bunch of brilliant minds getting infected by the 'AI' virus and the OpenAI variant in particular. Thoughts and prayers.
Jony Ive spent a number of years successfully ciphering Steve Jobs taste creating Rams-derivative designs. He then spent a number of years overseeing the worst hardware design era in Apple's history, and destroying Apple's UI design capabilities. Then he left Apple, and has done nothing of note since.
I can't think of a more appropriate place for him, than "designing" for a company built entirely on empty hype, and IP theft.
Anyone who misses Ive at Apple needs to run their fingers over a 2016-2018 MacBook and have a good rethink on that.
Fun to watch Gruber get played again, so there's that.
@billyok I don’t miss Ive at Apple, but the guy’s obviously an amazing talent. Maybe this will be an environment where he can thrive again.
He has the capacity for amazing talent, I agree. But I'm glad his focus is on a product I likely won't care about versus one I need to use every day, and that speaks to me more than anyone's talent does.
I'm getting strong Adam Newman buying the trademark We from himself vibes from this.
I do hope we will see something other than a pair of glasses.
"While Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent, they will take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software."
Just hope he will not be involved too much on the software side. We see the poor result he and his spiritual child achieved. There is at least one guy from LoveFrom that is very good at Software UI, so maybe there's hope.
"Then he left Apple, and has done nothing of note since."
Have you not seen the coronation letterhead!?!?!? Philistine!
@someone Yes, I’m not familiar with all of them, but certainly Matas and Ording have great track records.
"It conveys grand ambition, but without pretension"
Huh. I don't know why, but that trailer is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. It feels like watching two aliens try to pretend that they're regular humans.
