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OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

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Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#101

OpenAI announcement: https://openai.com/sam-and-jony/

The picture alone is enough to make you vomit

Deffinately a contender for one of the creepiest photos in the industry. Not something that inspires confidence in the "Design Prowess" of the acquisition if this is what they felt best represented them.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of those designs were made at Ive's behest, against the wishes of entire teams of engineers. I feel like we have his "courage" to blame for the Butterfly keyboard, terrible Mac thermals and the lack of ports on "Pro" computers.

The thermals were all Intel’s fault. My 2019 MacBook from work is an oven. I can’t tell whether my smaller m4 max is turned on by touching it.

Your 2019 Macbook also uses a different chassis, designed by Jony Ive. Apple knew it throttled the chips they used but shipped it anyways, presumably because Ive liked his thinness even when it results in a bendgate.

You'll note that Macbooks don't quite look the same after Ive left and his influence went away.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#103

That is an insane amount to hire Johnny Ive. Just to signal to the market that OpenAI is getting into hardware, what on earth could they be building towards. They’ve been writing some big checks off late, these costs will have to be justified soon enough.

The first paragraph of the article mentions it's an all-stock deal. No checks where written for this.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#104

Sometimes two collaborators make each other better than either are alone. I get the sense that's how Steve Jobs and Jony Ive were. I've not seen anything Ive has done since be as good as what he did before. Someone has to hold the spike so the other one can swing the hammer. My guess is that's not how this relationship with Altman will work. And that picture is terrifying, please take it down and destroy the camera t…

Jobs, for all his enormous character flaws, was a humanist - he believed in people and he wanted to make beautiful objects that would enhance people's lives. He was also an enormous asshole and constitutionally incapable of masking his disdain for solutions he didn't feel measured up. Ive can make a visually beautiful object, but he's shown he doesn't have the feel for the actual user, and Jobs' humanism is the half of that partnership that made it work.

Altman's got none of that (well, except the asshole part) - no vision, no taste, no concept of what a user would want, no real belief in humanity or desire to make things for humans. Ive and Altman together is going to be a disaster.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#105

That is an insane amount to hire Johnny Ive. Just to signal to the market that OpenAI is getting into hardware, what on earth could they be building towards. They’ve been writing some big checks off late, these costs will have to be justified soon enough.

Or he thinks OpenAI is really only worth something in the $30B range and he is getting a steal while his currency is hot.

considering that the deal is "an all-stock" one, that would not be a great bet.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#106

That is an insane amount to hire Johnny Ive. Just to signal to the market that OpenAI is getting into hardware, what on earth could they be building towards. They’ve been writing some big checks off late, these costs will have to be justified soon enough.

I love how aggressive Sam is with this stuff. He’s very smart in this arena. I’m all about OpenAI creating new fun things

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#108

This is a sign of OpenAI's weakness. Altman is desperately trying to use OpenAI's inflated valuation to buy some kind of advantage. Which is why he's buying ads, paying $6.5 billion in stock to Jony Ive, and $3 billion for a VSCode fork created in a few months. Almost anything makes sense when you see your valuation going to zero unless you can figure something out.

OpenAI does literally anything “This is a sign of OpenAI’s weakness” I think this is the third time I’ve seen this exact comment at the top of a HN post about an OpenAI announcement.There is a weird amount of emotional investment in not wanting OpenAI to win. Personally, I am just excited to see what the device looks like. The prototype must be good to justify this valuation.

I think a lot of people on here have heard enough stories about how Sam Altman behaves when the cameras aren't looking and dislike him and thus his company.

Also its normal backlash - when something gets so popular so fast, you are going to naturally have some haters.

Lastly actions speak louder than words. OpenAI used to talk about AGI and Super AI and nuclear launch codes and national security. Now they are buying VS Code forks and ad companies.

The AI race is more than heating up and Sama knows it and he's throwing some hail mary's in hopes to keep OpenAI near or at the top.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#109

Sometimes two collaborators make each other better than either are alone. I get the sense that's how Steve Jobs and Jony Ive were. I've not seen anything Ive has done since be as good as what he did before. Someone has to hold the spike so the other one can swing the hammer. My guess is that's not how this relationship with Altman will work. And that picture is terrifying, please take it down and destroy the camera t…

Everything about this announcement screams “we’re completely out of touch” I am terrified of this company making any products

Let 'em make overpriced tchotchkes with private capital all they want. I'm more worried about them winning inflated government contracts and tax credits paid for with public dollars.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#110
post #63

I find it amusing that IO a company with no product and no history is valued and bought at $6.5B.

The dotcom bubble gave insane valuations to "companies" that literally had a static html page and no product or service.

That is WILD to think about because I regularly create one-pager websites for my own projects...kinda bewildering to comprehend valuations for something so basic.
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