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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

#481

Post by rafram »

catigula wrote: post #452
xgolwks wrote: post #386

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 c…

That is interesting given that reddit has gone from a cultural powerhouse to something most people talk about shamefully, if at all.

Really? My perception (and their metrics seem to back this up) is that “normal people” are really on Reddit now. It’s the #7 most visited site in the world. It exploded during the pandemic - not just a site for internet nerds anymore.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#482

Post by rexer »

thunkingdeep wrote: post #455
catigula wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting given that reddit has gone from a cultural powerhouse to something most people talk about shamefully, if at all.

The only people I’ve ever known who actually thought Reddit ever really mattered was people in the HN sphere. Anecdata, but still. In terms of value per minute spent, it’s the same tier of slop as TikTok or Instagram, and I think most ordinary people hold that same view.

Odd. Your take is the one I see most common on HN. My experience has been that Reddit has gone mainstream and most people find it quite valuable

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#483

Post by WorldPeas »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #378
mattlondon wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't hear anyone touting AGI anymore do we? Apart from, y'know, DeepMind - remember those guys? The ones with the SOTA models at the top of the leaderboards? The ones who just launched Veo3 and blew everyone away? It feels like OpenAI has kinda jumped-the-shark at this stage. They don't seem to be especially competitive any more, and all the news coming out of them is tinkering at the edges or acquisitions tha…

90s Netscape vibes

At least Netscape's offering was actually continuously open (after 98 at least)

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#484

Post by leptons »

thunkingdeep wrote: post #455
catigula wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting given that reddit has gone from a cultural powerhouse to something most people talk about shamefully, if at all.

The only people I’ve ever known who actually thought Reddit ever really mattered was people in the HN sphere. Anecdata, but still. In terms of value per minute spent, it’s the same tier of slop as TikTok or Instagram, and I think most ordinary people hold that same view.

>The only people I’ve ever known who actually thought Reddit ever really mattered was people in the HN sphere.

Most of reddit doesn't read HN, and there 100s of millions of people on reddit, so your perspective seems a bit narrow.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#485

Post by mrbungie »

samtp wrote: post #355

> In the interview, Altman said Jobs would be “damn proud” of Ive’s latest move. What an extremely weird (and egotistical) thing to say if you're in Altman's position

Narcissistic ego stroking. He literally is invoking and thinking out loud for a dead man, who was not that intimate with him, just to validate his own ventures and acquihires. Very weird.

It wouldn't be that weird if Ive had said so himself.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#486

Post by some_random »

thunkingdeep wrote: post #455
catigula wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting given that reddit has gone from a cultural powerhouse to something most people talk about shamefully, if at all.

The only people I’ve ever known who actually thought Reddit ever really mattered was people in the HN sphere. Anecdata, but still. In terms of value per minute spent, it’s the same tier of slop as TikTok or Instagram, and I think most ordinary people hold that same view.

I have no idea how anyone could have seriously tried to use reddit and be on HN and come to that conclusion. Yes some of the reddit defaults are slop but many clearly have significantly more value than short form video, and that's before you start discussing the niche communities that live there.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#487

Post by wpm »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #368
alexey-salmin wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still means 1.5B were paid in cash for a company from what I understood has neither clients nor even a product. Not exactly pocket money.

It kind of is, when they were given $500B and told to make a return in 10-ish years. They have to put the capital in play where it has the largest ROI potential. They are gambling that Jony has another iPhone in him. I don't know enough about any of this to weigh in on it, but when you take investor money, you aren't supposed to sit on it or do slow burn (at least not VC money), its meant to be gasoline, and you moon…

Jony Ive never had even the iPhone in him. He is an excellent designer. He was never a product person.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#488

Post by dowager_dan99 »

belter wrote: post #382
RC_ITR wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to stem pointless debates before they flame up - both these acquisitions appear to be primarily if not exclusively for stock. Sure, if you want to get into theoretical finance, OpenAI could have sold these new shares for cash, so technically there's no difference, but OpenAI is only spending opportunity cost cash, rather than fiat. OpenAI's fiat likely still goes to the things you'd expect, like training models…

The AI hype seems driven more by stock valuations than genuine productivity gains. Developers now spend excessive time crafting prompts and managing AI generated pull requests :-) tasks that a simple email to a junior coder could have handled efficiently. We need a study that shows the lost productivity. When CEOs aggressively promote such tech solutions, it signals we're deep into bubble territory: “If you go forwar…

claims that AI will reduce the need for engineers are “entirely self-serving horseshit”

-- James Gosling - May 2025

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#489

Post by JFingleton »

Jaxkr wrote: post #467
thunkingdeep wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people I’ve ever known who actually thought Reddit ever really mattered was people in the HN sphere. Anecdata, but still. In terms of value per minute spent, it’s the same tier of slop as TikTok or Instagram, and I think most ordinary people hold that same view.

> In terms of value per minute spent, it’s the same tier of slop as TikTok or Instagram Insane take. Reddit hosts deep threaded discussions on almost any topic imaginable. In its prime it was the best forum on the internet. There’s a reason people commonly add “reddit” to the end of their search queries. Unfortunately it feels like the community has gotten much dumber after they banned third party apps and restricted…

It feels like all those hacktivists moved to Discord... Which is even more "locked away" than Reddit.

I miss the old skool php web forums.

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