OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#641

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #331

izolate wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the same dude who brought us beloved products in Apple's lineup. It's almost a meme at this point to say that Jony Ive's genius needs a containing force like Steve Jobs. Perhaps Sam Altman can fill that role.

Jobs, for all his faults, understood where aesthetic, functionality and user experience intersected extremely well. He got stuff wrong too, don’t get me wrong, but I have yet to see another CEO (heck any business person of note) with the same pattern of deep understanding of how those things intersected as well as he did

People say this while outright ignoring all the outright failures Jobs had because he DIDN'T have that understanding.

The Lisa, the Newton, NeXT computers, trying to dump Pixar pretty much right before they made it big right as the tech was finally catching up to their ideas.

The reality is Jobs got to roll the dice a bunch of times, and if you get to roll the dice a lot, you will have some wins. Looking only at the wins is not useful.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#642

Post by yahoozoo » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

theyinwhy wrote: post #327

ygjb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta Ray Bans and Googles Project Aura are products that I absolutely want, but absolutely don't want to buy them from either of those companies, or any company as invasive as they are. It's long past time for enhanced privacy regulation in the North American market because these products are going to be wildly invasive as people depend on them to mediate their experience with the world. I don't know what the right a…

Aren't the Auras from Xreal?

Yeah, it’s a collaboration.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#643

Post by I_am_tiberius » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:35 PM UTC

elAhmo wrote: post #615

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #498

What people don't seem to notice: Jony is wearing the glasses and appears to be reading from them.

Or he is just looking at the camera? An odd photo in any case.

Was just saying that glasses are most likely the product they're talking about.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#644

Post by rodgerd » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

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…

Man, I remember the absolute hysteria here over the non-profit trying to reign Altman in. You'd have thought they were murdering babies.

I agree with your analysis, but it's hilarious that it's now top-voted, when the sentiment was so negative when the board saw the same thing coming ages ago.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#645

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

yahoozoo wrote: post #626

pizzathyme wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other play is they build chatgpt.com into a destination. Two major data points to this: [1] Over 400M weekly actives, and [2] recent reports that chatgpt will be adding X.com / social network style features

Also known as “getting into the advertisement business”

I mean they hired Fidji Simo so it's almost certain they'll try out ads.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#646

Post by abxyz » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:36 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #457

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…

> Sam Altman who planned and executed the extraction of Reddit from Condé Nast Relevant thread where Sam acknowledges the plan. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the...

it’s not true, contemporaneous accounts disprove it (although that’s not to say Sam Altman is not a snake, Sam Altman is a snake that nobody should trust)

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#647

Post by gerash » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

The video Altman posted on Twitter is so cringe I wouldn’t be surprised if it was directed by Mike Judge

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#648

Post by skellera » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #351

tough wrote: post #320

tbh has jony ive produced any remarkable hardware piece since he left apple? Can't think of any maybe im wrong he must be buying the name or something or just the brains idk

Honestly once Jobs died most of what Ive did was ruin existing products, such as the butterfly keyboard and the removal of all of the useful ports from their laptops.

He also ruined the Vision Pro on his way out. Engineers wanted to do wireless to a Mac mini-like hub (not standalone) so the hub could have more computing power. It’s a dev device that was supposed to be the very best experience for developing the future standalone AR/VR device. But Ives forced them to do full standalone. Increasing weight, decreasing power, wasting time re-engineering the device.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#649

Post by GolfPopper » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #262

whynotminot wrote: post #78

These product-focused moves feel like a tacit admission that AGI is further away than they’ve been preaching. If it was close at hand, spending precious resources on anything other than pursuing AGI wouldn’t make sense.

Because LLM's as they exist right now are incredibly useful and you can make a lot of money from them? AGI isn't god. It might not even be especially useful.

Is there a profitable LLM out there right now that anyone can point to as an example?

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#650

Post by JamesBarney » Wed, May 21, 2025, 9:41 PM UTC

DrBurrito wrote: post #521

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…

My understanding is that there are two types of stock, and the non profit controls the voting stock majority. This cannot be diluted. All other stock gives a (capped) fraction of the profits. This cannot be diluted by these operations, but the cap also can be a bad deal.

This is 100% definitely how it works. The number of board seats the non-profit gets is not dependent on how many outstanding shares there are.