Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#941

Post by basisword »

quitit wrote: post #830
Bjorkbat wrote: post #669

A while back someone here on Hacker News made a pretty insightful comment that as great of a designer as Jony Ive is, a large part of his success is owed to the fact that he had an "editor" in the form of Steve Jobs. Once Jobs passed, he no longer really had an editor. It remains to be seen whether Sam Altman / OpenAI in general will be a good editor

This is a bit of a risk for Ive, as until now he is credited with Apple's lauded design. If he does not produce an immediate success it'll be brand damaging and wobble on his reputation. I also suspect it might go that way: post-Ive designs have been credited as being better, particularly around apple's laptops that were perceived as too heavily favouring form over function. More realistically Apple's design is good…

>> he is credited with Apple's lauded design. If he does not produce an immediate success

These are two very different things. You can design a wonderful product but if there isn't a need for it in the market or your business people fail to sell it it can be a failure. Judging design based on sales makes no sense.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#942

Post by aatd86 »

skellera wrote: post #648
tedivm wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe he thought people could wear it like ski goggles in the streets and augment reality haha.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#943

Post by jdonaldson »

asveikau wrote: post #843
quitit wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a risk for Ive, as until now he is credited with Apple's lauded design. If he does not produce an immediate success it'll be brand damaging and wobble on his reputation. I also suspect it might go that way: post-Ive designs have been credited as being better, particularly around apple's laptops that were perceived as too heavily favouring form over function. More realistically Apple's design is good…

Why does Ive need to be churning out continuous hits? There is no shame in quitting while ahead, or considering your previous success to be a tough act to follow. I feel similar about Zuckerberg. That guy should just let the government break up his empire, let some other people run the pieces, and retire. Otherwise he just faces humiliation and being in over his head. But I guess ego keeps these people going.

I still like original founders as CEO. Nothing beats the skin in the game from that.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#944

Post by adverbly »

eloisant wrote: post #870
adverbly wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5. … like a clip. Something that attaches to clothes. I feel like the most natural thing would be basically push-to-talk-to-AI: 1. Some sort of mic + earpiece that you can wear comfortably(e.g. airpods) 2. A wireless button that you can put on a ring to activate the mic in the most ergonomic way possible 3. Any time you press the button, everything you say gets sent to a running AI chat

That's genius! Like a pin. With AI. And it would talk to you like a human, so we could call it the Humane AI Pin. How did nobody thought about that?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but:

1. It would be easier to use than a pin because it's connected to your hand. You can press it without anyone knowing that you are pressing it. You can presse it with a single hand in a comfortable motion. It doesn't fall around or look weird on your body. It also just be a ring because it only needs to connect over short-range to your phone.

2. Earbuds give you privacy, volume control, good mic quality, better battery life. Also again they are slightly more subtle than a large pin.

3. You don't make these stand alone hardware. You just have them talk to your phone and have it handle networking, camera, compute as needed.

Not at all comparable to humane AI pin...

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#945

Post by 6stringmerc »

rchaud wrote: post #690
paxys wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn't real anymore.

Money is real. Privately held company valuations are not. This is an all-stock deal, so what it's "worth" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Its value rises and falls based on how long the hype train can keep running, or how much they can offload to Mayasoshi Son and Arab Gulf sovereign funds.

Tesla at a PE in the neighborhood of 200 also isn’t real - public valuations are insane as well. The US economic system is completely unhinged from reality.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#946

Post by ljm »

mountainriver wrote: post #100
ljm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs have too much capital at hand and don't know how to deploy it all. This is on the back of epic wealth inequality. I don't know why Jony Ive is seen to be worth billions, but he's obviously not, he's just another shill in the ivory tower.

VCs don’t have a ton of capital on hand right now, interest rates are high, investments are way down

I've spoken to a small handful of investors who are all saying they have capital to deploy but don't know where. One of them in particular stepped away from AI but they were seeing OTT valuations for AI startups based on what other VCs were doing.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#947

Post by mrbungie »

KolibriFly wrote: post #864
Bjorkbat wrote: post #669

A while back someone here on Hacker News made a pretty insightful comment that as great of a designer as Jony Ive is, a large part of his success is owed to the fact that he had an "editor" in the form of Steve Jobs. Once Jobs passed, he no longer really had an editor. It remains to be seen whether Sam Altman / OpenAI in general will be a good editor

Altman clearly has vision and a sense for where the puck is going with AI, but being a design editor is something else entirely

He's very good at doing startup/scaleup management, in a ruthless/snakey skill level. I think that's something everyone can agree.

But vision? I'm not so sure, he had great company and help along the way, and now that he has been left alone (arguably due to his own actions) he's selling the image of competence in areas that he hasn't demonstrated skills whatsoever. We'll see.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#948

Post by cj »

polytely wrote: post #913
cj wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using #5 for a few weeks now (Limitless.ai pendant, clips to clothes, records and transcribes everything all day) It sounds cool, and the idea of asking questions about your day seems like it would be cool, but a few weeks later I’m finding myself forgetting to take it with me. The value just isn’t there yet. (And why have a clip on microphone when everyone already has a microphone in our pocket?) It’s a co…

How does that work socially, is everyone just fine with their conversations with you being recorded? or do you just not mention it.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t clip it on and take it with me. I don’t quite feel like justifying or explaining it to everyone.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#949

Post by hylaride »

asveikau wrote: post #843
quitit wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a risk for Ive, as until now he is credited with Apple's lauded design. If he does not produce an immediate success it'll be brand damaging and wobble on his reputation. I also suspect it might go that way: post-Ive designs have been credited as being better, particularly around apple's laptops that were perceived as too heavily favouring form over function. More realistically Apple's design is good…

Why does Ive need to be churning out continuous hits? There is no shame in quitting while ahead, or considering your previous success to be a tough act to follow. I feel similar about Zuckerberg. That guy should just let the government break up his empire, let some other people run the pieces, and retire. Otherwise he just faces humiliation and being in over his head. But I guess ego keeps these people going.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Ive probably had to compromise a lot with Steve at the helm. It is generally regarded that (laptops especially) Apple hardware went to form over function when Ive got total control and when Apple finally reverted his vision was sidelined.

If he has an ego, he probably really wants to have something is a Magnus Opus he can claim. It'll be interesting because good design is always a dance with other stakeholders. You see this with architects and other "designers" who sometimes go to far into art and forget that buildings do need to be used.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#950

Post by cj »

dsiroker wrote: post #824
cj wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using #5 for a few weeks now (Limitless.ai pendant, clips to clothes, records and transcribes everything all day) It sounds cool, and the idea of asking questions about your day seems like it would be cool, but a few weeks later I’m finding myself forgetting to take it with me. The value just isn’t there yet. (And why have a clip on microphone when everyone already has a microphone in our pocket?) It’s a co…

(Co-founder & CEO of Limitless) Thanks for trying it and I hope to win you back with the new features we have in the works! As for selling data if consumers don’t want to pay for it: I commit publicly to never doing this. I will shutdown the company and return remaining capital to investors if consumers don’t want to pay for what we are building. So far, so good, and we were actually cash flow positive a few of the l…

Congrats!

I actually like your Limitless meeting transcription tool and have a subscription for that reason.

I wish your focus was on the software but rather than the hardware.

#1 request is simply the ability to export my data so that I can more easily load it into other tools to ask questions against.

You have a treasure trove of all of my meeting transcripts for the past year but I’m really nervous they will be lost forever at some point.

Post reply on HN