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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

#81
post #65

No question that Ive is a legend, but I do think the fall of Humane (also ex-Apple) and the challenges at Meta, Apple, and Google in terms of VR/AR adoption (Meta Ray Ban, Apple Vision, Google Glasses and the new thing) are instructive here. The $6.5B almost feels like the largest ever aquihire.

> No question that Ive is a legend Not sure why he deserves to be a legend, to be honest, but yes, he is a legend. He did a good job, but those small and minimalistic designs were only possible because of the efforts of entire teams of engineers, of which the public never heard anything.

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.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#82
post #41

I had been considering doing a startup in this space, I thought Humane and rabbit are directionally correct. This kinda makes me want to do it even more, that would be a fun team to compete against.

The manor criticism of them is that they are just phone apps pointlessly shoved into an extra piece of hardware. What about them do you think was directionally correct? I.e. why not just use your phone?

"phone" is over - I would just make better devices, there would be a communications device, you could call it a phone or whatever. (Frankly: I just genuinely believe I could do a really good job here is all, I have no real reason to believe that except pure ego, I'm fine admitting that)

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#83

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.

Of note, and to support your argument, all of these deals are stock only.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#85

No question that Ive is a legend, but I do think the fall of Humane (also ex-Apple) and the challenges at Meta, Apple, and Google in terms of VR/AR adoption (Meta Ray Ban, Apple Vision, Google Glasses and the new thing) are instructive here. The $6.5B almost feels like the largest ever aquihire.

This is the same dude who brought us the butterfly keyboard, so I'm anticipating a form-beating-function failure (if they actually ship something).

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#86

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.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#87
post #68

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…

What is it about that picture that's so icky? I had the exact same reaction.

It's a weirdly intimate pose, and it looks like it was taken from way too close— almost at arms-length, like a selfie, rather than from 8-10 feet back with a normal 80mm portrait lens. Altman especially looks kind of fish-bowled, being the one in front.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#88

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.

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#89

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

The quotes at the bottom are funny because they have a share link which implies that Sam and Jony thought they were insightful enough that people would want to actively share them. Even in the extreme tech crowd, who would share those?

Re: OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

#90

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 obvious answer would be some sort of consumer AI assistant, like Siri but better.
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