OpenAI Buys Jony Ive’s Startup, Quietly Stops Pretending It’s Not a Hardware Company
Sam Altman pays $6.4 billion to hear someone describe aluminum in a British accent.
BREAKING NEWS
OpenAI just spent $6.4 billion to acquire Jony Ive's startup "io" in what appears to be the most expensive hiring package since hedge funds were into statistical arbitrage. The company whose entire brand identity is built around being "open" has decided that what it really needs is Apple's former design pope and his "creative collective" LoveFrom.
Ive, the man who spent decades convincing us that computers should look like elegant kitchen appliances, will take on "deep creative and design responsibilities" at OpenAI. This presumably involves staring thoughtfully at prototypes while whispering "thinner" until engineers cry.
The acquisition statement reads like tech executive ASMR: "The ideas seemed important and useful. They were optimistic and hopeful. They made everyone smile." One can almost hear Ive's hypnotic British voice explaining how they've "completely reimagined" the concept of turning things on and off.
This marks OpenAI's largest acquisition by far, dwarfing the $3 billion they just spent on coding tool Windsurf. When you're valued at $300 billion despite having approximately one product, what's another few billion to bring in the guy who designed the iPod?
OpenAI has been telegraphing its hardware ambitions for months. They hired Meta's AR glasses executive last year and invested in a $2.4 billion robot startup called Physical Intelligence, a name that definitely wasn't chosen by pulling random impressive-sounding words from a hat.
The move signals that after spending years creating software that can write mediocre college essays and generate images of cats wearing hats, OpenAI has realized the real money is in convincing people to replace their perfectly functional devices with slightly thinner ones.
What can we expect from this partnership? Probably a sleek, minimalist AI assistant that sits on your desk, costs more than your monthly rent, and requires you to purchase a separate $299 power cable that attaches magnetically but detaches if you breathe on it too hard.
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