OpenAI has hired Jony Ive, the renowned designer of Apple’s iPhone, to spearhead a new hardware initiative for the AI company behind ChatGPT.
OpenAI announced it is acquiring io, a product and engineering firm co-founded by Ive, in a deal valued at approximately $6.5 billion.
Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffary for Bloomberg News:
The purchase — the largest in OpenAI’s history — will provide the company with a dedicated unit for developing AI-powered devices. Acquiring the secretive startup, named io, also will secure the services of Ive and other former Apple designers who were behind iconic products such as the iPhone.
“I have a growing sense that everything I’ve learned over the last 30 years has led me to this place and to this moment,” Ive said in a joint interview with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman. “It’s a relationship and a way of working together that I think is going to yield products and products and products.”
For the British-born designer, the move marks a high-profile return to a consumer technology industry he helped pioneer. Working for years alongside Steve Jobs, he crafted the look and feel of the modern smartphone, in addition to the iPod, iPad and Apple Watch. He left Apple in 2019.
When Ive departed Apple, CEO Tim Cook pitched the idea that the two parties would remain collaborators. But they never released a product together after Ive’s exit. And now the designer is embarking on a new collaboration with Altman, who he called a “rare visionary.”
MacDailyNews Take: A “rare visionary.” You know, like Apple used to have a long, long time ago.
OpenAI is going to create a product at a level of quality that “has never happened before in consumer hardware,” Altman said. “AI is such a big leap forward in terms of what people can do that it needs a new kind of computing form factor to get the maximum potential out of it,” he said.
Apple shares dropped as much as 2.3% in New York on Wednesday.
As part of the deal, OpenAI is paying $5 billion in equity for io. The balance of the nearly $6.5 billion stems from a partnership reached in the fourth quarter of last year that involved OpenAI acquiring a 23% stake in io.
Separately, OpenAI’s startup fund also invested in Ive’s company at that time. Billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs is an io backer as well, through her firm the Emerson Collective. Other investors include Sutter Hill Ventures, Thrive Capital, Maverick Capital and SV Angel. Altman doesn’t have equity in io, OpenAI said.
The deal is expected to be completed this summer, pending regulatory approvals.
MacDailyNews Take: Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
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