OpenAI and io

The big news this week in the tech world was OpenAI’s acquisition of Jony Ive’s hardware startup, io, for $6.5 billion worth of stock. I was trying to catch up on Google IO from this week, but everything there seems overshadowed by this news.

Here’s the announcement video from OpenAI, which is a bit over the top, but I confess it had me mesmerized for the entire nine minutes of this intro. This is a clear and profound statement to the rest of the industry.

John Gruber sums up my feeling, as usual, perfectly:

This is just a vibes teaser, but the vibe is a shot across the bow. It conveys grand ambition, but without pretension. To say I’m keen to get my hands on what they’re making is an understatement.

Mark Gurman and Shirin Ghaffery for Bloomberg have an interesting note here:

While Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent, they will take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software. Altman said his first conversations with Ive weren’t about hardware, but rather about how to improve the interface of ChatGPT.

“Design for all of OpenAI” is a huge deal.

🍿